Free Travel and Cheap Insurance Please

Photo credit: Richard Lainchbury

There are definitely some advantages to getting older. You can watch gardening programmes with feeling any sense of shame, trousers can be as capacious or as modest as you wish and it is cheaper to get around as well.

As a young driver I worked in a car insurance company and hated the fact that those old guys paid so much less than me. Now that I can enjoy an, ahem, slightly reduced premium I can finally see sense in the matter of insurance pricing.

I used to think that it was based on accident statistics. For example, it could be because younger drivers have more accidents and more serious ones as well. However, I now think that it is just a backhand way of saying “sorry for ripping you off all these years”. The young guys don’t yet have that serious grudge against insurance companies which we do, so they exploit this to make them pay more until they wisen up.

Of course, this is balanced out by the fact that our life insurance premiums go up and our knees get a bit spongier but you can’t have everything I suppose.

Or Go for Free?

If you are over 60 and prefer to travel by public transport then I can’t blame you. I can’t wait until I qualify for a free travel pass to be honest. It’s still quite a way off but the thought of travelling for nowt is really quite exciting.

Those people who live in London and who feel like me can now take advantage of an all new, all singing and dancing Oyster card which blows away the increased age restriction which comes with the Freedom Pass. To get a Freedom Pass you need to have a minimum age of 61, but the oyster card kicks in at 60. It is called the 60+ Concessional Travel Scheme and the Transport for London’s office said that they expect over 100,000 to apply for one online.

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