Get travel insurance ASAP or it can be disastrous: when to get it, how to choose, pre-existing conditions & more

Martin looks at the dos and don’t of getting the best travel insurance deal, plus are cats legally different to dogs? Have energy bills really risen every year, LISAs for retirement, no fault car insurance claims, car hire abroad and more… To get in touch with the podcast, email [email protected] mailto:[email protected].

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Martin Lewis?

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• 1:47Speaker 03

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• 1:51Martin Lewis?

  Hello, I'm Martin Lewis and this is the cunningly named The Martin Lewis Podcast. I do wonder what that's going to be about. It's the first one of the year. Happy New Year to you all. Now, usually, much of it comes from our BBC Radio 5 Live show with Adrian Charles, but don't worry, there's bonus money-saving tips just for you lucky, lucky podcast listeners. In today's pod, the big subject is travel insurance. January is the month most people book holidays and last Saturday is generally the biggest single day for holiday booking. So if you've booked or about to book your holiday, my crucial rule for you is get your travel insurance ASAP. As soon as you book, leaving it late can be disastrous.

• 2:34Martin Lewis?

  I'll be explaining why, plus answering your questions on when to get your annual travel insurance, when to get single trip, how you choose, what about pre-existing conditions for both physical and mental health and lots more. It's a travel insurance clinic.

• 2:48Martin Lewis?

  We'll also do more of your big things about finance I just don't understand questions, including ones on credit card protection, the basics of pension credit, why energy bills are constantly rising and will it stop, how to get car hire abroad, can you use lifetime ISAs for retirement and no fault claims on car insurance and why you pay more. Then I've got tips for you on cutting the cost of credit card debts. If you're paying interest on your credit card debts, you can't afford to miss that. And finally, the money mastermind is all about, whether there's a difference between cats and dogs.

• 3:27Martin Lewis?

  Play the theme tune.

• 3:46Speaker 04

  Now, I know we're talking about travel insurance. Before we get started properly on that, it just, we've got a bit of music, we won't play it yet, they said there was a bit of music to introduce this. It reminds me, when I first started television, I produced a little package about something to do with holidays, I can't remember. So I thought I'd put a bit of music on it, being clever, trying to show how clever I was. So I started off with Holiday by Madonna and finished, and finished it with Summer Holiday by Cliff Richard. And I thought I'd done well and then I got hauled over the coals by my then editors. Said, look, you've got to think harder about this, son. You can't just see the word holiday and have a think what's got holiday in it and put it in. So you've got to be more oblique, you've got to be cleverer. So let's see what they've chosen for our show.

• 4:28Martin Lewis?

  Oh, you're having a poor podcast producer, Simon PPR. I'm on your side, mate.

• 4:31Speaker 04

  Okay, let's have a listen.

• 4:34Speaker 04

  That's all right, that's a bleep. It hasn't got the word travelling, or the word insurance, or the word holiday.

• 4:40Martin Lewis?

  No, and it's a nice, old-school, evocative tune that brings us on to travel insurance.

• 4:45Speaker 04

  Yes, excellent.

• 4:47Martin Lewis?

  So, this is the big travel booking month. January and February, but January especially, especially at the start of the year. It's cold, it's damp, it's miserable. People want to actually know, "I'm gonna get some sun at some point", so they're booking their holidays right now. It happens every year. And I have this incredibly important warning, which is, "Always get your travel insurance ASAP." Remember that. As soon as you book. And this is why. Every year, without fail, whether it's on my TV show, or on this podcast, or in my email bag, someone contacts me and the conversation tends to go a bit like this. "I've just been diagnosed with leukaemia, or breast cancer, or kidney dialysis. I'm

• 5:31Martin Lewis?

  going to need treatment over the summer." They're normally contacting me in about, let's say, April, May for a holiday booked in August, right? "I'm not gonna be able to go on my holiday. I've contacted the hotel, or the flight, and they say they won't give me a refund. What are my legal rights?" Now, the first thing I always do is I say, "Look, what you have to understand is unless you've got a flexible booking policy, the fact that you can't fly doesn't mean you have any consumer rights." It isn't faulty.

• 6:01Speaker 04

  It's your problem, not theirs.

• 6:02Martin Lewis?

  The best analogy I would give you is if you bought a tennis racket and broke your arm. You don't have a right to return the tennis racket because you've broken your arm. So whilst some firms, and it's always worth asking, may allow you, or may have flexible policies, especially if you tell them the circumstances, you don't have any legal rights. So my point is, well, this is what travel insurance is there to cover. This is exactly one of the big core remits of travel insurance, to which the reply from probably over 50% of people, because it's the reason they're asking me, is, "But I haven't got my travel insurance yet."

• 6:36Martin Lewis?

  Travel insurance is not just there to cover you for things that happen while you are away. One of the big bulks of it is to cover you for things that may happen before you go away that stop you going away. If you wait and get your travel insurance in a week or two before your holiday, having booked it in January, you have effectively got very poor value because you have given away the majority, or not the majority, but a huge chunk of what the cover is for. That is why I say A S A B and I say it with a level of militancy to everybody listening. If you've booked your holiday, you book your travel insurance then.

• 7:19Martin Lewis?

  If you've booked your holiday already and you haven't booked your travel insurance yet, you book your travel insurance now, having heard me. You do not leave this. I do, honestly, it's the most depressing and debilitating when these terribly ill people get in touch with me and I can't help, so I want to preempt prevention.

• 7:35Speaker 04

  That points to really going for annual travel insurance though, doesn't it? Well, let's say I book a holiday now, two weeks in Alicante in May.

• 7:43Martin Lewis?

  Yep.

• 7:44Speaker 04

  And I book the insurance for that holiday, only for those two weeks.

• 7:49Martin Lewis?

  So a single trip policy.

• 7:51Speaker 04

  A single trip policy. Am I covered?

• 7:53Martin Lewis?

  Yes.

• 7:54Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 7:54Martin Lewis?

  So let's go through these days. Let's split it by single trip and annual. You've absolutely homed in on the right point. So if you book a single trip policy, if you're going away from the first to the 7th of August to Spain, right, and it's the only time you're going away in the year, you get your single trip policy now and the dates you will give are the first to the 7th of August, because that's when you're going on holiday. But you now have that policy in place and that would now cover you if anything happened from now on to prevent you going on that single trip. With an annual trip policy, and annual trip policies tend to be better for anyone who will go away two or more times in a year, that's even if you're just going away for a weekend, they will cover all the trips you make in a year, up to normally a set

• 8:39Martin Lewis?

  number of days, say 30 days away. If you travel more than that, you're going to need a more specific type of policy. So, you know, think about, if you go away for two lots of three weeks, an annual policy may not be best for you. But for everybody else, you're going away one main, one week or two week holiday, you might have another couple of weekends, you might have another week away, and annual travel policy covers everything for the year. If you're getting that, then if your holiday is in August and you don't have travel insurance yet in place, you would want to get your annual travel insurance today, so that then again, you're covered. So with single trip, you just book it for the dates, but you book it now for the dates, you don't wait. With annual trip, you need to have it starting today, the policy date, even if you're not going away till August the first time, if you've booked that holiday, your start date is now.

• 9:22Speaker 04

  And you want, will you pay extra if your holiday is nine months away, or one month away? Because it's a different level of risk for them. So I would, if I was the insurer, I'd charge more.

• 9:32Martin Lewis?

  On a single trip, generally not. Generally not.

• 9:35Speaker 04

  Interesting. Interesting. We've got some, plenty of questions on this, you imagine. Hannah says, I've got, and insurance expires in April, but I've already booked for November. If something were to happen to me before April, would that cover me for November? I will renew my annual policy after April. Fascinating.

• 9:53Martin Lewis?

  So, it is a policy by policy issue. Generally, if you're going away, going away in November, and something happened, and you've booked, and something happens to you before April, most annual travel insurance policies would cover you for the November issue if something happened in March that stopped you. Most. But I had, I remember, I'm doing it from memory, I had a woman who contacted me on my show for one of the live questions, and she'd been told she wasn't covered, and we checked, and she was one of the few policies. So most, but not all, so.

• 10:27Speaker 04

  But this points the fact that I, mistakes often make, I think with insurance, I don't know whether you'd agree, it's, we treat it as though it's commoditized, where one policy is, is the same as the But there's wild differences. I don't know what to look for. How was she supposed to spot that?

• 10:41Martin Lewis?

  Without having, well, she's not. But what she's meant to do now, having booked a holiday and the end date, is here's what I'd suggest she does. What's her name?

• 10:48Speaker 04

  This is Hannah.

• 10:49Martin Lewis?

  Hannah. So Hannah, this is what I suggest you do. First of all, check your policy. Right, it'll be in there. You should be able to find it. And just a quick tip for everybody. If you're struggling to read your policy, these days, you can take, because the policy documents are, you know, seven hundred pages of legalese, or not seven hundred, twenty pages of legalese. Take the link to the PDF from their website and put it in an AI PDF reader and then ask it the question.

• 11:10Speaker 04

  Brilliant.

• 11:11Martin Lewis?

  Right. So, the first thing I would do is I'd check. I would generally assume that you would be covered. But there may also be a clause that says you're only covered if you have a policy after that point as well. So you may need to now get yourself an annual policy starting in April.

• 11:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, which you can do.

• 11:28Martin Lewis?

  Which you can do to go on for the following year. And more so, and this, I have a friction here between my wanting to show people how to do it right and show people how to do it cheapest. More so, the way that this becomes easier is if you get an annual policy with the same firm that you're covered with now. So you go and get, because then there's no jurisdictional issues. Now, that is sort of anti-shopping around, if you like. So you don't have to do that, but it can make it easier if you're with the same policy. Because then if you can't go in November, it doesn't matter whether it's your policy up to the first of April, or your policy from the second of April onwards, it's still the same company, it's still the same issue, it's still what you're talking about.

• 12:04Speaker 04

  Well, you could always make a phone call to them. I mean, which is another variable. Can you get hold of anyone on the phone?

• 12:09Martin Lewis?

  Me being so, me being too new school, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. If you can get them on the phone, if they have a phone service, ask them that question.

• 12:14Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 12:15Martin Lewis?

  But generally, yes. Generally, yes.

• 12:17Speaker 04

  Alison, if you, if your travel insurance runs out on the day you fly home and the plane is delayed, are you required to contact the insurer to extend, or is there some leeway when it comes to official delays or cancellations?

• 12:31Martin Lewis?

  So if it's a single trip policy, you will be fine because you booked for those dates and it's a simple, it's a delay that works there. If it were an annual trip policy, I would suggest that you were fine because the dates that you booked are the right dates. But that may be one that you would need to check the individual policy for. It wouldn't be a problem on single trip. There is a chance, you know, if you timed it so the last day of your holiday was the last day of your annual policy. No, no, because your flight is booked for the dates. It's a delay of a flight on that day. I think you, I'm going to give it a 98% confidence level that you would be fine.

• 13:01Speaker 04

  I mean, this is another one, I think, that is worth checking when you book it, whether there's somebody going to be on the end of a phone line to actually answer your question, you know.

• 13:08Martin Lewis?

  Look, the greatest problem we have with insurance, all types of insurance, but especially travel insurance, is we are trying to book to protect us from an unknown eventuality. Now, there is only so much you can do on that. And it's worth talking about what you do, what you can do. So you can, you know, when we had the Icelandic volcano and I was around to remember it, nobody had ever checked for a volcano to disrupt travel for three weeks and just, no one had ever checked whether they'd be covered on their travel insurance. And so many people weren't covered, but no one could have had the foresight to say, oh, have I got Icelandic volcano cover? You wouldn't. Now you might check, but we don't know about the X issue that may well happen in the future.

• 13:53Martin Lewis?

  And so you have two real options, and this is how, you either go and say, as they are, at the cheap end, they're all much of a muchness, none of them are pretty good, but belt and braces, I should have it. So I'm going to pay 10 quid for a week in Spain per person, right? And it gives me the basic cover that I need and cross my fingers. Because, so when I, on the site, we have two levels of, we have the, what we call the no frills value policies, where we were very plain to state, there is no feedback base. These are based on minimum cover levels and they must be FCA regulated, which means if you get turned down, you can go to the Ombudsman. You have a legal right to go to the Ombudsman to, and remember with all insurance, if they say they won't pay out, you can go to the Ombudsman.

• 14:33Speaker 04

  And what you're looking for, what's the kite mark you're looking for?

• 14:36Martin Lewis?

  Oh, well, we know, we just, we just have minimum cover levels that we set for all the different things.

• 14:39Speaker 04

  Okay, but you said. They're regulated by the.

• 14:41Martin Lewis?

  The FCA, the financial regulator, the FCA. So properly by the UK FCA. And then we have what we call, sorry, they were the cheap policies, no frills. And then we have the value policies, which are the cheapest, where we have a decent record of feedback and payout. So what we then do is we look at eventualities. You know, a spot test, let's say we take the volcano test as an example, if I mention it. Did it pay out when the volcano happened? Because that's attitudinal, because you just don't know. And therefore, but they're a lot more expensive. So that's your choice. Are you going for the really cheap? I'm just going to go for value and cross my fingers. It gives me a bit of cover and hopefully it will work. Or are you going to go for, I'm going to pay a lot more because this one tends to pay out in more eventualities, although nothing is ever certain.

• 15:24Speaker 04

  Maralina says my son's has trouble getting travel insurance due to a brain tumor, under control but still there. Even though he's content to have the issue excluded, the cost without covering it is still astronomical. Beyond being in, beyond being affordable. Why?

• 15:41Martin Lewis?

  Why? Because, listen, there are lots of problems in travel insurance. Now, bizarrely, while I do cover with my day job hat on pre-existing conditions and how to get through it. I'm not so good on the whys on that. But with my other hat on, as Chair of the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, we have done a lot of research that says for relatively minor mental health conditions, there is a disproportionate increase in the amount that you have to pay on travel insurance. You know, for something, for someone who's had a depressive episode four years ago, you may well be paying, where we think the risk might be increased by 50%, you might be paying 20 fold. And we think that certainly on the research I've done on that, on mental health, I believe there is a real problem in pricing of mental health pre-existing conditions in travel insurance.

• 16:22Martin Lewis?

  It's something that we are working on. I've already met with a minister on it to ask that an investigation and more details is looked at. You can't get the proper details because you can't get their underwriting. Only government can do that, which is why it's a start. So I can't do the whys. I can do that. I get it's really frustrating. Now, what I would suggest. Look, let's just do the what you do if you've got pre-existing conditions. Let's just do that step by step. Step one, go on to the normal travel insurance comparison sites and see, see what you're going to be priced at. Gives you a benchmark. Most people, it won't be cheap because your pre-existing conditions are backing it off. Step two, you go on to the special.

• 16:57Speaker 04

  But the excluding pre-existing conditions, can you?

• 17:01Martin Lewis?

  I'm coming to that.

• 17:02Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 17:02Martin Lewis?

  That's, that's, we get there towards the end because we don't want to do that.

• 17:06Speaker 04

  Right, okay.

• 17:06Martin Lewis?

  Right. Step number two, if you have a serious condition, try specialist medical sites. Medical travel compared and paying too much would be the two I would pick out. So go online, give them your details. If that's not working, step three, contact the charity that represents people with your conditions, that may well know of a travel insurer who's more favourable to those conditions, or at least it may have a forum where you can discuss it with other people who may have fare better.

• 17:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:38Martin Lewis?

  Step number four, if all else fails, is try and get a broker to give you a bespoke policy that excludes your specific past condition. I've heard of it being done, I've also heard of it not being done. I mean, and actually, one of the things I'm just working on at the moment, whether there used to be a policy called EHIC plus. Now, for those who don't know, the EHIC card, European Health Insurance Card, now the Global Health Insurance Card, even though it covers the same number of countries, there's a spin for you, is a card that gives you, if you go to a state-run EU and a few other countries, hospital or state-run GP, you pay the same as a local. So if it's free for them, it's free for you.

• 18:22Martin Lewis?

  So it's very useful to have one of these. Everyone should have these. Check yours is in date. Millions of them are out of date. If you're going away this summer, you've got an EHIC or a GIC. It's very useful to have. Now, there used to be an EHIC plus policy, which meant that if you had an EHIC, it would cover you for non-medical issues on top of that. But you'd rely on your EHIC for medical issues. That has gone and we're just in the middle of some research to see if anyone else is offering something similar. So the one thing, that does give you a little bit of peace of mind, check country by country where you're going, what the exact level of cover and how much you would pay depending on what your condition was, if you were to go within the European Union on holiday, an EHIC or a GIC. It is not a replacement for travel insurance, but in extremis, it could give you some medical cover if your travel insurance wouldn't.

• 19:09Speaker 04

  Jenny says she may or may not be getting surgery this year, so should she declare it?

• 19:15Martin Lewis?

  Um.

• 19:15Speaker 04

  When she buys the travel insurance?

• 19:18Martin Lewis?

  Yes, I just prepared something on that. I I just want to check. Aha, here's my line. Right.

• 19:27Martin Lewis?

  If you have seen a doctor about your medic about medical treatment or issues that you have had, then generally you should declare it. So I think it would be quite difficult for you to be having surgery if you had not consulted a doctor about it. Therefore, the general ruling is you should declare it. You should declare the condition. The fact that you're having surgery or not, if the surgery is after the date of your holiday is irrelevant. Whatever the condition you're having surgery for is declarable. Right now, I mean, maybe that is cosmetic surgery, I don't know. But if that's after the holiday, that seems to be irrelevant. But if it is a medical issue, physical or mental health issue, you should declare it.

• 20:09Speaker 04

  I still don't get what that's got to do with putting putting a you're not going to claim related to that and you get your wallet nicked or something and you want I'm getting into the whys,

• 20:19Martin Lewis?

  which I know. No, no, but but then then there was a case in law recently where it's certainly if they excluded you from coverage for theft because you didn't fully declare your pre-existing condition, I would argue that that was challengeable under fair treatment. But if you had a back problem and your knees or you had a knee problem and your back went, well, there's an arguable causality between the two.

• 20:42Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 20:43Martin Lewis?

  So so therefore, I mean, I'm not saying you would lose, but I'm saying it'd be a much tougher fight to argue that you the fact that you didn't declare your knees shouldn't be noted. So my general we get travel insurance to protect us. If we don't declare our pre-existing conditions, you may effectively be invalidating some medical elements of your policy that you're paying for. So what's the point? So you are better to declare, even though that will put the cost up. And and there's this sort of strange logic that people have that, well, I'm not going to say because it keeps the cost down. Yeah, but then you might not be covered if you kept the cost down because you haven't declared it.

• 21:15Speaker 04

  I'll take my chances on medical stuff. I just, if somebody pinches my camera, I want to be able to claim for it.

• 21:20Martin Lewis?

  Well, then you'd probably be fair because they wouldn't send a medical, I mean, in practical terms, they wouldn't send a medical investigator later, would they?

• 21:26Speaker 04

  No.

• 21:26Martin Lewis?

  Generally.

• 21:26Speaker 04

  Okay, but presumably you're infringing the law if I'm the general.

• 21:29Martin Lewis?

  I, I can only tell you that one should always, when asked on a form that you're filling in, it could be fraudulent if you did not fill it in accurately.

• 21:36Speaker 04

  Cancellation. If, sorry, if a holiday is from Adrian, if a holiday is cancelled either by you or the company you go with you, and with you, and cancel the travel insurance without using it,

• 21:49Speaker 04

  do you get full refund for of the travel insurance or a percentage of the full money you paid?

• 21:54Martin Lewis?

  So I get it. So what he's saying is, I, I've got a holiday booked, I've got travel insurance, I've now cancelled the holiday, I'm not going there. Can I get a refund on the travel insurance I've paid? My answer is, maybe. I, I know some cases where people have got prorata refunds. I know people who haven't. I mean, you, it needs to be remembered, and this is, the insurance is this really weird policy that we pay for in, in the hopes we'll never use it. So let's just, let's just think about this in a philosophical way. I've booked a holiday to go in August. I book it in January, I cancel it in April. The idea you're therefore due a full refund. Well, no, you did have cover in place from January to April, so it's quite difficult to argue that you do a full refund.

• 22:39Martin Lewis?

  I mean, just like you can't argue, give me a refund on the travel insurance because nothing happened and I'm not claiming on it. I mean, that isn't an argument for not having a refund, but you may get a prorata refund. I wouldn't fight, I, I would get in touch, I'd politely ask them, if you don't get it, I probably wouldn't bother fighting on it.

• 22:56Speaker 04

  Let's do a couple more of the travel insurance ones. I'm finding it really, it's so interesting because everyone goes and does it and I'm just embarrassed real, how much I don't understand. There's one on travel insurance provided by banks. Is that the same as buying travel insurance sort of independently?

• 23:16Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, so it depends what we're talking about. Just be very careful to ensure it's travel insurance, not travel accident insurance. Travel accident insurance is literally something that covers you if you're having an accident while travelling, as in the physical process of going from one place to another. So travel insurance by banks generally given as packaged bank accounts, which are where you're paying thirteen, fifteen, seventeen pounds a month for their silver or gold account, where it includes all types of insurance. I'm a big fan, right, if they're right for you. And we're very anti them if they're wrong for you. Many people were up sold them unnecessarily, given these accounts when they're not suitable for them, when they won't use the features. And I've run misselling campaigns about packaged bank accounts for years, but you know, the big ones out there say nationwide, you can get

• 24:00Martin Lewis?

  annual travel insurance for the family, you get family mobile phone cover, you get family breakdown cover. And you're paying about a hundred and eighty quid a year, whereas if you bought those independently, it could cost you three, four hundred pounds a year. So as long as you want all those things, those those packaged bank accounts can be very good. And some of them go up to the age of seventy five, so they're quite good for older people as well. Because as long as you don't have pre-existing conditions, which you should always declare there as well, they will work. So if you're when you're getting the account, if you've got pre-existing conditions, just just make sure, because they won't necessarily ask you declare, or you might be invalid when you get there. And they have pretty good levels of cover. So actually, I'm quite a fan of most of the packaged bank accounts travel insurance cover. It's pretty good.

• 24:42Martin Lewis?

  Travel insurance. So just for travel insurance alone, it generally isn't worth it for most, apart from a few older people getting very near to the maximum age limits on the policies. Because prices rocket up once you're over sixty five. But if you are, if you do want mobile phone cover for you and you're a couple, by the way, if you're a couple on a packaged bank account, even if it only covers a, it covers all account holders. So even if only one of you will actually use the bank account. So let's marry again, as we often do, Adrian. So we're married again. You get the packaged bank account. It's your bank account. It's not my bank account. But as long as we have a trusting relationship, you could put me on it and I would also get the mobile phone cover.

• 25:20Martin Lewis?

  So even though I wouldn't use the bank account, we'd put me on it as a as another name on it. So packaged bank account cover, generally a fan as long as you want all the insurance and you do the numbers compared to buying it standalone.

• 25:30Speaker 04

  On older people, Rose, we've got a question on that. You must get this a lot. Annual travel insurance for a near ninety year old in good health, bar high blood pressure. At the moment, the insurance is costing more than the holiday.

• 25:40Martin Lewis?

  Yeah. Over ninety is really tough. It starts to get particularly tricky once you're in your eighties. Ninety is really tough. You're going to be going, forget annual policies generally, you're going to be looking at a bespoke single trip policy. There are information lists of over sixty five policies out there. It depends where you're going, what you're doing, the high blood pressure. It's going to get very costly once you go there. Generally, sticking in Europe will be easier because you'll also have your GIC or your EIC, which can then, you know, the travel insurance knows that you've got that and therefore that could defer some of the potential medical risk costs for them. But it gets tricky. There are guides out there to all the different policies. I can't run through them all on air because it's too long.

• 26:20Speaker 04

  Phil's booking a cruise, but it's more than a year away. So what's the best way to cover that trip?

• 26:26Martin Lewis?

  It's such a big question. I get a lot. Right. So I have got research on that. I'm pleased to tell you. There are a number of insurers who will allow you to book for a holiday more than twelve months away on an annual or a single trip policy. Aviva, single trip up to twenty four months out. Avanti up to eighteen months out. Stashor up to eighteen months out. Churchill and Direct Line up to twelve months out. So if you're booking a cruise in eighteen months' time, you're going to have a limited choice of insurers. Or you're booking any holiday in eighteen months' time, you're going to have a limited choice of insurers, but there are some insurers. But many people, they try their regular insurer, their regular insurer's seasons. No, they try one another. They say no, and they think that can't be done. It can be done, but you have to look at the insurers who are specific about those things.

• 27:12Speaker 04

  Let's move on to the tell us, which is any financial New Year's resolutions.

• 27:18Martin Lewis?

  Yeah. So on this, I actually did a poll as part of it, an exclusive poll just for this podcast. I put it on Twitter.

• 27:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:25Martin Lewis?

  On X. So here we go. And I asked, are you doing financial resolutions? I split it by age. I won't bother with that. Effectively, the answer was of twenty eight thousand three hundred and three people who voted, twenty eight point eight percent have done a financial New Year's resolution and seventy one point two percent haven't. So actually, that's still quite a substantial number of people. I don't, I have only one financial resolution this year. It is semi-financial. It relates to the podcast. I should tell it you. I have put it out there. My resolution this year is to say the Spanish owned UK subsidiary of the major bank to try and pronounce it correctly as Santander and not Santanda as lots of people tell me I get it wrong. I have it wrong in my head. I'm going to try and say Santander

• 28:08Martin Lewis?

  this year, not Santanda. But rest assured, I will be still be saying year as year. It's 10 years. That's how I say it. But Santander, I am aware I say it wrong. And that's my resolution to try and teach myself to say it right.

• 28:20Speaker 04

  Okay, I'll be monitoring that.

• 28:22Martin Lewis?

  But they've probably got some more interesting financial resolutions.

• 28:25Speaker 04

  Andrew from Widnes sent us this.

• 28:27Speaker 05

  Hi, Martin. Just wanted to share my little game plan for Frugal 2025. Essentially, when I started the year, I went into it looking at fees increasing to 3.30 a month from 2.80, so nearly a £50 rise per month for TV and streaming, mobile, doorbell, subscription fees, gyms, et cetera. And now looking to end the year around the 1.80 mark. So a reduction of nearly £100 a month just by cancelling and changing services down.

• 29:00Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, let's not give too much away. Some of make a living telling people those tips, please, you know. All absolutely sensible. Mobile and broadband, most people are massively overpaying. You can just switch your SIM very easily for £5 a month. Many people get all the data that they need. Check your direct debits and standing orders on your all your online banking to check that you're not paying for things that you don't need, want or use anymore. Go through every single thing that you are spending money on and say, can I do it cheaper? Can I do it better? I mean, people always, when I have to do newspapers, they, what's your one money tip? And I'm like, I don't do it like that. It's about bespoke, specific, detailed. But the one tip, if I have to, my answer is never assume that you can't save money something on something without checking it. That's

• 29:43Martin Lewis?

  my one, you know, I've had to bring it down into one thing. Right, shall I do one? Arga. I'm a shopaholic and impulse buyer. So imagine me now during big sales everywhere. I've decided this year I will buy nothing. I'm going to use all my perfume, cosmetics, and once it's finished, only will I buy new. Perfect. Really important. Lots of people do no spend days, by the way, which is a big New Year's resolution. You could take two days in the week and say you won't spend. It becomes habit forming and people spend less if you want to cut back. But so much using your stock, whether it's your stock in your in your kitchen cupboard, it's your stock of makeup or cosmetics. So many people buy new when they've got lots of bottles around. I like that one.

• 30:19Speaker 04

  Bitcoin Vlad says the goal this year is to shift as much of my banking structures to the Bitcoin standard. Funds we can save away for four years minimum will go into the set and forget BTC wallets. I understand about, I don't know, eighty percent of the words in that.

• 30:37Martin Lewis?

  I mean, what he's just saying is I'm going to move more of my assets into Bitcoin. Now, look, I'm always very careful on this. I don't cover investments, I don't cover speculation, I don't cover currency trading, and that means I do not cover Bitcoin. Bitcoin, for those people who've had it, has done very well over the past few years, and many people have made lots of money out of it. It is a highly volatile place to put your money. You may make a fortune from it, you may lose a fortune from it, you have to decide what's right for you. And what the regulator would always say is do not put more money in than you can afford to lose. So it's a perfectly legitimate resolution. There were many Bitcoin resolutions that came out there, because you go onto social media, it's full of Bitcoin evangelists, and they're trying to get the point across. I'm glad we've read one, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave that one for other programmes.

• 31:22Speaker 04

  Okay. Natasha says clear credit cards by the end of the month, and I'm in super save mode. My partner and I are saving to buy a house by thirty-six. We set goals for all areas of our lives, including shared goals like this. Sounds sensible.

• 31:35Martin Lewis?

  I've got two Lizs who are opposed to each other. First Liz with the double Z. Save as much as possible, sell unwanted items on Vinted Meal Plan, and try not to eat anything processed. The other Liz, spend as much as possible and enjoy every day. I've got to be honest, I'm more on the first one, because that is my job. Spending as much as possible and enjoy every day is good, but one also does have to hope for the best and plan for the worst. We need some money aside for our futures and for poor eventualities. So spending everything and as much as possible, I have struggled with that slightly.

• 32:10Speaker 04

  More of the questions that, we started on this before Christmas, and we can actually do it all year. It's just a chance for people to say, look, I really don't understand, how does this work? Susan, I really don't understand pension credit. If you're a couple getting old age pension, you do not qualify. So who does?

• 32:27Martin Lewis?

  Well, the question is slightly wrong.

• 32:30Martin Lewis?

  If you are a couple or single and you get the full new state pension, you are right, because that's 221 quid, you will not qualify for pension credit, which is 218 quid, unless you have high housing costs, unless you have a disability. You know, there are a lot, there are, you still may qualify even on that income, but generally you won't. The pension credit is, it's quite a poor name. I mean, I would call it a state pension top up. That's what it is. It's a top up of your state pension income and other income if you do not have enough total income. The general rule is around 218 quid a week for a single pensioner. Now, one of the things I picked apart on the winter fuel payment, because of course it's the pension credit

• 33:15Martin Lewis?

  that gives you eligibility for winter fuel payment, now it's means tested, is first of all, remember, I said two operative words there. The full new state pension. Let's do full first. To get the full state pension, you need enough qualifying national insurance years. They come from work or looking after children or being registered in other ways. As a very rough rule of thumb, you need 35 years. It's not 35. Many people have more and not get the full amount. But, but that's sort of a totem, let's say 35 years. Lots of people don't have 35 years, so they may get the new state pension, but they don't get the full new state pension. And if they don't have any other income, that means their income will be less than the pension credit threshold and they will be entitled.

• 33:59Martin Lewis?

  The second operative word is new. The new state pension came in, in April 2016, for all people who retired after that point. For those who'd retired before, they are still on the old, also known as the basic state pension, which is a lot lower. So if you only get the basic state pension, even if you get the full state pension, then you would be entitled to pension credit if you didn't have any other income. So your question is right, but I need, you know, to be technical. If I were on the full new state pension, did not have disabilities, did not have high housing costs and did not qualifying under a few of the other exemptions, you would not get pension credit. So the argument is, what it's there to do is to put everybody up to, close to

• 34:43Martin Lewis?

  the full state pension if you don't have any other money. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, I'm just saying that's how it works.

• 34:49Speaker 04

  I led, it's quite dark this, I don't know why I'm laughing. So at what point in the future does energy bills just become unaffordable? Continued rises year on year and more unable to pay. Is this the plan though? Make it unaffordable and that way people will leave this earth quicker.

• 35:07Martin Lewis?

  It is dark and I need to be straight. It's also, again, the question is wrong. I understand why people feel that energy costs have gone up year on year. And certainly, if we compare where we are now to before the energy crisis started back in, you know,

• 35:25Martin Lewis?

  the winter of 2021, they are around 70% higher. But I'm just, I've got in front of me the typical use price cap levels. I don't like using typical use, but it just helps me explain the point here. So this is what OFGEM defines as a typical user. There isn't such a thing. How much they would have spent. Now, just to get this really complicated for people. OFGEM's typical use definitions have changed over the years because the energy crisis means people are using less energy. So what it defines as a typical user has gone less. So there was a point when the price cap under the energy price guarantee was £2,500. That's what the typical use was quoted. But because the typical use is now lower, my figures recalibrate that to what, based on today's typical use. Right.

• 36:10Martin Lewis?

  So, winter 2020, 2021, the price cap was 993. The next winter, it was 1,216. The next winter, the price cap was 4,000, but the energy price guarantee meant in practice it was 2,380. That was the high point. Winter a year ago, it was 1,928. This year, it's 1,717. So the, we are paying less than we did last winter and last winter was less than the winter before. So while it may feel energy is constantly getting more expensive and energy is certainly absolutely more expensive than it should be. It is incorrect to say that it is continuing to get more expensive.

• 36:54Martin Lewis?

  We now start to have the point where we've got some moderately competitive tariffs. You know, the energy price cap went up 1% in January. It's currently predicted to go up by 2% to 5% in April. But you can currently get a fix at 6% less than the current energy price cap. So you could bring the price down yourself if you go into a whole of market price comparison. As for what's going to happen to the future of energy, as I always say, I look at consumer prices. I don't look at generation. Clearly, there are many different arguments. Hopefully, you know, we're investing a lot in renewables. Some would argue that will bring the price down. Others would say, no, you need to stick with fossil fuels to bring the price down. I'm not, I'm going to avoid all of that. What I would say, it is not by definition the case that energy will continue to get more expensive year on year.

• 37:38Martin Lewis?

  That hasn't been the past pattern. I think it is unlikely for it to ever go as cheap as it was before the energy crisis. But we are still now, I go back to the current cap on typical usages, 1717. On the same, if we hadn't had the energy price guarantee, which was, you know, the price protection, it would have been over 4,000, but in reality, it went to 2380. So it has come down, although it's still horrible.

• 38:11Martin Lewis?

  So ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Martin's Money Mastermind, which Adrian is going to play. He has done 12 of them so far, which he did in 2024. His record for that year, he finished off with four correct and eight wrong. Now, as this is generally three option multiple choice, that is exactly on random chance. Random chance, if we had had, if we had had a monkey choosing by which hairs it plucked out of its backside and dropped onto some random A, B, C selector, it has done about the same. Adrian has done about as well.

• 38:45Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 38:45Martin Lewis?

  Congratulations. Let's hope this year you can beat random chance.

• 38:48Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 38:49Martin Lewis?

  Adrian, and for those who don't know, if you're new to the podcast or new to the Five Live section, there's always a nice, warm setup where I compliment Adrian in many, many ways on the way that he works. Adrian, as you know, dogs like humans are pack animals. And clearly, off air, many people won't know this, you are the alpha of the Radio 5 Live presenter pack. Yes, folks, our Adrian is near feral with testosterone and competitiveness. I have seen Nicky Campbell quiver at the mere mention of your name. I've seen you quiet and nag a munchetti with just a half-raised eyebrow. And listeners, when Adrian finishes his slot, new presenter Matt Shorley now comes into

• 39:32Martin Lewis?

  the studio, holding out a treble espresso for Mr Charles before he starts giving him his rub-down. Yes, Adrian, the alpha male.

• 39:41Speaker 04

  That's true of everyone, apart from Rachel Burden. She's not having it. She won't accept my authority.

• 39:45Martin Lewis?

  Really, we need to work on that. We can do some coaching. However, it's not just Rachel it's not true of. When Adrian goes home, his cat doesn't even acknowledge him.

• 39:55Speaker 04

  No.

• 39:56Martin Lewis?

  So, that brings me on to today's question. It was a very loose setup, but there we go. Today's question: If you have a cat and a dog, neither are well behaved, both go out separately and cause havoc, damaging the property of neighbours down your street, one down one end, one down the other end of the street, are you legally liable for the damage that they cause? Now, unfortunately, I had to do four options this week, so it does slightly break my normal three rule.

• 40:22Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 40:23Martin Lewis?

  A, yes, but only for the damage from the dog. B, yes, but only for the damage from the cat. C, yes, for the damage of both. D, no, you're not liable for your animal's behaviour.

• 40:37Speaker 04

  Hmm. I think. Woof! Yeah.

• 40:45Martin Lewis?

  I thought that was my only fact.

• 40:46Speaker 04

  That's very good.

• 40:47Martin Lewis?

  Thank you.

• 40:47Speaker 04

  Um, I've got a dog. My dog goes.

• 40:53Martin Lewis?

  Don't say you haven't got, don't say you haven't got a cat, because people realise I just completely make the setup up.

• 40:57Speaker 04

  No, I, I haven't.

• 40:58Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 40:58Speaker 04

  I'll get one. If, if you told me earlier, I went out and got one this morning. If, if my dog toddles off down the road and then chews up a deck chair in somebody's back garden. I mean, I would.

• 41:11Martin Lewis?

  That they bought in an auction for four and a half thousand pounds.

• 41:14Speaker 04

  No, I don't, I don't, I, I mean, I would pay because I'm a good man.

• 41:18Martin Lewis?

  Are you legally?

• 41:19Speaker 04

  I don't think I'm legally obliged for either the damage or of a cat or a dog.

• 41:23Martin Lewis?

  So your answer is C.

• 41:25Speaker 04

  You, although, no, that was D, neither cat nor dog.

• 41:29Martin Lewis?

  Sorry, it's D, neither cat nor dog.

• 41:30Speaker 04

  But on the other hand, if my dog sort of hurt somebody.

• 41:36Martin Lewis?

  So hurt, hurt, hurt goes in as well? Yeah.

• 41:37Speaker 04

  Hurt somebody, then I can't believe I'm not responsible as the owner of the dog. So if it was hurting a person rather than property, so I'm changing my answer, I'm going for just, just dog, which is A.

• 41:51Martin Lewis?

  A, only the dog's damage.

• 41:54Martin Lewis?

  Well, you are correct that if your dog damaged an individual or their property. You would be liable.

• 42:04Speaker 04

  Right.

• 42:04Martin Lewis?

  And you have legal liability for the behaviour of your dog. But if you had a cat, you would not be liable. So play the hallelujah.

• 42:18Martin Lewis?

  You're properly happy about that, aren't you?

• 42:20Speaker 04

  So my, if I had a cat.

• 42:21Martin Lewis?

  I need to explain this a bit more. Um, so the, under the law, cats are free spirits, dogs are not free spirits. So you cannot be responsible for the behaviour of your cat. That's why cats are allowed to go running out, but dogs are not deemed, you're, you're deemed legally responsible. The difference in the behaviour between the two things, you keep your dog on the lead, you take it out, you decide whether it goes out of the house or not, you can't control a cat that much. Now, this is quite important because it means that you should have third party liability for your dog. Now, if you have pet insurance, it would generally check, but it would generally have third party liability. If not, you can buy a standalone third party liability policy from the dog's trust.

• 43:01Martin Lewis?

  And most dog owners should have that policy in case it damages another individual or somebody else's property, but you don't need it for a cat.

• 43:10Speaker 04

  Excellent, I even got it right, so I'm doing better than the monkey picking hairs out of his

• 43:16Martin Lewis?

  You are now ahead of him.

• 43:16Speaker 04

  So I'm actually made up. In fact, I might just talk about myself and my brilliance, or my better than mediocrity for the remaining two and a half minutes we have.

• 43:28Martin Lewis?

  Uh, no you won't, Adrian. You may be able to do that when we're on Five Live, but not on this podcast. I think it's time to move on to something else.

• 43:40Martin Lewis?

  Now, we still have a whole stock of your questions that you've sent in about what's the stuff about finance that you just don't understand and would like to. So I've got podcast producer Simon with me. Simon, what's come in?

• 43:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, we've got loads of extra questions actually still to do. Craig sent this one in, car insurance should be investigated. Why if you have a non-fault accident, are they now jacking your premiums up? Surely this is wrong. The government says you have to have insurance, so must bear some responsibility for what I can only describe as legalised robbery.

• 44:09Martin Lewis?

  Okay, I'm going to explain rather than justify why that happens. I think one thing I would pick up is you're saying now. This has longer been the case. This is not a new thing. Insurance pricing is based on actuarial risk. So that's very clever people sitting in rooms, working out the risk of things happening in different situations. So it's one of the reasons why bizarrely some people may be able to pay less for comprehensive insurance than they do just for third-party insurance, even though comprehensive insurance covers you for many, many more things. The reason for that's quite simple. In some cases, they look at the actuarial risk of the fact that you've selected comprehensive insurance means that you're likely to be a lower risk than it had you selected third-party insurance,

• 44:54Martin Lewis?

  and therefore the fact that you're a lower risk on pricing outweighs the fact that you're getting more cover. I mean, it really can work like that. It's rare, but it happens. A similar example is the fact that I often tell people that you want to be getting quotes for your new insurance around 21 to 26 days before your current policy lapses. Why should that make a difference? Well, actuarially, the type of people who get policy quotes at that time tend to be a lower risk than the people who leave it till the last minute. So, once you start to see what I'm talking about in risk tables, you will understand that even if it is a no-fault accident, actuarially...

• 45:34Martin Lewis?

  The fact that you've been in a no-fault accident increases the prospective future risk that you may be in a no-fault accident again because you put yourself in situations where in no-fault or you're in an area where no-fault accident happens, then it can increase the risk tables based on insuring you. It is incredibly frustrating that that happens, but that is why it is happening and it has long happened by that. Now, we have had some rules and regulations about what is allowed in actuarial risk and what isn't allowed. So we had gender equalisation. You know, car insurance used to be a lot cheaper for young women than for young men because there were more boy racers who were boys than there were boy racers who were girls. So it used to be cheaper, but now you have to charge

• 46:17Martin Lewis?

  everybody the same for insurance based on gender. You can't discriminate over gender. So whether it's allowed or not, you're right, you might want to argue that shouldn't happen, but that is currently allowed to happen and why the pricing differs.

• 46:28Speaker 05

  Good stuff. Paul wants to know, if you pay part by credit card and part by other payment methods, does section 75 protect full purchase price or just the part you pay by credit card?

• 46:38Martin Lewis?

  Section 75 states that if you pay for an item and the item costs between £100 and £30,000 and you pay on a credit card, the credit card company is jointly liable with the retailer for the purchase. So if the retailer were to go bust, you have exactly the same rights with the credit card company as you did with the retailer. Even if the retailer doesn't go bust, you can go to the credit card company. It is huge financial jujitsu and extra protection. Now, the rule specifically states that if you pay for any amount on a credit card, the credit card company is liable for the whole amount. So I always tell this anecdotal story because it happened and a lady got in touch. She

• 47:20Martin Lewis?

  had bought a kitchen, the cost, I can't remember the exact amount, let's call it 12 grand. She had put a 200 quid deposit on her credit card, she had paid the rest by bank transfer, the kitchen company went bust. So she went to the credit card company wanting all the 16 grand back. She went to the credit card company and the credit card company said, "No."

• 47:39Martin Lewis?

  No surprise there. So, following my information on my site, she then went on to the financial ombudsman, took it to the financial ombudsman, and the financial ombudsman said, "Yes, you are entitled to all the money for the entire amount and got some compensation on the back on the way it had been treated." So, under the law, under section 75, even if you were to put one penny on the credit card for something costing £10,000, then it would have section 75 coverage. Now, there are other things that break section 75, you know, so if you're buying for an agency and bizarrely some payment mechanisms count as an agency, if you're not buying, if somebody's are using a second card on the credit card and they're not buying something that you benefit from, all of those things can stop section 75 working. But, big picture, you do not have to pay for all the item on the

• 48:24Martin Lewis?

  credit card and the credit card company is still liable for the entire item. So, one way of protecting yourself, even if you don't want to pay on credit card, is put a little bit on the credit card.

• 48:32Speaker 05

  Alfie's asked us a question that actually links back to the main programme. Please educate us about car hire when we're on holiday, specifically about insurance. How do we get the best deal, please?

• 48:42Martin Lewis?

  So, one of those real hard sells that many people will experience is you go, you get your car hire, you've booked it, you've been on a comparison site, you've done it early to bring the price down. When you arrive at the desk, they say, "Oh, hold on, hold on." First of all, they'll talk about the fuel, you're going to have to fill it yourself or you'll pay a lot. And then they say, "Have you got insurance?" You say, "No, I thought it's covered." And they say, "Well, if you have a scratch, if you have a damage, it's very expensive, it commonly happens, you won't be covered by the breakdown policy, and you know, it could cost you hundreds of pounds. But if you get this insurance policy, you won't need to." And they give you a really hard sell on getting car hire insurance. And I've watched many people at car hire desks over the years pushed in and get scared

• 49:23Martin Lewis?

  into it. So, what is the solution? The solution is before you go, get yourself a standalone Car hire insurance policy. There's a website Money Maxim that is a comparison site for these. You could also, if you get car hire regularly, get an annual policy, a bit like we talked about with travel insurance. What happens then is when you go and if you were to get the car hire, if you were to have a problem, you would have to pay the excess, but you could claim it back from one of these standalone policies. Now, when you do have one of those policies, you will say that, and many of the car hire firms will say, "Oh, no, no, that's not good enough," and you still won't have ours and it still won't work. And they'll say, and if you still say, "No, I don't want your excess insurance policy,"

• 50:06Martin Lewis?

  which is what they're offering you, because the basic collision damage waiver policy that you do get, then they'll say, "Right, well, you need to leave a deposit of 1,200 euros and on a credit card." And you say, "Here's my debit card." They say, "No, a credit card." You say, "I've only got a debit card." It has to be a credit card. So you need a credit card. And then you say, "Okay, here's my wife's credit card." Well, no, you booked it. And you're going, "But no, you booked it. It has to be in your name." So sometimes they say, "It has to be in your name." Sometimes they say, "It has to be in the driver's name." So if you're going to do this, you need to make sure you've got a credit card. And generally, I would always have the person who booked it and the person who's driving being the same person, and they should be the one with the credit card. And that way, you're able

• 50:47Martin Lewis?

  to use your standalone policy that might cost you two quid a day as opposed to 20 quid a day, and you still have the same peace of mind, but it costs you a fraction of the price. Often, these firms, you know, the insurance can be as much as the car hire if you're not careful, if you've got a cheap policy.

• 51:02Speaker 05

  Perfect. We've got a lifetime ISA question from Mark.

• 51:05Martin Lewis?

  Okay, Dokes.

• 51:06Speaker 05

  "My sons have a first-time buyer at Moneybox Lysa. When buying their first home, can they leave, say, 1,000 pounds in there and carry on saving for their pension while still receiving the max uplift?"

• 51:18Martin Lewis?

  Well, it won't be saving for a pension. It'll be saving for their old age. The lifetime ISA has two purposes. It gives you a bonus if you're a first-time buyer buying a property that costs under 450,000 pounds. You get a 25% bonus on top of everything you've saved in there. You also get that bonus at age 60, so it's a saving for your older age. Now, so that's what you're talking about. About the pension element and yes, you can use it for both. So if you've got a lifetime ISA, if you then used some or all of the money and you could use all of the money for in your lifetime ISA for a first time property, you can continue to save in the lifetime ISA and you can then never buy another property with it to get the bonus, but you could get the bonus at age 60.

• 51:58Martin Lewis?

  I would caution you though, that the reason many mainstream providers do not offer lifetime ISAs, and interestingly, the Treasury Committee is doing research on this at the moment and I'm just doing a submission and talking to them about it. The reason that many are doing on the whole of lifetime ISAs, as you say, not just this element, many major providers don't offer lifetime ISAs is they're very worried that they will get done for misselling on pensions. Because as a general rule of thumb, a normal pension, if you are an employee because of the auto enrolment and the fact that your pension, if you put in via your company pension, your employer has to put money in too. Employees, you will almost certainly be better off in a normal pension than you would putting

• 52:41Martin Lewis?

  your money in a lifetime ISA, as long as you're in auto enrolment, as long as it's contributing or matching contributions. If you're self-employed, if you are a top or higher rate taxpayer, 45 or 40% taxpayer, then the benefits, the tax benefits of putting money in a pension as the scheme currently looks, would easily outweigh the tax benefits of saving in a lifetime ISA. It is only for those who are self-employed and basic 20% rate taxpayers where you're starting to look at the benefits of a lifetime ISA being roughly akin to the benefits of putting money in a pension. So while you may be able to continue doing so, I would urge you to first look at whether you would be better in your scenario, just increasing the amount that you put in your

• 53:25Martin Lewis?

  workplace pension, or if you're self-employed, saving more in a state pension rather than putting the extra money in a lifetime ISA. For some people, the lifetime ISA will work, certainly if you've maxed out your state pension, you can't do anything else, but not for everybody. They were really good questions. Maybe we'll keep doing a few more of those over the years, Simon. What do you reckon? Yeah, it sounds really good.

• 53:47Martin Lewis?

  Now, before we started the show, Adrian and I were chatting about his panorama about e-bikes and rules and regulations on the road. And actually, there's a financial angle to this too, as I pointed out. Now, just before we start, I saw your very interesting panorama, but I saw the last 10 minutes of it, being honest, on e-bikes and all those things the other day. And there's a financial element of the behaviour of e-bikes.

• 54:11Speaker 04

  Do you get this? Are you like ordinary mortals? You do a story, and then it goes out. I did with this panorama about e-bikes. And then, it's only after it's gone out, you realise, oh, hang on, we should have said that, could have said that. That's an interesting angle. You learn more about it through doing it. And you've just made an excellent point about e-bikes.

• 54:32Martin Lewis?

  Well, I'll make my point, and then I'll answer your question.

• 54:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:34Martin Lewis?

  So my point about e-bikes is many of the e-bikes and the e-scooters, which have very similar issues.

• 54:40Speaker 04

  We're talking about the city rental?

• 54:42Martin Lewis?

  The city rental ones, which are often the ones I tend to find when someone's running over a red light or pushing into you while not riding very well. They tend to be on a rented bike, because you know the brands. Is they incentivise people to break the law? Because the pricing is time-based. The longer your journey takes, the more you pay. Therefore, if you're doing this on a budget, if you run the red light, if you go quickly, if you nip on the pavement to avoid the corner, you're going to save yourself money. So I think there's an issue for me in the pricing algorithms and the way that the pricing works, because it incentivises bad behaviour. Now, that is of course not saying everybody who rents these will behave in that way, but it is a push factor towards behaving in a way that

• 55:23Martin Lewis?

  makes people on these rented bikes behave less well and stick to the rules of the road and the rules that keep other people safe less well. So I think I would suggest that we look at those algorithms.

• 55:34Speaker 04

  And on the other question, are you an ordinary mortal?

• 55:37Martin Lewis?

  Yes and no.

• 55:40Martin Lewis?

  Not because of any superhuman genius, but because, I think I'm probably allowed to talk about it in this context, obviously I have the website. So first of all, the website gives me huge amounts of data and I have big social media reach. So my, my process when I'm doing something new is I will often be writing it, think of something, put a question out there on social media or on the website in the preliminary search phase. So I will be, I will be canvassing public opinion on something before I'm actually going out and coming out with my full, this is how it works. I always remember my council tax stories, even pre the internet. When I first came up with my council tax check and challenge system, I came up with the system, I put it in my forum in a very small way and said if anyone wants to experiment and have a go at this and about a hundred people tried,

• 56:25Martin Lewis?

  they came back to me. Then I wrote a small article on the site that didn't push that well. Again, almost saying it's a beta, it's a test. Let me know. I mean, I haven't dotted every I, crossed every T. By the time I then published it and then four weeks later did the biggest show I've ever done, which was a Tonight with Trevor McDonald, six and a half million people on why hundreds of thousands of homes are in the wrong council tax bands and can get money back. By then I'd already done all the feedback. So I work in reverse, which is, is my advantage because of the, the different reach I have, not because of genius.

• 56:56Martin Lewis?

  Okay, you lucky, lucky podcast listeners. It's that time of the show where I give you tips that are just for you. I know. How exciting. I'm going to do two today. First of all, there are two new longest 0% balance transfer cards. Both give you 31 month interest free on debt that you shift to them. That's the longest that we've seen available since the middle of 2023. So what's a balance transfer? It's where you get a new credit card to pay off debts on your existing credit card. So you owe the new credit card instead, but at no interest. That means more of your repayments reduce the actual debt rather than just covering the interest. So you get debt free quicker. And January is debt month. It's when people

• 57:40Martin Lewis?

  are sorting out their finances. So lenders are pumping out the strongest suite of deals right now. So it is a very good time to be doing a balance transfer. Don't wait for your credit card statement. For this one, each day if you're paying interest on your credit card, you are accumulating more interest. The sooner that you do this, the better. And as I always say, if you can't afford to clear the debt on your credit cards and you're paying interest, then you can't afford not to check if you can shift it to 0%. I'd strongly recommend you use an eligibility calculator on a comparison site, which will show you which of the top cards you're most likely to get without affecting your credit file. Because you want to minimise application, so knowing which one you're more likely to be accepted for is worthwhile. I'd also suggest you go for the lowest fee card,

• 58:23Martin Lewis?

  because most balance transfer cards charge you a one-off fee of the amount of debt you've shifted. So if it's a 1% fee and you shift a grand, it's an extra £10 that you pay on top. You want the lowest fee in the time you're sure that you'll be able to clear off the debt. So if you can clear it in 20 months, you're looking for the lowest fee card that will give you 20 months or more. If you're not sure how long it'll take, you just go long. Because the fee, it's not worth trying to cut the fee. If you're going to need longer, you're better to just keep the 0% period. So what are the cards out there? I'll run through them quickly. I won't dot all the Is and Ts, just to give you an idea of what you need to look up. These are all newbie balance transfers, 0% balance transfers.

• 59:01Martin Lewis?

  You have MBNA, which, depending on where you get it, is up to 31 months 0% with a 3.2% fee. Though it is an up-to card, which means some who get accepted will get a shorter 0%. You've got Barclaycard, which is up to 31 months 0% with a 3.45% fee. Depending where you get it, you also get cash back of 20 or 25 quid if you're shifting over £2,500. So I would suggest, if you're shifting over £2,500 and you're likely to get that credit limit, Barclaycard beats MBNA for the longest. If you're not, MBNA beats Barclaycard for the longest. Tesco Bank is a couple of months shorter at 29 months 0%, but the fee's lower at 2.95%.

• 59:44Martin Lewis?

  And it's a definite 29 months. In other words, unlike Barclaycard and MBNA, which are up-to cards, with this card... If you're accepted, you'll definitely get the 29 months 0%. So if an eligibility calculator is telling you that you've got a high chance and you're not pre-approved for the other cards, this is the safer bet because if you do get accepted, you will get the 29 months. As I shift down for much shorter, Tesco has another card, also definite 18 months 0% here, so a lot shorter than the 29 months, but the fee's just 1%. So if you can pay much quicker, that would work. And if you can pay really quickly, Barclaycard has an up to 14 months 0% card, which is

• 1:00:26Martin Lewis?

  the longest no-fee balance transfer on the market. If you are going to get a balance transfer card, I have a few golden rules for you. I'm going to talk about these in more detail in future because we will do a programme on debt where I go in a lot more detail. But just quickly, first of all, never miss your minimum monthly repayment. If you do, you can lose the 0% and start having to pay the 25% standard representative APR. Clear the debt before the 0% ends too, or again, after that, it'll jump to the standard 25% representative APR. Do not spend. Do not withdraw cash on these cards because it's not normally at the cheap 0% rate. And make sure you do the transfer at the application. If not, you've generally between 60 and 90 days to get it done, or you lose that option.

• 1:01:11Martin Lewis?

  And I should say, if you have a poor credit score, then the eligibility calculator, there are some poor credit scorers balance transfers, depending on your situation, whether you can get 16 months 0% with a higher fee or nine months 0% that are available at the moment. So go back to what I said at the beginning. If you can't afford to clear your debt and you're paying interest on it, then you can't afford not to check if you may be able to get a 0% balance transfer credit card. And tip number two, 5.4 million people have not filed their 2023 tax return yet. Do it as soon as possible, or you're risking a hundred quid fine and interest of 7.25% on top if you don't pay the amount that you owe. So who needs to do this? Well, the simple answer is if you've been told to file a self-assessment tax return,

• 1:01:56Martin Lewis?

  you have to file a self-assessment tax return. It's as simple as that. There's no, I shouldn't have been told. Well, maybe you shouldn't have been told. Maybe you can suggest next year you don't get one, but if you've been told, you have to do it. Plus, you may need to do it voluntarily if you are self-employed, earned over £150,000, earned over £50,000 and get child benefit, or you have over £10,000 in savings interest. The deadline is the 31st of January, so there's still a little bit of time, but I would strongly urge you to get on with it now. If you need to call HMRC, the nearer you get to the deadline, the more clogged up their phone lines will be. The sooner you do it, the sooner you are helping yourself. And a final tip, even if you haven't done the tax return and you haven't got everything

• 1:02:37Martin Lewis?

  right, right by the deadline, and you have to pay the £100 fine, pay them roughly the tax that you think you owe. Just make the payment of the tax you think you owe, because that way, once it is all sorted later, that will reduce, let's say, let's make it very simple, you pay them eight grand and your total tax you should pay is 10 grand, well then, ultimately, you would only pay the 7.25 late payment interest on the two grand you haven't paid, even if you haven't done your tax return. So just get it done, get it done. I know it's a pain in the, but get it done.

• 1:03:16Martin Lewis?

  That's it for this week. If you've enjoyed it, please tell your friends you've been listening to the Martin Lewis podcast and that they should have a listen to, and you should all subscribe so you don't miss it and your pockets will be pleased with you. If you've not enjoyed it, then just tell them you've been listening to Sophie Ellis-Bextor's Kitchen Disco on BBC Sounds. I was going to have a disco in my kitchen, but we haven't put all the utensils away. I decided it just wasn't worth the whisk. See you soon. Sorry.

• 1:04:01Speaker 03

  Martin Lewis is the founder of MoneySavingExpert.com. But of course, other consumer and price comparison websites are available. You can get in touch with Martin's podcast production team by emailing [email protected]. The offers and rates mentioned in the podcast are correct

• 1:04:18Speaker 06

  At the time of recording. However, if you are listening on demand, it's worth double checking as details can date. Remember to subscribe on BBC Sounds and leave us a review however you listen.

• 1:04:36Speaker 03

  BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.

• 1:04:42Speaker 07

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  like the fact that tech companies might start selling your deepest, darkest secrets if they go bankrupt. Join me, Jess Maddox. And me, Thomas Germain, for The Interface. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or find us on YouTube.