Understanding Car Insurance Occupation Categories
28 June 2023 | 
Andy Moody
When it comes to applying for car insurance, whether it’s for temporary car insurance or an annual policy, you will always have to provide your occupation.
This isn’t because insurers are nosy, rather it is a vital piece of information they use as part of their formulations to work out if they want to cover you and how much it will cost them and thus you. That’s right, what you do as a job has an impact on your insurance cost.
Submitting the wrong job title can invalidate your vehicle cover, but due to an outdated job title register widely relied upon across the insurance industry, it’s likely you will feel you have to list the wrong job title – and doing this could run you the risk of invalidating the policy in the process.
How Do You Choose Which Occupation to Select When Applying?
Of course, as with everything in the world of insurance – there’s a grey area. It’s understandable that your exact job title may not be there, however you are expected to make an educated choice, for one that most closely signifies your job.
If you were to choose a completely different occupation to what your actual job is, for example, if a scaffolder listed their profession as a doctor, there won’t be a great deal of sympathy from insurers extended their way and the policy would be invalidated, meaning if you had to make a claim, you’d get no payout.
If, as is increasingly common, you work in an emerging industry and your exact job title isn’t featured on the insurance register, you may have to choose a more general occupation title that relates to your role or industry in some way – without it being an out-and-out lie.
We know there are huge gaps in accurate occupation choices for emerging sectors including the likes of AI, digital marketing and digital creators. Hopefully in time we will see insurers update their occupation register to reflect the modern workforce more accurately. For now, use your best judgement to choose the closest occupation title you can find to your actual one when applying for a temporary car insurance quote.
What Are The ‘Best’ Occupations When Applying for Car Insurance?
There isn’t really a ‘best’ occupation to put down when applying for insurance to get the quote you want, other than the correct occupation. Your policy will be invalidated if you try to manipulate your information to get the best quote, so you are best putting down the correct occupation.
If you are interested in how the occupation you select influences the quotes you get then we can shed a small bit of light on that…
Differences in quote prices due to occupation are down to the insurer’s understanding, based on decades of data, about each profession’s likelihood to make a claim. If your occupation is one that insurers see as having a higher risk for making lots of claims, it is likely you might see a slightly higher fee quoted.
What Are Some of the Most Common Occupations of Today?
LinkedIn’s most popular job titles of 2022 shows what some of the most highly searched for roles are on the popular networking site. You’re far more likely to be a machine learning engineer now, than you were when the insurance jobs register list was first compiled…
LinkedIn’s most popular job searches of 2022:
- Customs Officer
- Machine Learning Engineer
- Import Specialist
- Business Development Representative
- Chief Human Resources Officer
- Site Reliability Engineer
- Sustainability Manager
- Career Counsellor
- Content Designer
- Client Solutions Manager
- Network Planner
- Laboratory Scientist
- Diversity and Inclusion Manager
- Talent Acquisition Specialist
- Salesforce Administrator
- Computer Vision Engineer
- Data Engineer
- Back End Developer
- Public Health Officer
- Vice President of Products
We know this isn’t an accurate representation of the popularity of all job types across the UK however, as many occupations still don’t rely on LinkedIn, like we know office jobs tend to. But it does give a bit of a taster of what the modern workforce looks like compared to the below…
Some of the Car Insurance Occupations on the Current List
Whilst we assure you the full occupation list you choose from when applying for insurance features a lot more roles you will be familiar with, we thought some of the below deserved a highlight!
Some of the roles on the current job titles register insurers use are interesting to say the least…
- Bacon Curer
- Chicken Chaser
- Chicken Sexer
- Clapper
- Water Diviner
- Pig Man or Woman
- Parachute Packer
- Panel Beater
- Ostler
- Meat Inspector
- Marquee Erector
- Lampshade Maker
- Kissagram Person
- Juggler
- Curtain Hanger
- Drayperson
- Doll Maker
- Fortune Teller
Never heard of a Pig Man? Had no idea juggling was a bonafide profession in the 21st Century? Well, neither had we! If these very specific occupations are present on the register, we are sure some day you’ll be able to find the likes of ‘Instagram Content Manager’ on there too…For now though make sure you choose the most accurate occupation on the list when applying for your temporary car insurance – you don’t want to invalidate your policy!
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