End of the month Ins is due for renewal.
Comparison sites not much use - they can knock £50 off the premium but stuff you with a £450 excess rather than £100 - extras inc with my current company add up as well - ends up there is about £10 in it so stay with existing company for another year at least.
AA had 2 quotes near the top of the cheapest - click their cheapest and it comes up as their 2nd quote which was £30+ more, then 5 mins later the phone rings with "Jack the Lad" wanting to go ahead with this PLUS an upgrade to the AA breakdown cover so it goes from £132 to £220+ - GEM is my cover for breakdowns and a lot less than the AA.
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use www.topcashback.co.uk/search/merchants/?s=car+insurance
or similar cashback sites.
Last edited by: John H on Thu 3 Feb 11 at 12:18
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Just doing ours at the moment.... we both have same renewal day.
My C5 last year £279.38 with Axa offered by my broker at £279 this year with Aviva for same cover. Saga £5 cheaper. Comparison sites £20 cheaper at best for a no-name company.
Mrs F's C3 last year £302 with Fortis (she had 2x speeding then) offered by broker at £226 with extra business use added (1 speeding dropped off this year). Saga and comparison sites could save about £15.
I found the same that the comparison sites often upped the excess and when you drag it back to the same as existing the quotes rise. Quick phone calls from the lower priced folks on comparison sites received here too.
So for loyalty I think we'll stay with the local town broker who favours local people.
Quite pleased this year overall given what the press says about rises.
I keep the breakdown seperate for fighting another day.
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NEVER put your real phone number or email address into comparison websites - it's just asking for trouble - calls, spam you name it!
Done it once, never again!
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First direct have an offer where they will beat your renewal by 10% on the same terms and conditions. Mrs B used it, and they will ask to see your renewall as evidence, but depending on your renewall might be worth a try.
Insurance is provided by equity red star who i understand to be quite decent
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>> they will beat your renewal by 10%
I saw that, but in my experience the renewal is always a silly amount more. Just to be used as a starting point. Generally it's 30% more than the same company's result on comparison sites for me.
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10% rebate from NEW INSURER on fully comp Group 16 car (admittedly a 12 yr old car)£170 = £17 saving only. Not really worth the hassle of moving.
3rd party F&T was more expensive in some cases than COMP!
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>> 10% rebate from NEW INSURER on fully comp Group 16 car (admittedly a 12 yr
>> old car)£170 = £17 saving only. Not really worth the hassle of moving.
>>
>> 3rd party F&T was more expensive in some cases than COMP!
>>
Fair point. In the case of my partner her renewall was £350 and after going through the comparison sites we could only shave about a tenner off so a £35 quid saving was worth it
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I had a trawl around the comparison sites yesterday, insurance isn't due until May but I wanted to see if the doom and gloom merchants are right. Best quote I can find is £320, against £230 last year.
There's still another 3 months for it to go up further though :)
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i had my renewal quote with my previous insurer lloyds tsb to insure my jazz, fully comp 9 yrs no claims £1100, a massive increase from the £420 i paid with them a year ago.
Searched the comparioson websites the cheapest was £611, then went onto go compare, as some web search sites dont have enough insurers on, cheapest i got was £280 with bonus protection, legal assistance all thrown in, i had to bump up my excess to £1000 to reduce the premium, so result a real time saving of roughly £800
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Quite risky having £1k for excess though but if you're confident you're not going to to have an own fault accident and you won't miss £1k too much then it is a great way to save money on the insurance. Plus putting £1k as the excess tells the insurance company you have no intention of causing an accident :).
My insurance is hurting badly it is nearly as much as the loan payments :(
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£1K is a really high excess. Just remember that even if its not your fault you may still have to stump up the £1K until the claim is resolved - in some cases (such as mine) it took me just over a year to get the excess back - that was using one of these credit car hire outfits to so they were pushing as without proving my inocence they didnt get there money back either.
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Just checked for my dad has his renewal is due soon on the group 9 Fiesta. They want £220 a year for it. Put in exactly the same details for myself its £1000 a year.
I am really worried when mine is up for renewal in October if Admiral put up their prices I am stuffed I could easily be paying £1200 a year to insure a group 1 car.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Thu 3 Feb 11 at 13:32
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>> I am really worried when mine is up for renewal in October if Admiral put
>> up their prices I am stuffed I could easily be paying £1200 a year to
>> insure a group 1 car.
Rattle - you will be fine. unless you have a claim there will be factors in your favour that will reduce your premuim such as an extra years NCB, you will be a year older and the car will be a year older.
Its when you get on a bit that you notice the rises more as you are already at the lowest risk level and have nowhere else to go
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>>>First direct have an offer where they will beat your renewal by 10%
I was drawn by the TV adverts for my current insurer offering up to 90% no claims this year. Funny that despite 20+yrs accident free they were still up 20% on last year and a similar percentage above other quality company quotes.
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>> NEVER put your real phone number or email address into comparison websites - it's just
>> asking for trouble - calls, spam you name it!
Always tick the appropriate options to say that you don't want to be contacted by phone, and put your details on the Telephone Preference Service. From the TPS website:
"The Telephone Preference Service (TPS) is a free service. It is the official central opt out register on which you can record your preference not to receive unsolicited sales or marketing calls. It is a legal requirement that all organisations (including charities, voluntary organisations and political parties) do not make such calls to numbers registered on the TPS unless they have your consent to do so."
We put our number on this a few years ago, and apart from some dodgy Indian call centre finance company who keep trying to offer us debt consolidation, and try their luck a couple of times a year, we haven't had a SINGLE telemarketing call.
Worth doing.
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...NEVER put your real phone number or email address into comparison websites...
I've only ever used Gocompare, and I did give them a real email address.
No problems with junk email.
They send a reminder when the car insurance is due, which is almost helpful, and a couple of other emails during the year, which I can live with.
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Had partner's insurance renewal (due 15th). £283 - about £ 20 more than last year. Full NCD (9 years), guaranteed no-claims protection, £ 50 excess (£100 for theft), courtesy car provision, class 1 business use for both my partner and myself, £100,000 personal injury cover and employer indemnity.
Think they will keep our business.
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My house and contents insurance renewal arrived the other day from the Bulldog - up by 50 per cent...:-)
Did the usual GoCompare check which came up with last year's premium figure. So I rang the renewal number (0800 xxxxx) and politely, but firmly asked what was the excuse for such a rise?
The very polite young man answering my query said he would see what he could do. That turned out to be a revised premium figure much more to my liking.
In fact it was £9 and a few pence LESS than last year...:-)
Insurance companies seem to think/hope that customers can't be bothered to check out renewal prices, which is exacerbated by the use of automatic renewal (you are advised of this fact just before payment in case you wish to cancel).
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Is Admiral multi car any use? Particularly if the renewals are already aligned.
Saved me a packet (see Admiral thread) and will alow daughter to drive either car once the second renewal's up in the summer.
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>> Insurance companies seem to think/hope that customers can't be bothered to check out renewal prices
In this tough economic climate is it still the case??
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>>In this tough economic climate is it still the case??>>
Still quite a few of the CBA type around...:-)
In my case I saved £98 - a pal, who has a very large property, was telling me last night that his last house and contents policy renewal was so expensive that he had friendly, but firm words with his insurance broker.
Result was a saving of £1,000 and made very clear to the broker he would lose this and other business in future if he didn't keep up to scratch...:-)))
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My renewal from Aviva arrived in the post today, and much to my surprise it is about £30 less than last year ! I wouldn't have thought my age would influance it now as i am nearly 50 !, but i suppose the car is a year older which may affect it.
I've had a quick check on a comparison site & got a quote from Direct Line but nothing comparable came close, so i will be renewing with Aviva in the morning !
Andy
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CRV is in the body shop at the moment having been dinged while parked. I spoke to the dinger who accepted responsibility.
Not much to be done of course, but my heart sank at the prospect of going through my insurer and making endless phone calls to get the excess back as has happened in the past. So I asked a pal who's in the business. He suggested that if I wanted it sorted quickly and with mininium hassle I should ask the third party to get her insurers to call me. He assured me they would and he was right. They have accepted responsibility, and had my car collected and a courtesy car delivered within 2 days. They even offered to hire me an equivalent car if I needed it (I didn't - apparently they make this offer themselves to pre-empt the involvement of a claims management company).
Here's the interesting bit. According to my pal, had I gone through my insurers, once they discovered they didn't insure the third party they would almost certainly have passed me on to an accident/claims management company. In all probability I would have been encouraged to claim for 'losses' and been given an expensive hire car; repairs would probably have taken much longer than if the body shop provided a courtesy car; and the claim would have ended up costing more - possibly a lot more.
So what it amounts to is this. The insurers say that accident/claims management companies are pushing up premiums, but they actually use them themselves when it's their competitor who's going to get hurt. Because they are all doing it to each other, the motorist pays.
I have a recent example of how much more accident management costs. Somebody ran into the back of boy's Panda a few months ago. Knowing no better, he went through his documents and found a leaflet for Fiat Accident Management "a free service for Fiat Owners". Of course this is just a manufacturer endorsed money maker. The service was actually very poor, but he ended up with a new Focus Zetec on hire for three weeks, presumably at inflated cost. Fortunately the third party insurer paid the claim. Had he had a body shop courtesy car, I've no doubt it would have been done in under a week as the body shop would have wanted its car back.
The insurance companies may be in competition but they are not on our side.
Last edited by: Manatee on Fri 4 Feb 11 at 20:30
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>> CRV is in the body shop at the moment having been dinged while parked. I
>> spoke to the dinger who accepted responsibility.
>>
So I asked a pal who's in the business. He
>> suggested that if I wanted it sorted quickly and with mininium hassle I should ask
>> the third party to call me.
Don't forget you still need to tell your insurance company.
If you don't, you may well find, that you wont be covered, check the small print.....
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Yes I will check the small print Swiss. I'm loth to tell them if I don't have to as it can't do me any good and might do me some harm.
It's not as if I've been involved in an accident - I wasn't there ;-)
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>> The insurance companies may be in competition but they are not on our side.
>>
It's a damn shame some couldn't learn from the way you've decently dealt with this claim MT, you didn't need a £500 a week jobbie and did the right thing in mitigating your own (and the insurers losses) in the process.
Even though insurers are in competeition it's in no one's interest to encourage this claimsRus culture to inflate costs.
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Premium is up £50 - comparison sites no help - John H
