I love car insurance renewal time

DorsetDude

DorsetDude

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Changed cars couple of months ago to a lower powered, 7 insurance groups lower car. Did a quick couple of online quotes at the time and was pleased to see looked about £100 less than for the previous car at about £260 all in. In comes the renewal quote, £423. FFS.
So I'll ring a cheaper company in a minute to confirm a lower quote, ring my lot up to inform them to get stuffed and they'll then offer to lower it. If they do I think I'll still swap anyway for the cheek of it all. Hate the B*****s.

Rant over!
 
A few years back, I was with Budget for my car insurance, and had an absolutely fantasic quote from them. A year on (with no claims), my renewal quote went up by nearly £300. I assumed it must have been a mistake, as there was no way it could have increased by so much. I shopped around and got other quotes that were much much cheaper, and then called Budget. They were unwilling to do anything on their quote. What a bunch of *******!

Needless to say, I pretty much change my insurance company every year now, as they always seem to try and rob me on the renewals. Im currently fully comp with Axa Insurance, and am curious to see what they increase my quote to in August when it comes up again.
 
I've just halved my insurance for my motorbike. Not phoned my current insurers yet to see what they have to say.
 
A certain 'quote me happy' company decided to increase my motorbike premium from £130 to £265 and gave it the old 'eveythings risen by at least 30% argument'. I found another company for £108, called them to say I wouldn't be renewing and could they send me proof of my no claims. They then quoted me £150, when they couldn't budge before

What happened to quote me happy? I asked - well we're happy was the answer. BYE. Never been back
 
Byker28i said:
A certain 'quote me happy' company decided to increase my motorbike premium from £130 to £265 and gave it the old 'eveythings risen by at least 30% argument'. I found another company for £108, called them to say I wouldn't be renewing and could they send me proof of my no claims. They then quoted me £150, when they couldn't budge before

What happened to quote me happy? I asked - well we're happy was the answer. BYE. Never been back
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Is that Aviva? I never bother with them for the sort of reasons you say. My best bet at the moment is looking like Privilege. Been with them before and they were ok (until renewal time I suspect)

Ive just been through one for an over 50's insurers. They want over £400 without breakdown cover. Byeee!!

And some of the occupations in the drop down list! :eek: Artificial inseminator! Chicken sexer! But software engineer? Oh no, thats a bit obscure isnt it. <sigh>
 
I always do a price comparision website check on my renewals too, it's paid of very nicely in the past. I remember going back to my insurer and saying I've had a cheaper quote somewhere else and they said "we can't match it, we can only take a maximum of 40% of the renewal premium", so you were just trying your luck basically if you're happy for me to pay 40% less!
However in the last year I couldn't beat the renewal quote from LV for car insurance, or the renewal price from Tesco for house insurance :eek:
 
Been with Greenlight for the past couple of years, excellent - didn't even cost a penny to swap from my MX5 to my Mitsubishi FTO, despite it being the rarest and most insurance unfriendly version. Even got to listen to AC/DC whilst on hold.
 
Nikon_Nick said:
Im currently fully comp with Axa Insurance, and am curious to see what they increase my quote to in August when it comes up again.
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I'm with AXA and my premium didn't rise too much even after I had a claim for hitting a deer in the third lane of the M6, not really my fault but couldn't get the deer's insurance details off it :(
 
I don't even get angry with them nowadays. I came to the conclusion you can't trust any insurance company to give you a realistic quote the second year, so I routinely run it through a few comparison sites and move on. And it's the same with home/contents insurance too. They work on the assumption that the majority of people just go along with it so they just try and screw as much profit out of them as possible.
 
PaulF said:
I'm with AXA and my premium didn't rise too much even after I had a claim for hitting a deer in the third lane of the M6, not really my fault but couldn't get the deer's insurance details off it :(
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Fingers crossed then (y)

Seems that there is a lot of uninsured deer on the roads these days...
 
Nikon_Nick said:
Fingers crossed then (y)

Seems that there is a lot of uninsured deer on the roads these days...
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What was impressive with this particular subject, it had already crossed the southbound carriageway fine then jumped the central reservation right in front of me, last I saw of the deer it was trying to get back up between lanes 2 and 3 but it's rear legs weren't too good at that point.

DorsetDude said:
Anything for a quick buck.
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See what you did there :D
 
DorsetDude said:
Anything for a quick buck.
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PaulF said:
See what you did there :D
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Isn't Hind-sight a wonderful thing?
:D

Same issues here as most people.
I always go armed with "other quotes" at renewal time.
House insurance cheaper this year, than last year.
(Same company :D)

Car insurance "held" at the same rate as last year.
(Same company :D)

Why do they load the crap on?
I guess with these "auto renewals"
They hope people don't notice, or are too lazy to check.
 
DorsetDude said:
Changed cars couple of months ago to a lower powered, 7 insurance groups lower car. Did a quick couple of online quotes at the time and was pleased to see looked about £100 less than for the previous car at about £260 all in. In comes the renewal quote, £423. FFS.
So I'll ring a cheaper company in a minute to confirm a lower quote, ring my lot up to inform them to get stuffed and they'll then offer to lower it. If they do I think I'll still swap anyway for the cheek of it all. Hate the B*****s.

Rant over!
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Just had the exact same thing with my car insurance. Except quadruple the amount.... trying to get insured at 20 is a bloody nightmare... i've got 3 years no claims, never so much as brushed my car on anything (touch wood) and yet i pay through the nose because of my age group! I saved about £600 by switching insurers this time. Although they were shocked that i still decided to switch despite the fact they offered a me fantastic loyalty discount of £75... thanks for that!

I've got another 2 years or so before i start paying 'humane' amounts for my car insurance!
 
Just to wind up Alex - I own a zzr1200 - £108 fully comp, and a TVR £384 fully comp with track day insurance :)
 
2.0 TDI is group 23. Thats what I had before current vehicle.

The tw*ts are refusing to let me have no claims discount because I ve had 2 at fault claims in 3 years. Even though the one last April was a rear end shunt to which the other driver admitted liability almost straight away and I have 2 letters from my insurers to prove it. Oh no they say, the case is still open because we havent recovered the repair costs from the 3rd party insurers yet. How is that my friggin problem?!?!? I'm not at fault! You've sent me letter saying the other party's admitted fault! Of course, they wont get this sorted before my renewal date passes will they and so I'll have to pay over the top premium and not get that money back. Oooh it makes me mmmmad, mad!! :rage:

And while im trying to argue with them, they're saying "Its frustrating isnt it?" Huh?!? "Yes! do something about it!"
 
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First thing I always do is go online and get a quote from my existing insurers, but as a new customer. It's surprising the reductions available. Then it's onto the phone. Sometimes they still won't budge so just take out the new policy.
 
PaulF said:
The A3 is hardly a low insurance group car though to be fair. Think the 2.0TDI one I had was about group 16 or so.
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Group 17 out of 50.... pretty low...

Although obviously its higher than something like a 1.2 Corsa or similar. But regardless of car the premiums for young drivers are outrageously high.
 
DorsetDude said:
2.0 TDI is group 23. Thats what I had before current vehicle.

The tw*ts are refusing to let me have no claims discount because I ve had 2 at fault claims in 3 years. Even though the one last April was a rear end shunt to which the other driver admitted liability almost straight away and I have 2 letters from my insurers to prove it. Oh no they say, the case is still open because we havent recovered the repair costs from the 3rd party insurers yet. How is that my friggin problem?!?!? I'm not at fault! You've sent me letter saying the other party's admitted fault! Of course, they wont get this sorted before my renewal date passes will they and so I'll have to pay over the top premium and not get that money back. Oooh it makes me mmmmad, mad!! :rage:

And while im trying to argue with them, they're saying "Its frustrating isnt it?" Huh?!? "Yes! do something about it!"
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Now to be fair I had a similar problem a few years back.....and I DID get the both the extra premium money and the no claims back.
 
viv1969 said:
Now to be fair I had a similar problem a few years back.....and I DID get the both the extra premium money and the no claims back.
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There is some hope then! But I'll put money on them taking years to sort this stuff out as in the same reasoning as the high renewal quotes; the lazy or ignorant etc wont think about trying to reclaim lost premium money so the insurers will just keep it in their coffers.
 
DorsetDude said:
There is some hope then! But I'll put money on them taking years to sort this stuff out as in the same reasoning as the high renewal quotes; the lazy or ignorant etc wont think about trying to reclaim lost premium money so the insurers will just keep it in their coffers.
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Oh it takes time, but I had a fine old time calling them every 2 days and generally bugging the living P155 out of them until it was concluded.
In the end they got themselves all of a muddle and refunded my excess twice....closely followed by the same amount being received directly from the other party's insurer at the direction of MY insurer :LOL:
 
bindex said:
I don't even get angry with them nowadays. I came to the conclusion you can't trust any insurance company to give you a realistic quote the second year, so I routinely run it through a few comparison sites and move on. And it's the same with home/contents insurance too. They work on the assumption that the majority of people just go along with it so they just try and screw as much profit out of them as possible.
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Spot on and I do believe that applies to all insurance companies (or the majority at the very least) and all policies, Car, Bikes, House etc etc.
In other words re-quote at every renewal.
 
insidewildlife said:
Group 17 out of 50.... pretty low...

Although obviously its higher than something like a 1.2 Corsa or similar. But regardless of car the premiums for young drivers are outrageously high.
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This is something I have pondered at length and for the life of me I can think of no solution that is viable, it is the ultimate "Catch 22" situation.

Consider: How do you deal with insurance on a statistically High Risk driver (most commonly young and inexperienced) ? You charge extortionate premiums. Unfortunately that just increases the amount of uninsured drivers on the road which is even more detrimental to the rest of the us and society as a whole.
So what is the lesser of the two evils. Inexperienced higher risk drivers on lower more reasonable premiums (and as a result the ability to drive more powerful cars -"Does that make any difference ?". That's a whole other debate :exit:)
or an ever increasing amount of uninsured drivers who probably don't give a **** anyway.

Possible solutions: Give young/new drivers lower premiums on a very select list of low powered, low emission cars possibly with a good NCAP rating ? Restrict overall maximum CCs you can drive for the first 5 years regardless of age.? Much Much heavier penalties for uninsured drivers and I dont mean financial, that rarely makes any difference. (They also announced huge increases in maximum fines today for speeding, pointless ? Possibly since most fines are rarely given up to the old maximum so will this make any difference)

Footnote: I am not suggesting in any way that all young drivers are dangerous or that older experienced drivers can take some sort of moral high ground. These points are based on the views and statistics held by insurers.
 
insidewildlife said:
Group 17 out of 50.... pretty low...

Although obviously its higher than something like a 1.2 Corsa or similar. But regardless of car the premiums for young drivers are outrageously high.
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The logic is that

1. It doesn't matter what car you have, you can crash into an Aston Martin or a queue of people at a bus stop.

2. They can get away with it because what else are you going to do?
 
My insurance premium fell 20% last year, be interesting to see what happens at renewal. It's already considerably less than half of the "average" comprehensive policy and despite the fact that my car is group 20 on the old 20 group scheme.
 
my daughter at 21yrs of age is having a few lessons intending to pass her driving test in the mean time she's mythering mother to a point of distraction to try and get her insured in the wifes 7 seater previa as a learner driver
one of the comparison website lowest quote was 15,000 quid ( yes fifteen thousand ) not to be put off she carried on searching
to add said daughter to my wifes insurance doubles the price which actually isn't that bad considering the quote above but the cheapest was a company called Collingwood which specializes in insuring learner drivers her quote to insure herself in my wifes car was 500 quid

the way i see it for 500 quid i could put her through a crash course ( then she wouldn't need learner insurance ) the problem being once she has a full license you just know insurance on any car is going to be expensive ( and the bank of dad is closed :) )

we got the usual twice the price renewal quote this year but after doing the usual comparison sites the company we are insured already with matched the lowest quote so it does pay to shop around :)
 
It's the people carrier though that's doing it because it's a 7 seater and so the possible risk of multiple injuries increase.

I found it was much better to buy them a reasonable car, around £1000, that's cheap to insure and to insure it in their name. If you have them on your insurance and they make a claim it load your insurance also.
 
Byker28i said:
I found it was much better to buy them a reasonable car, around £1000, that's cheap to insure and to insure it in their name. If you have them on your insurance and they make a claim it load your insurance also.
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Also once theyve got their own insurance they can start building up no claims years. Assuming they dont have any prangs.
 
I'm paying £300 for my fiesta 2010 tdci :D
 
cosmicma said:
my daughter at 21yrs of age is having a few lessons intending to pass her driving test in the mean time she's mythering mother to a point of distraction to try and get her insured in the wifes 7 seater previa as a learner driver
one of the comparison website lowest quote was 15,000 quid ( yes fifteen thousand ) not to be put off she carried on searching
to add said daughter to my wifes insurance doubles the price which actually isn't that bad considering the quote above but the cheapest was a company called Collingwood which specializes in insuring learner drivers her quote to insure herself in my wifes car was 500 quid

the way i see it for 500 quid i could put her through a crash course ( then she wouldn't need learner insurance ) the problem being once she has a full license you just know insurance on any car is going to be expensive ( and the bank of dad is closed :) )

we got the usual twice the price renewal quote this year but after doing the usual comparison sites the company we are insured already with matched the lowest quote so it does pay to shop around :)
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My brother in law learnt to drive last year (when he was 30), starting as a named driver on my sister's policy - the thing they hadn't banked on was that when they phoned the insurance company to say he'd passed the premium went up rather than down! The logic being that now he could go off driving by himself rather than having his woman keep him in line :LOL:
 
TopBanana said:
My brother in law learnt to drive last year (when he was 30), starting as a named driver on my sister's policy - the thing they hadn't banked on was that when they phoned the insurance company to say he'd passed the premium went up rather than down! The logic being that now he could go off driving by himself rather than having his woman keep him in line :LOL:
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Yup same with my daughter. £500 for her ka (her brother was £1100 for a clio 1.2), but when she passed her test it went up to £750, whereas her brothers went down to £900
 
Byker28i said:
It's the people carrier though that's doing it because it's a 7 seater and so the possible risk of multiple injuries increase.

I found it was much better to buy them a reasonable car, around £1000, that's cheap to insure and to insure it in their name. If you have them on your insurance and they make a claim it load your insurance also.
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we live in an area which is a car insurance nightmare my wifes insurance on the previa is hovering around 700 quid with 16 years NCB
the cheapest quotes my 28yr old son gets for his 1.6 astra are always around the 1,500 - 18,00 quid mark granted he's only had his license 4 years and no real NCB to speak of but i thinks it's still expensive

it's not really an issue of a cheap car it's more of an issue getting affordable insurance on any car in this area for a 21yr old with a shiny new license crash for cash made sure of that a couple of years ago there was quite a bit of it going on around here
it really is a postcode lottery when it comes to insurance

the simple fact is my 21yr old daughter can't afford to put a car on the road i pay for her driving lessons and to be honest i'm in no rush for her to pass i know whats coming when she does ( dad i NEEED a car buy me one )
 
I always said I'd buy the car, but they have to work to pay insurance, running costs etc
 
One of the young driver's specialist insurers include car purchase with their insurance. It has a weird name. Something like Marmalade? Driver has a black box so parents can monitor how well behaved they are.

Cheap bangers aren't safe compared to more modern cars. With the VW up being £99 a month on most leasing and contract hire deals it seems a no brainer to me that you'd get them something like that or they'd pay for it themselves rather than sticking a potentially dangerous driver into a poorly protected car.

I also think £120 spent on this would be money well spent:
http://www.advanced-driving-course.co.uk/driver-training-scs01yd.htm

It's aimed at the young and recently qualified driver and gives them advanced driving tuition.

I always shop around each year but always make sure to check policy small print as they're devils for writing in clauses to reduce when you can claim.
 
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