Me 57 year old male, just went and got a quote with my existing provider (Swiftcover) for Comprehensive for my 7 year old Fabia saloon 16v 100BHP, social, domestic, pleasure and commuting, 3 years no claims, charge for the year £652.91 - last year's £343.00. Time ran out on SP30 on licence this year. Annual mileage about 6,000.

What the hell ? Outrageous !

I thought premiums were only up by max of a third this year.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/insurance/motorinsurance/8272542/Motor-insurance-premiums-up-by-34pc.html

What's going on ?

Nick

Edited 8 February, 201115 yr by Clunkclick

That does not inspire confidence, hope you can find something which costs the same (or even better, less) than last year otherwise I'll most likely find my extra years of NCB come renewal time (making 3 in total) has no gain. Hardly seems fair that due to the government having the capacity to not be able to find water if it fell out of a boat, also people being dishonest and claiming for false injuries - the cost of everything going up etc.

Presumably the first couple of years with Swiftcover were loss leaders to get the paperless method established and somebody's got to pay for Iggy's adverts.

Did the usual comparison web sites and the best comp deal was with a crowd called Insure the box. They wanted a voluntary + compulsory excess of £400, provided windscreen and courtesy car for £379 up front all-in-one.

Octagon, elephant, admiral, hastings were in the bracket £450 to £500 with a £350 combined excess - I tend to shy away from those bods 'cause in the event of an accident they demand you go to their nominated repairer.

One character quoted £3,000 i.e. the net worth of the car.

Aviva (ex-Norwich union) wanted £467 with a £350 excess, windscreen cover + £30 for 90 days european cover and a further £70 for european breakdown cover over the same period. Not bad, given that the AA wanted near-on a ton last year for a forthnight's European breakdown cover.

Do not think I would do better than £379. Inclined to go with Aviva, given its solid name.Given the current heavy advertising campaign that sort of rate is probably going to last a couple of years.

I've got just under a month to renewal, so I'll keep on looking.

Talk about a conspiracy to keep marketing men and advertisers employed. Maybe the DOT Competition Authority should take a look at this sort of "Phoney" price competition.

Postscript

Co-operative Insurance Comp SDP & C, £421.02 (Inc Tax). includes windscreen (£50 excess), £100 standard excess and £150 voluntary excess, coutesy car, legal expenses and 8 days of European cover (Only £15 more to get 365 day european cover for a trip lasting up to 90 days), but, of course, nominated repairer.

Nick

Edited 8 February, 201115 yr by Clunkclick

Word of caution don't spending to much time getting to many quotes as this can artificialy increase the price as every search is recorded and insurance companys get twitchy about that as it looks like your up to something. It also screws your credit rating aswell.

I'm with Aviva atm and tbh I'll only stay with them again if I really have to. When you phone up for a quote, you get someone from Norwich (in my case some fine lady called Angela). She was great, really helpful and I was most pleased with the service I had recieved. However I had issues with my NCB being activated, so they charged me full whack until I could get it sorted. That's fair, no problems with that. They didn't make life easier though, refused to phone up my previous insurer etc while I was on the phone (I even offered to go on hold) to get confirmation. I ended up having to ask my my previous insurer to send me a proof of no claims, which I then sent to them. After many months of my time being wasted they gave the impression that my NCB seemed to get lost in the mail... yeah right. So I went through the process again, still no success. In the end, we did what I'd suggested from day 1 in that they phoned my previous insurer while I was on hold and got the proof resolved, my NCB was finally activated. However, they then refused to put the overpaid amount back into my bank and insisted on a cheque, coupled with some ridiculous waiting time to recieve it. In the end I had to settle for a dam cheque (why can't you put me direct back in my bank account, I don't give a rats arse what your "procedure" is - there is no problem with putting it back it's come from there!) having to spend a large amount of my time wasted on the phone to a call centre in India. It got to a point that I was even willing to loose the months I'd been with them NCB to switch to another company, but found none near enough to the price I was paying at the time. Unless they beat quotes come renewal time by at least £150+, I'll never do business with them again. I asked for some compensation for the poor service I had recieved, a pen / tax disk holder / refund. They gave me nothing. I've never, ever recieved such poor customer service.

I noticed that if you cycle the same comparison engines the price edges up on successive uses. Again, try justifying that on logical grounds to the Competition Authority. Lets face it, insurance premiums are better than bankers bonuses - money for old rope, in the majority of cases, otherwise the system wouldn't be viable.

Meanwhile, I'll definitely think about painting the windows white, hide under the kitchen table and tremble with fear and loathing of the rat-tat-tat on the door of the premium finder general.

Nick

Edited 9 February, 201115 yr by Clunkclick

I don't see how the premiums can go up tbh everytime you get a quote. You're not getting a credit check done, you're just looking for prices. If it was recording your details then adding an excess on everytime you got a quote, surely it'd be preaching privacy to a certain respect. I don't know, either way insurance is legalised robbery these days.

The credit check is because they expect you to pay it monthly hence your effectivly got the cover on finance because your borrowing from the insurance company and paying them back over the year instead of up front.

If you check your credit record you'll see what it gets flagged everytime you use such a site though its never in any of the advertising or such. Also remember that each quote is specific to you as an individual taking into acount your details and such, insurance companies etc keep a closer eye on your financial movements than they like to let on.

The credit check is because they expect you to pay it monthly hence your effectivly got the cover on finance because your borrowing from the insurance company and paying them back over the year instead of up front.

Isn't this an urban myth?

Has never shown up on mine.

I noticed it last year when trying to decied between multiple cars. It is in your credit file but its only listed as a access of your file I believe finance isn't realy my thing. The annalogy I was given is that it is a bit like when you go morgage hunting all of the banks looking at your file means they each charge you more because they take the activity on the file and the house into account in the risk formula.

You have to admit it is actually a pretty well thought out way of them making it nearly impossible for you to actually compair their products effectivly. The more you shop around the more you pay as your obviously risky.

Under 5-10 search's should be fine, its once you start hitting 20+ searchs I realy noticed the diffrence the cheapest provider usually is fairly consistant anyway so it's not like their is often a good reason for seaching so much.

Edited 9 February, 201115 yr by Can

They cant credit check you on just a insurance quote If that were the case i`d have the worst credit record in the world.

Matt

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8272054.stm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/7563297/Number-of-cars-declines-for-the-first-time-since-Second-World-War.html

With the number of uninsured drivers close to 2 million in 2009 (1 in 15 cars on the road) - probably worse now, I would expect that the insurers would be trying everything to bring these people "Within-the-fold" for the expansion of corporate income. And that's got to mean removing bureaucratic barriers, including adopting a liberal approach to credit ratings.

Apart from people with truly horendous driving histories, I don't think most of the details you input on your insurance proposal form (apart from age, value of vehicle, driving history and post code) have much of an infuence on the premium you pay. Its all about how tight or loose the market is for spare money in the economy to be ploughed into insurance market funding and how much profit the directors think is necessary to keep the shareholders and investors from going elsewhere.

Hence the marketing policies that seem to be adopted across the industry now, which are often characterised by campaigns of saturation advertising and loss leader premiums for a couple of years then a period when they jack the premiums up to recover deferred costs in the hope that people will be too lazy to move for a further couple of years - that's where they make the profit.

Nick

Edited 9 February, 201115 yr by Clunkclick

Even since iv been driving it's been a yearly thing to ring round or check online for the cheapest quote. It's not often someone gets a renewal price that actually reflects there circumstances

Matt

Frizells (Liverpool - Victoria) want £453.82 for Comp SDP & C, with foreign use and courtesy car extra (£17.91 and £13.41) - Acccidental damage excess of £300, £75 windscreen excess and £50 theft excess.

Nick

I noticed it last year when trying to decied between multiple cars. It is in your credit file but its only listed as a access of your file I believe finance isn't realy my thing. The annalogy I was given is that it is a bit like when you go morgage hunting all of the banks looking at your file means they each charge you more because they take the activity on the file and the house into account in the risk formula.

You have to admit it is actually a pretty well thought out way of them making it nearly impossible for you to actually compair their products effectivly. The more you shop around the more you pay as your obviously risky.

Under 5-10 search's should be fine, its once you start hitting 20+ searchs I realy noticed the diffrence the cheapest provider usually is fairly consistant anyway so it's not like their is often a good reason for seaching so much.

Must be a Restrictive Practice in trade terms and therefore illegal under UK and Euro law.

http://www.swarb.co.uk/acts/1976Restrictive_Trade_PracticesAct.shtml

Nick

Edited 9 February, 201115 yr by Clunkclick

Just insured the Fabia II Blueline 1.2htp 09 plate. I'm fifty something and so is the wife, fully comp, 6k a year, max no claims, protected NCB, legal cover etc, £213 with privelage. Your post code could affect the price.

Club insurers?

I just a quote of £18,722! Woooo!

Cheapest so far seems to be any one of the Admiral group. Going to try the site sponsors and brokers soon too. Oh the joys!

I just a quote of £18,722! Woooo!

Cheapest so far seems to be any one of the Admiral group. Going to try the site sponsors and brokers soon too. Oh the joys!

I think my record for car insurance quote is about 25k... I lolled.

Just insured the Fabia II Blueline 1.2htp 09 plate. I'm fifty something and so is the wife, fully comp, 6k a year, max no claims, protected NCB, legal cover etc, £213 with privelage. Your post code could affect the price.

Just tried them on-line - they wanted £656. I think its got to be the slightly racy nature of the 1.4 saloon 16v 100BHP and the fact that they ask for any motoring convictions within the last 5 years - well I had a 3 pointer SP30 (exceeding statutory speed limit) on my licence acquired in 2006 (but hasn't everybody nowadays ?) which should have cleared on March 1st last year and only 3 years NCB.

IMHO, whilst Swiftcover were probably prepared to exercise some disregard for this as part of their aggressive campaign to gain extra market share, this crowd are not. They are looking for the conservative, slow and steadys, as depicted on the advertising campaign fronted by ms Lumley.

Poscript

Just got the annual "Internal" quote from Swiftcover that's generated off the back of my existing account - £378, that's better. Still a 10% increase for a lowered risk. The quote I referred to in my opening post was obtained "Externally", as if I were a new joiner.

I wonder what's the cause of this large difference:-

Swiftcover now quoting sustainable rates as opposed to the loss leaders of 2 years ago ?

Profiteering on their newly envigourated brand as far as new joiners are concerned.

Loyalty discounts for original customers ?

Enlarged margin take of price comparison sites ?

Or are insurance rates in general just on the way up - and how !

Who knows ?

Nick

Nick

Edited 11 February, 201115 yr by Clunkclick

I received an inflated car insurance price through 'ONE CALL' with the insurance company FORTIS' for approx £450.00.

However I went online asking for the identical requirements with the same company, and finished up paying something like £295.00.

I shop around every year, I have zero loyalty as they the insurance companies don't give me any.

Insurance companies pass around your details between themselves, so no point telling porkies.

Speeding convictions stay on your license for 3 years before they can be removed.

However they remain disclosable for 5 years with insurance companies, I have found out personally.

Edited 18 February, 201115 yr by giandougl

I did a quick check online at my car insurance premium. I got a quote in December for £860, this month with exactly the same details it was up to £1280. Also got some quotes on a Fabia VRS, which was a bit disappointing. Looking at about £2,200 to insure one now as such, but the good news is that would be halved at the end of August. Both of those quotes were without putting my Mum as a named driver though, so I think I could get it down another couple of £100. Either way, the inflation of prices is totally disgusting!

My interpretation of my recent experience (above) is that, in comparison to banks and telecoms operators, insurance companies are offering a loyality bonus !

nick