Car insurance

[darnell]

Hi All Just had my insurance renewal I expected an increase as I had a little bump.

There was no damage to my car and it was no fault of mine but no witnesses and

the insurances said 50/50 0n the claim. Total claim was £196 Question is anyone out there

knows any sympathetic insurance company to reduce my premium? cant get it down from £622.

The car is a Octavia L&k

[iriches]

What works for one often doesn't for for another - but I've got my 1.4 TSI Elegance insured with Aviva via quotemehappy.com for £213.

 

But I'm a 45-year old living in a pretty good area with full no claims.  If you're 21 and living in a "will my car be there in the morning" area then £622 could be as good as it gets......

[JamesVRSmk3]

There are no secret insurance clubs which have cheaper than everyone else insurance. Just use the usual go compare / meerkat etc and find the cheapest. There are a couple of brokers registered on here so take a look at the insurance thread but I've never found these cheaper than "over the counter" insurance.

[alexl94]

I'd recommend Adrian Flux, they came back £300 cheaper for me than the next best option which was Aviva. Although my price differences may be slightly skewed as I'm only 21 so you can imagine what my insurance quotes are like on my vRS!

[M12MKD]

^^^^^ What they said, insurance is like gamberling! Sometimes you think you win somethings you know you don't. But in the end you get ****ed!

 

Best thing to do is shop around, also worth trying chaging the start date.......believe it or not but that can make a diffrence of 50-100 quid!

[Redboy]

QuoteMeHappy gets my vote also. You can manage everything on line and super cheap. My new VRS cost about £140 which was dearer than my wife's car even though both with QMH. Business insurance added on last year cost £0.61 extra. Heated front screen replaced recently with no quibbles, of course I had to pay a £75 excess, but no complaints. Being in Lincolnshire and my age with Full NCB obviously helps. The only thing good about being older I'm afraid.

[ednmra]

I agree - do 2 or 3 compare sites at least, but also have a look at E Sure (who will be on those sites anyway.)

I find them very hard to beat! But that might not apply to everyone.

[FlyingGecko]

Some companies aren't on the comparison sites - Direct Line is one. Make a note of those (just search car insurance, see the names that come up) and try those as well as the comparison sites.

[DAN@ADRIAN FLUX]

Hi,

Please feel free to give us a try fro insurance if you like. If you wanted to PM me some contact details I'd be happy to arrange for one of my quotes team to give you a call back.

Regards,

Dan.

[ednmra]

Some companies aren't on the comparison sites - Direct Line is one. Make a note of those (just search car insurance, see the names that come up) and try those as well as the comparison sites.

The odd thing about, say, Direct Line (who always say "we aren't on comparison sites") is that their quotes always seem to be 3 times as much as the best deals that ARE on the sites.

Same for Saga. Never had a good quote from AA either, even though been a member since about 1964 !!

 

And yes, I do have full NCB.

[FlyingGecko]

In 1992 when hot hatches were getting difficult to insure, I wanted to compare quotes for a Peugeot 309 GTI, my own insurers wanted around £350 (remember, this was over 20 years ago).

I was over 40, full NCB, clean licence, safe occupation, blah blah blah. Most came in around £350 to £500. Direct Line wanted over £1500.

 

One thousand five hundred pounds. I'm still laughing.

 

They asked over £4000 to insure my 24 year old daughter last December - Elephant did it for £500.

 

Nothing changes.

[jonro2009]

I've used Adrian Flux before, they offered a discount for PAID Briskoda members not sure if they still do. Victoria Life offer discount for NHS staff. I'm now with Admiral who offer a multicar discount. I've previously used Budget, they where good when I had my points.

Quote Me Happy are all wheel and good for straight forward quotes and simple claims. Benefit of them being online is no admin fees. I changed my car recently for a new 1.5L 160PS petrol Mk5 Mondeo and tried to change car on my QMH policy, they could only find a 1.6L and said I must be wrong and then cancelled my policy without telling me! Drove round for 48hrs with no cover and no idea, so i don't trust them.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Czechers]

Try 2 or 3 different comparison sites (you may find you'll get different quotes from the same insurer) and then pick 2 or 3 of the best quotes and go direct to them for a quote through their own website. This worked for me last year. I ended up insuring through Axa who I would never have thought of going to directly. They were about £70 to £80 less than the next best, and a few pounds cheaper than themselves through the comparison sites. For several years before I was with Privilege, who were miles out last time around.

Edited 4 March, 2016 by Czechers

[ExSEAT]

The odd thing about, say, Direct Line (who always say "we aren't on comparison sites") is that their quotes always seem to be 3 times as much as the best deals that ARE on the sites.

Same for Saga. Never had a good quote from AA either, even though been a member since about 1964 !!

 

And yes, I do have full NCB.

The odd thing for me is that they really aren't. I could maybe save 30 quid a year picking the top unbranded monkeys off the gocompare list but I don't think that would do me any good. I've used cheap insurance for bikes and cars and all it got me was the cheapest cover. In the other hand direct line royally screwed over my insurers when I was knocked off my bike and they paid out for the Mrs car that was stolen from liverpool despite being registered and insured in cumbria.

Anyway, it's a shame about the 50/50. I know how these things happen, normally because someone lies in my experience. A camera would have saved me 4 years of fighting had I had one when I was hit on my bike.

As for the lottery insurance. Me and the Mrs at the same address, we use the same company. She has a 9k brand new ibiza, my leon was 20k ish new at the time. I have more no claims and I've been driving longer. If I put her on my insurance it goes down, yet she pays more to insure her bog standard ibiza than I do my leon. Think I pay around 180 a year currently at 34.

[JerryT]

With comparison sites, if you use choose a company also check direct through the companies own website, not redirected through the comparison site. I found when looking for quotes that by going direct to a companies site, the price offered was often lower. Presumably because they did not have to pay a finders fee to the comparison site.

Personally i have used direct Line for years, the only thing to remember is come renewal time is go on their own website and get a new quote, then phone them and telll them their website is cheaper. They'll check the reference number and agree and then give you the cheaper insurance. Just paid £280 for a Golf R for the coming year.

[ExSEAT]

Agree with Jerry, my normal thing would be to tell them to shove it after trying to rip me off on the renewal but the fact is that I can't really beat it by much after I've beat them down. Did it with privilege insurance when I was 21 to 25.

[Alpha2110]

An insurence company is only as good as the first time you make a claim. Direct line is very competitive however I have never put in a claim. What I am trying to say is if would not save a few penny's only to find when you do try an claim you get a load of problems. Personally I would ask people who have claimed for there opinion of a particular company then factor the price in.

There are so many factors, one insurence company that good for one person may not be right for another.

Try skoda insurence I found them expensive so in the end I went with aveva. I was insured with direct line for years but when I tried insuring the Skoda they wanted more as I claimed for a wind screen. It says somthing like have you claimed for anything , and a windscreen is included in that.

[village]

You claimed for £196!? That wouldn't even get passed my excess. Unfortunately every claim bumps your risk up, whether fault or not, especially under this low claim blame share agreements the insurers have in place

[ednmra]

While I always look at compare sites, I only go with a "known" company and although some outfits might be harder to deal with than others, the major companies always seem okay - though fortunately I have not had to find that out for many years.

A lot seem to rely on inertia. I was with LV for several years - it crept up and up for no good reason. E-Sure renewal quote however has been going DOWN each year without me even asking!

 

(One thing that always seems to work with big companies (not only insurers) is the threat of   justified bad publicity. I had a big problem with a well known travel agent - they sent my wife an air ticket but had wrongly put my first name on it, and refused to change it, even though the flight was still 6 weeks away. She would not have been allowed on the plane. I told them I was going to put the story out to every newspaper, TV action programme, my MP and everyone else I could think of.  Got the refund in 4 days.)

[Mikek3111]

I'm with kwik fit and pay £367 a year that with 4 years no claims and I'm 34 with 2 kids under 10

[fiisch]

I work in the industry and as has been said, there's no magic formula.  Insurers have differing risk appetites (hence why despite some DLG bashing on here, they continue to dominate the UK motor market - approx. 25% of all insured personal vehicles) so what works for me on my Octavia vRS in West Sussex might be a truly dreadful offering for Dave in East Sussex on his Golf GTi.

 

The only other thing you *could* try is repaying the £196 claim to the insurer - this will effectively see the claim settled as non-fault so might help you find a quote for £196 cheaper, but for the prices you've quoted I doubt it, as even a non-fault claim can count against you (it's statistics-driven, not personal - there's a general trend that if you've had a recent non-fault claim, you'll be more likely to make a fault claim in the near future).

 

Depending on your age; area etc., you could try some more niche players who don't operate on the aggregators (Google "insurer brokers for fast cars" - Flux are one of the main players, but there's also Sky; Allen & Allen; A Plan (Thatcham Branch) etc.).

 

Despite people having a fairly negative view of the cost of motor insurance, much of the market failed to market a profit this year on their personal lines offerings.  The cost of credit hire companies and personal injury claims are destroying the industry as a whole.

 

For the record - Octavia vRS TDi mk 3 insured for £270 aged 29...     But that is with a fairly hefty employee discount!

[davitc]

Just shop around, got my best deal, on GoCompare. Skoda were nearly worst because they only use a small number of underwriters and I guess I didn't fit their ideal risk (if thats the word I am looking for??). Worst company on GoCompare wanted nearly 10K, over 10 times what I paid.

 

I am mid forties, have been driving since 1988 but have not any no claims discount due to not having a car for a number of years, I have clean license and wouldn't say I live in a terribly bad area, car parked on street.

 

I gave up driving 6 years ago because my insurance went up 30-40% in one year through no fault of my own, I never made any claims, no one hit me, I didn't earn any points and I abided by the law  . I even shopped around and got much the same response from other brokers. Was it because some donut went into the back of me a year or 2 before??

Edited 5 March, 2016 by davitc

[Czechers]

I gave up driving 6 years ago because my insurance went up 30-40% in one year through no fault of my own, I never made any claims, no one hit me, I didn't earn any points and I abided by the law . I even shopped around and got much the same response from other brokers. Was it because some donut went into the back of me a year or 2 before??

I do recall premiums were generally horrendous about 6 years ago, that was round about the time I flogged my own car and took a company car, as I felt I was no longer getting good value. They have fallen quite a lot since then, but as someone in this thread has already said, insurance companies aren't doing that well at the moment and sadly premiums are on the rise again.