Cheap Car Insurance Article Discussion

Former_MSE_Dan · 14 February 2012 at 5:26PM

Hi everyone,

This thread is to discuss our new Cheap Car Insurance system, which splits up the best buy comparison sites depending on who you are - eg, young drivers, those with points, those who have made claims, got a company car etc.

Please let us know what you think.
Click reply below to discuss. If you haven’t already, join the forum to reply. If you aren’t sure how it all works, watch our New to Forum? Intro Guide.

This is the continuation of the old Car Insurance discussion, which can be found here.

Thanks.

Suncrush · 15 February 2012 at 10:51AM

One category that might be useful to add, is the one for people who have been driving company cars most of their life, but are now giving up their company car, and so they need to find out the best deal for someone who has not had to find their own personal car insurance. I have had company cars for years and also been a named driver for my wife's car, so would like to know who is most likely to take into account my years and years of safe driving?

regards

spikescot2005 · 15 February 2012 at 1:31PM

Also it would be good to add a section for new drivers that have just passed their test.

mikey72 · 15 February 2012 at 3:32PM

No matter which group I look at, it seems to be the same list of the affiliates who pay the MSE website for click throughs.

On the first glance, the glaring omission is collingwood, whereas provisional marmalade, and endsleigh affiliates are linked through.

I haven't really looked at the others.

0james0 · 15 February 2012 at 9:06PM

I like the new style, it is certainly better, however, still needs a few tweaks, mainly to make it idiot proof, for, well idiots like me!

- When I clicked on "multiple cars in household" in swooped me down the page as expected, however it had defaulted me to the "typical driver tab" so I read all of that before realising I needed to click again on the "multiple cars" tab

- It also gives the impression unless you really read the writing, that Tesco will give you 98% cheaper results, as opposed to the fact you will have cheaper results because you have already searched all the other comparison sites.

j2011 · 15 February 2012 at 9:14PM

What about a section for over 65 retired from work drivers?

javifernandes · 15 February 2012 at 11:32PM

Hi all,

I have tried this new guide for my case, but I feel is a very tricky one.
My car renewal is £313 for a full comprehensive, not too bad.
The issue is that I am planning to export the car in two and a half months (by driving it to Spain)
My company is switchcover. If I cancel the insurance up to 3 months I get back only 60% of the total paid minus an admin fee of 50 something pounds. At the end I will end up paying around £175 for only 3 months (this is without including the extra cost they might want to charge me for european cover for the last two weeks).
I have looked at every option, monthly instalments, temporary insurance (only up to 28 days), but I can not see any way on how to save some money.
Is there anybody who had a similar case and might know a better way to deal with this case?? Thanks

mcmillanb · 24 February 2012 at 3:10PM

Hi,

I've been looking round for insurance and as usual using Martin's recommended method. I have gone through the comparison sites and then went to Quidco to see what cashback offers there were and I noticed on my profile that they have an Insurance Quotes tab that I have never noticed before.

The idea is that you can get your quotes and it automatically shows you what cashback you can get through quidco, adjusting the order to rank the price after cashback. I have no idea how many insurers it compares, but I had a go and it came out with a quote (before cashback!) that was cheaper than the others I have found so far. It also allowed me to specify £0 voluntary excess when some other comparison sites 'assume' an automatic £200 or more,sometimes you can't remove it entirely either.

I was wondering if it is worth including or at least mentioning it in the guide.

Living in Birmingham there doesn't seem to be any such thing as cheap car insurance so I still have some haggling to do but thought it was worth a mention.

mikey72 · 24 February 2012 at 3:36PM

I found quidco was the cheapest for us, same list of insurers as other sites, but a better price. Then cashback.
I don't think MSE get a clich through fee from them though.

charlieheard · 25 February 2012 at 1:57PM

Just reinsuring my second car, which is a 40 year-old MG (actually it was my first ever car and I've had it since 1985). I was quoted £123 by Lancaster (compared to £99 last year) which seemed fairly steep percentage increase. I had a look at comparison sites, and my current insurer came out near the top at £88, below some companies I'd never heard of a few pounds cheaper. Had a look at Quidco and TopCashBack, and the latter offered £23.50 cashback, taking it to £64

As I was doing this, I got an email and then a phonecall from Lancaster, asking if I wanted to renew. When I said I was getting lower quotes, they asked how much. When I told them £80-90, the lady on the other end said she could only do me a £15 discount :mad: I just wish they'd do that in the first place.

Anyway, I went via TCB and got it for roughly ½ the original quote - result:beer:

angelcakes_smw · 28 February 2012 at 12:08PM

Insurance is an absolute joke!! I've had enough of all this crap now and if I didnt need a car to get to work then I wouldnt bother keeping it.

I ran quotes last month just to see what we would potentially be looking at, I thought the prices then were ridiculous but compared to now, boy was I wrong! My renewal is due at the end of March so I have no officially started getting 'real' quotes. I have been driving for 2 years, have 2 years no claims, now live in an area which doesnt resemble an up and coming war zone, have done my pass plus, what's the deal?!

I have used Martin's new guide and I am still unable to get insurance any less than £1219.88 for the year 0.o I checked every single site he listed as well as some extras that arent listed. The three companies that came up top the most often were Diamond, Bell and Elephant. All three had a slightly different price to the next which I find amazing as they are all quite clearly part of the same company. Also, after checking 9 different comparison sites, inputting the same information each time I have never once ended up with the same price from any of these companies. How can they even do this? Does this not just prove they make figures up dependant upon how they feel at that particular time?? My quotes ranged from the above figure of £1219.88 to £1505.02 with the same company, same car, same driver, same details all round entered on the same day within a couple of hours of each other.....how can this vary so much??

I thought that perhaps it might be better if I traded my current car in and got a smaller one just for work so I ran a quote on quite a few 1.2L cars and they all came out at more expensive than my big family car! What?!?! How?!? I think the industry is a farce and it really makes me want to boycot the whole thing. Of course, being a law abiding citizen all round I am unable to do this...but it is tempting!

Cheap Car Insurance Article Discussion

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free