Cheaper car insurance - Updated 14.03.08

System

Last year my hubby and I got our 18 yr daughter a car and on advice the car was insured in my name using my full no claims bonus with her and hubby as named drivers. That meant the insurance for my own car had no no claims bonus but I was given some discount for my age.
This year however when we were shopping around for a quote for my own insurance which expires in a few days no one would quote as I already had insurance with full no claims for my daughters car and we had to stick with AXA direct. £450 for a Picasso.
We were planning on my daughter getting her own insurance when she goes to university in Newcastle upon Tyne in the autumn and putting my no claims back to my car.

Confused yet ???

We were perfectly upfront about what we were doing when we were changing the insurance about last year and no one indicated that this might cause problems getting quotes in the future. Has anyone had a similar experience with their kids and insurance.

Veeeight

Cheaper car insurance, what a contradiction! Perhaps if dealers hadn't offered free insurance a few years back us young 'uns might have appreciated the cost of first time insurance and as a result not stuffed endless saxos into random fields! After this insurance was nigh on impossible for new drivers. My insurance dropped by nearly £700 last year with Zurich but I still had to fork out over £1000 for a '00 1.4 clio, is every 21 year old in the same boat? Will I ever get insured on the mustang, see pic.

arkonite_babe

veeeight, welcome to the NI board. Hope you find a wealth of info here

System

Anyone got any ideas for cheap(ish) bike insurance... just been trying the Bennetts website and they want £1000 for a 125cc bike! Once again they ask my occupation. What in the name of all that's holy has that got to do with anything? I work in the media, and somehow that seems to mean I'm more of a risk. No insurance company has ever been able to provide evidence of this. (The last reason that I was given regarding my car insurance was that I might be driving someone famous around. Well at least they can't use that excuse with bike insurance.)

Another thing is that no company I have EVER had insurance from understand what I do. It's a specialist job and it's never on their list so they hummm and haaaa for ages before settling on something irrelevant (but still in the media).

shellymac

You could try your local Farmers Union - my hubby got van insurance with them which was much cheaper than anyone else he tried. You dont have to be a farmer to get insurance with them but you do have to pay a membership fee (£40 odd) and you become a Farmers Union Member - that was definitely the best bit!!lol ;D
Go on, give them a go..I will be trying them when the car insurance is up.

wirm

UFU can be good!

Depends on vechile etc!

julieb81

Hi all,

I'm female from Belfast, and got a Saxo 1.0i 5yrs ago at 17yrs old with 3yrs free insurance (through Direct Line). I crashed in 2000 & by end of the 3 years I had 2yrs NCB and was getting quotes like £5-7,000, thought I had to give up the car but managed to get insured with Direct Line again for £1,700 for me & my partner (19 year old male), which wasn't bad at the time. This year I've paid £950 through Diamond.co.uk, includin interest from Direct Debit, for the 2 of us, and now my insurance is due again in 2weeks, I've been getting quotes: (just for myself this time, I have 4yrs NCB)

Diamond's renewal quote was £760 before interest/online discount, £896 after!! Only £56 cheaper even though its just me on the insurance and I've never claimed off them. Contacted Autodeduct (they use Axa insurance, special rates for civil servants, which I am) and they quoted me £550, interest free payments. Then tried a few others, Abbey came in at £536 before interest, and Open & Direct a great £490! (excluding DD interest again). This was through Axa, so was able to go back to Autodeduct and say this and I'm now getting it for £475, which includes legal cover, breakdown cover & replacement car etc. Tried phoning Axa directly and they said they won't insure under 25's! Bit strange...

So I'm well pleased!

Altho I'm looking a new (bigger!) car so things might change! Maybe I should wait a few years...!

Good luck everyone,

Julie

System

Just spent 15 minutes filling in my details on confused.com, only to get this reply!!

"We’ve finishing searching the Internet for cheaper car insurance for you; unfortunately, we haven’t managed to get any prices from our insurance partners.

The reason is that a lot of insurers are just dipping their toes in the water on the Internet so they put a few extra rules on their underwriting online; this is particularly the case for Northern Ireland residents. That doesn’t mean to say you can’t always get a quote but we’d recommend you try the phone as well."

I was only trying to insure a family saloon, I'm over 40 (by a couple of days) and no convictions or the like!!

System

Be wary of Quinn Insurance, my daughter had problems with them when she insured her car earlier this year.

They claimed that she had not returned paper work and cancelled her cover, which she was not aware of (she was driving around for 3 weeks with no cover) until she contacted them to ask why her certificate of insurance had not been issued. No notification of them having cancelled the original agreement. She had great difficulty to get the entire problem sorted out and will happily pay more next time to a more competent company. >:(

I am also aware of another person who has had a bad experience with them. One of the problems appears to be that even though they are based in Enniskillen Northern Ireland any letters, documents etc. that they send out go through the Republic of Ireland's postal system which takes much longer to reach the customer this leaves little time to the customer to sign paper work and rerturn within the time limit.

System

Has Gareth Hunter emigrated! Several left messages and now no answer at all. Hmmmm!
Does anyone else find the insurance market the most frustrating and inconsistent thing. No-one seems to be immediately available in most places and promised callbacks rarely occur. The criteria in terms of accident history, no claims, protected bonus, etc varies incredibly.
So much for someone doing all the hard work for you for £20!!!