Rising Car insurance

onlineo

In 2008 I paid £340 for car insurance. I got a free pressure washer which I ebayed for £89, and £55 cashback.

In 2009 I paid £435 for car insurance, and got £120 cashback.

In 2010 my best quote is £495 with no cashback, (£540 renewal).

I am 27 male, driver a 2004 diesel Alfa 147 worth upto £4000. The only change to my circumstances is that I have gone from having 5 years no claims to 7 years no claims bonus. I have spent about 18 hours going through different insurance options and have used virtually all the tips I can find including adding other people to my insurance etc.

The question I have is how can I reduce my quote. It keeps going up, next year I expect the cheapest quote I will have will be £600!

Last year when I told my insurer I had a better quote they beat it by £40 on the phone, (as the cashback was £120, I did not bite). Should I just try my luck and say I have a £250 quote from company X and am leaving and see if they offer me something cheap? This sounds kinda wrong to me, but with 10 years of driving under my belt, I have paid over £6000 out in premiums and never claimed anything back. I am not a perfect driver, I could have an accident any day... but with 10 years of no accidents, no points and no claims you would think that insurers would value my history more and prices would come down quite a bit.

1 insurance company that says it offers 90% no claims bonus gave me a quote of £1300! So without the no claims bonus it would have been over £10k!!! My car is not that powerful. O-60 in ten seconds, it averages 50mpg for heavens sake!

lisyloo

Car insurance is going up generally.
There are many reasons for this e.g. increasing costs, increasing personaly injury claims etc.

It's nothing to do with you and beyond doing all the shopping around there is nothing you can do. You jsut have to decide whether it's still worth driving a car, or whether alternatives are more worhwhile.

I don't have a car.
I hire one for £30 per day when I need one, but I guess the decision revolves around how much you need one.

raskazz

It's not that the price that you have obtained this year is expensive - it's that the prices in prior years were ridiculously cheap - in 2008 (after the gift and cashback) your premium would equate to around £200, which for a 25 year-old at the time is ridiculous pricing.

Most private car insurers are making losses at present so rates are increasing substantially to more realistic levels.

Quote

onlineo wrote: »

I have spent about 18 hours going through different insurance options...

Please tell me you're joking.

1956

hi
Well for one I believe him, as between me and the wife we have spent the best part of two days on phone calls (dread the bill) and trawling the internet to get affordable insurance for my 17 year old son who passed his test day before yesterday, the highest was £8000.00 (honest) and we got it down (use the word down loosely) to £1500.00, took it out 1 pm today.

Quote

I believe him, I just think it's a bit of a waste of time. At which point did you get the quote for £1500?

1956

hi
well like they say its always the last place you look especially when it should have been one of the first ,well alphabetically (Aviva on line), but only tried another two lines after, ( did all compare sites, all direct sites even visited a broker who included aviva and came up with 4 K cheapest!) and decided enough was enough and when back and bought it, oh and when we tried to but it by phone they said it would be another £35.00, and suggested we whent back on line to but as they could not give the same discount as on line !!!
now got fingers crossed and hands firmly clasped in prayer!!:rotfl:

dacouch

1956 wrote: »

hi
well like they say its always the last place you look especially when it should have been one of the first ,well alphabetically (Aviva on line), but only tried another two lines after, ( did all compare sites, all direct sites even visited a broker who included aviva and came up with 4 K cheapest!) and decided enough was enough and when back and bought it, oh and when we tried to but it by phone they said it would be another £35.00, and suggested we whent back on line to but as they could not give the same discount as on line !!!
now got fingers crossed and hands firmly clasped in prayer!!:rotfl:

The a to z method is good except if your last quote is from Zenith and they are the cheapest as they are cheap for a reason...

P.S If it's always the last place you look, it might be worth looking there first

1956

hi dacouch
Trouble is you never know where the last place is going to be when you start looking!! e.g do you start at A or Z because when you start you dont know if a or z will be the cheapest???????:rotfl:
and having being made redundent by norwich union i swore i would never give them a penny!! ah well needs must when you are a money saver.
dean.m

adamc260

Tell everyone to stop claiming whiplash when they're not hurt, tell people to stop going into credit hire and i'm sure that'll help out insurance prices

1956

hi adamc260

i am afraid you are preaching to the converted , i am a insurance assessor /engineer for a large insurer and see on a daily basis the fraud. Inflated claims, etc etc , I do try to combat them but it’s a hard battle with your hands tied by the f.o.s and managers with no backbone (but as I keep getting told I don’t see the bigger picture!!)
dont get me going, or we will stry off topic! sorry to the op
dean.m