Changing car insurance - who to choose nightmare!

stardust09

I would like to change my car insurance company because they are charging me £400 to renew my policy for my little 9 year old Vauxhall Corsa with a six years protected no claims bonus. I am a 32 year old female driver who's had a licence for 15 years and owned a car for the last six years.

My dilemma is whether the cheaper quotes from other companies at £300 are false economy or whether all is more or less the same when it comes to insurance. I tried reading online reviews but, to be honest, all insurance companies get horrific reviews because that's the nature of the game, I guess.

This is giving me a headache and I don't know what to do! My worry i that I change to a cheaper company then have to make my first ever claim and find myself in nightmare world. However, my current insurer also gets pretty bad reviews online!

Does anyone have any pointers?

Thanks.

karenw

I think i would go with the cheaper quotes, my car is 8 years old yet my insurance is over a grand :eek:

lisyloo

I don't think reviews are that helpful in that

1) The people that are motivated to write them are mostly people who've had bad experiences.
2) Generally people expect more from insurance than they are entitled to so they are pretty much bound to be dissapointed.

I would go for a cheaper policy and perhaps consider a little bit of self-insurance.
i.e. put the extra £100 in an account.
Over time it will increase and then if you do find yourself with an unexpected excess or items not covered (like a sat nav as an exmaple) then just use this money to pay for it.

clairehi

Be careful what the excess is on your insurance quotes as this makes quite a difference to the premium.

It is really hard to buy insurance because you usually dont find out if youve got all the cover you need or if the customer service is rubbish until you make a claim, so you find out the hard way. As you say, the only people who post reviews are those who have had problems.

we have been with Aviva/Norwich Union for years for car insurance and they have consistently come out at the cheap end of the range for us, but obviously it depends on your own circumstances.

have had to make 4 claims in last 10 years and never had any problems with them customer service wise. couple of the claims we thought were not our fault, but Aviva were not interested in arguing the toss with the other insurer, which was obviously a pain in losing no claims but to be honest I am sure it would be the same with any other ins. co.

I am sure someone will be along with a nightmare story about Aviva any minute!

newbie007_2

I change company every year because its cheaper to do so with going through cashback site. Car insurance virtually offers the same sort of cover whoever u go with, only minor points differ here and there. Go with the cheaper quote.

lisyloo

I am sure someone will be along with a nightmare story about Aviva any minute!

They have a very bad reputation on here.

One of the problems if that I think people expect too much from their car insurance.
If you have an accident and there are no independent witnesses or CCTV then it's practically impossile to prove who was at fault.
What often happens is that the party at fault lies or at least remebers differently and the claim is often settled 50/50.
On a fairness basis this is very unsatifactory for the innocent party, but what can insurers do?
If they increased the cost of claims and premiums by a factor of 5 by introducing lie detector tests and foresnsic investigators then people would complain about the cost.

I am afraid that mostly you are going to be unsatisfied with insurance. That's just life.
But people's experiences vary as Claire shows.
My in-law had good expeirence from Norwich Union (now Aviva) so experiences really can vary depending on the scenario and which staff you get.