Car insurance premium almost doubled for no reason I can see?

lukeh23

I have been insured with an underwriter through 'esure' for the past year and through no ones fault but my own I did not get around to confirming the renewal until a day after the policy had run out. Plain and simple it was my fault, what with them being closed over Christmas with the extra two days bank holidays falling over to Monday and Today (Tuesday) I got caught out with opening times.

So I called 'esure' and the CSR said 'not a problem, I can just enter your details again, is there anything else that you may have changed since the last quote?' to which the answer was 'No'. You see only 3 weeks ago I was in contact with esure as I changed my car. I did have a BMW 3 series coupe which I changed to a smaller standard 1 series diesel (cheaper less sporty model). When I did this I was told my renewal would be £437 fully comp taking into consideration 7 years NCB I have.

Expecting it to be a little more I was quite gobsmacked when he told me they could not insure me as the quote coming back was over a £1000. I asked him how could it be that the price could jump over £600 (could have been more as he only said it was over £1000) to which he said he did not know, but did helpfully add 'well they have gone up a bit recently'.

So in effect I said I would take my money elsewhere and I was confused about their business model.

So now I am hitting the price comparison websites using saved details from previous quotes (in the hope of getting a close to the last estimate) - the cheapest quote I can now find is £779. How is it the I should be paying £350 more when nothing has changed in my circumstances?

For the record I have had my license for over 20 years. Own my own home, store the car on a driveway in a fairly low crime rate area.

Is this due to it being December? Should I just leave the car at home and try again in Jan?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

foxyuk

Call esure again and ask to be transferred thru to underwriting dept and ask them to look at it whilst u are on phone they will refer it and hopefully reasses it

don't be fibbed off with when u call the no initially that the customer services operator can help. Don't go into it they can't help so don't explain u want underwriting dept end of

lukeh23

Hi foxyuk,

I just tried that - they said the underwriting department would not take calls directly so they got a manager on the line. She just parroted out the same stuff saying there had been a lot of personal accident claims over the past year which unfortunately meant 'everyone was having to pay for it'.

I am quite livid about this. I actually had an accident (not my fault, someone back ended me and so it was claimed through the other persons insurance company after them having accepting full responsibility) and the past 3 to 4 years my wife has been bombarded by Indian call centres asking if I wanted to claim for personal injury. I always declined as I like to be honest and had BT block them as they would not stop calling. I am thinking of reversing the tables and getting in contact with them now to make a claim.

Now the comparison sites are all quoting 700 odd. I thought insurance was meant to get cheaper?

Thanks

Luke

olly300

December is one of the cheapest months to renew insurance policies.

However if you search this board you will find that lots of people this year are getting more expensive quotes than in previous years and so have a more expensive premium. If your lucky your quote will be the same rather than increase. And all this is for people who have not had an accident this year regardless of whether they had "no claims" protection or not.

lukeh23

olly300 wrote: »

December is one of the cheapest months to renew insurance policies.

So I guess I am going to have to bite the bullet and pay and extra 300 pounds as it sounds like it will go up even more in Jan?

Here is another funny thing - I changed the excess from £500 to £0 and I got a cheaper quote. These companies are just pulling out the figures from their rectum.

foxyuk

lukeh23 wrote: »

Hi foxyuk,

I just tried that - they said the underwriting department would not take calls directly so they got a manager on the line. She just parroted out the same stuff saying there had been a lot of personal accident claims over the past year which unfortunately meant 'everyone was having to pay for it'.

I am quite livid about this. I actually had an accident (not my fault, someone back ended me and so it was claimed through the other persons insurance company after them having accepting full responsibility) and the past 3 to 4 years my wife has been bombarded by Indian call centres asking if I wanted to claim for personal injury. I always declined as I like to be honest and had BT block them as they would not stop calling. I am thinking of reversing the tables and getting in contact with them now to make a claim.

Now the comparison sites are all quoting 700 odd. I thought insurance was meant to get cheaper?

Thanks

Luke

ok call 0141 248 3377 thats switchboard at glasgow ask for motor underwriting... you will get put thru.. may have skeleton staff so poss better trying tomorrow if no joy

i am insured with esure and used to work for them you will be put thru

lukeh23

foxyuk wrote: »

ok call 0141 248 3377 thats switchboard at glasgow ask for motor underwriting... you will get put thru.. may have skeleton staff so poss better trying tomorrow if no joy

i am insured with esure and used to work for them you will be put thru

They just won't have it - they keep telling me I cannot speak with them directly.

I'm now off to see if I can take out a injury claim - if you can't beat them join them I figure. Is there a forum for this?

dunstonh

I changed the excess from £500 to £0 and I got a cheaper quote. These companies are just pulling out the figures from their rectum.

One assumes that you are talking about two different companies and not the same insurer. The company cheaper at nil voluntary excess may not have offered a £500 excess or was not interested in having people with £500 xs.

Car insurance premium almost doubled for no reason I can see?

You may have heard about the credit crunch and global recession.

Esure are cherry picking low risk stuff and pricing higher risk stuff more expensive, like many of the others.

lisyloo

I'm now off to see if I can take out a injury claim

How long ago was your injury?
Did you visit a doctor/hospital at the time?

no-oneknowsme

Op , you said in an earlier post that since your non-fault accident your wife has been receiving calls about claiming..you say this has been happening for 3-4 years?

From this statement i am guessing that your accident was 3-4 years ago?

Do you realise that you onlu have 3 years from the accident date to lodge a claim against the other party?

As lisyloo correctly points out also , if you didnt visit a doctor or hospital at the time of the accident and present with injuries from the accident then how are you going to prove that you actually received injuries?

mikey72

dunstonh wrote: »

One assumes that you are talking about two different companies and not the same insurer. The company cheaper at nil voluntary excess may not have offered a £500 excess or was not interested in having people with £500 xs.

Try it yourself, get to the end of the quote, you can always tweak the excesses, and quite often going down the excess will give cheaper insurance as well as going up. There is usually a whole band that has no effect on the premium as well.
Works for both car and home insurance.