It's Car Ins. renewal time - and once again its gone up 41%

MikeyMacbeth

Firstly apologies if this sounds like a rant (it probably is) but this winds me up every year...

Swiftcover Car insurance due for renewal 23/04, last year paid £343.92, this year they want £484.94 - a rise of ~41%. No claims in this last year or significant change of circumstances (has there really been a huge increase in the overall rate of accidents or crime locally in the last year? by 41%?!) - so why the massive increase?

If I was cynical (or perhaps assuming the insurance industry is) I would guess that because the renewal happens automatically the insurers are just gambling that most people won't get round to shopping around, or even checking how much they paid last time, so can hit you with a rise of nearly ten times inflation...

Anyone aware of any insurance companies that do actually reward customer loyalty? or at least just don't try it on? Are there any political or campaigning moves afoot to regulate the industry? - perhaps stopping the practice of auto-renewal might be a start...

In self defence these days I think consumers have to be organised almost business/military-style along the lines of budgeting the time and setting reminders when it comes to insurance renewal etc

Or is it just that the insurance industry is now geared towards churning their customers over every year? - are there any insurance company insiders out there who can let us know if this is now pretty much standard policy within the industry?

(yeah I know, the insurance companies will argue it's for their customers convienience so that their car insurance doesn't run out, as they are keen to point out continous insurance coverage is now law - personally I don't find that convienience worth another £141 on my policy)

So I guess it's the time to do the annual chore of running round all the comparison sites (couple of years ago I ended up cancelling my renewal and then signing up with the same company again becuase they couldn't match their own new customers offer - yep, it's that old "brand new customers only" madness again) Shame that I have to do this but there you are... ;-)

Rant over - hope you don't mind too much, good to get it off my chest.

Straw poll - who would stay with their current car insurers and not shop around if the renewal quote was at inflation or below? (or even, Gasp!, lower than the previous year).

(stop frowning Martin - I know it would be better to shop around in any case but sometimes the effort is wearying...)

simpywimpy

Hubbys insurance has just been renewed from Swinton (provident) to direct line and a nice saving of £100

Cubbington

I don't think they do it cus people won't check especially in the current financial climate as people are always shopping around for everything.

They just seem to want new business, it's very rare that a current insurer actually offers you something to stay initially, they just offer to match if you find something cheaper.

I'm yet to get my official renewal letter through but from my other post I've been shopping around and car insurance for me varies from just under £600 (with Tesco) to over £3000 (with Quinn direct, who must be crazy!) and most of the included items are the same (car hire, legal cover, £75 windscreen excess, £250 accident excess).

I think even if I'd received the same or lower from my current insurer then I'd still shop around to make sure I'm getting the best deal.

MikeyMacbeth

Cubbington wrote: »

I don't think they do it cus people won't check especially in the current financial climate as people are always shopping around for everything.

They just seem to want new business, it's very rare that a current insurer actually offers you something to stay initially, they just offer to match if you find something cheaper.

That seems to be the way they play it - just seems a bit mad to me from their perspective that if the renewal price was reasonable people would have less reason to shop around, therefore they would have better customer retention and less to spend on marketing to gain fresh vict... err.. customers. Guess they must have the numbers so it must make some kind of business sense, just not much from the customers point of view:-)

tbourner

Mine was £460 last year with Endsleigh, this years renewal was £1678!! :eek:

Needless to say I spent a long time shopping around, and got a new quote through Adrian Flux (with Equity Redstar) for £455.

//edit: I'm 29, 10 years NCB, no accidents/convictions/points/anything.

onehitwonder

Pays to check every year.
About 4 years ago I was with Natwest and they sent through a renewal which was quite a lot higher.
I did comparisons and also checked their site as a new insure.
Eventually ended up going through Quidco and getting about £60 cashback (after clearing cookies to ensure comparison sites didn't reap the rewards) but still insured with Natwest.
Annoying thing was setting up a new insurance was about 30% cheaper than just accepting their renewal. I wouldn't have gone with them if they weren't the cheapest at the time as this annoyed me.

Couple of years ago LV were cheapest so went with them. My renewal the year after was competitive so I did renew with them.

With Admiral this year though.

Again saved loads shopping around each year.

MikeyMacbeth

tbourner wrote: »

Mine was £460 last year with Endsleigh, this years renewal was £1678!! :eek:

Needless to say I spent a long time shopping around, and got a new quote through Adrian Flux (with Equity Redstar) for £455.

//edit: I'm 29, 10 years NCB, no accidents/convictions/points/anything.

Impressive - 264% increase! think you've set the thread record there :T what did you do - change jobs to being a film stunt driver or something?

lisyloo

Generally you have to shop around every year.
I've been with a company called ebike who gave good renewal premiums. They are a motorbike insurer but the sister company is ecar.
They have some good points and some bad points.
Good points are that they are cheap and you can make adjustments on-line which sometimes you don't get charged for (there is no manual internvention). This is good as you can add another driver on a weekend etc.
One bad point is that if you need to speak to anyone then it's very difficult because they are an on-line company.
Review and anecdotes are mixed.

Personally I wouldn't take out my insurance on one criteria alone e.g. price.
You need to look at service, claims experience etc.

But generally most companies rely on people not shopping around so to get a good deal you need to shop around.
Has been like that for decades.

MikeyMacbeth

lisyloo wrote: »

Generally you have to shop around every year.
I've been with a company called ebike who gave good renewal premiums. They are a motorbike insurer but the sister company is ecar.
They have some good points and some bad points.
Good points are that they are cheap and you can make adjustments on-line which sometimes you don't get charged for (there is no manual internvention). This is good as you can add another driver on a weekend etc.
One bad point is that if you need to speak to anyone then it's very difficult because they are an on-line company.

Current insurers (switfcover) are online only as well - I have no objection to that and am quite happy to play by those rules (bit of text on their site that says they reserve the right to charge you £30 admin charge to speak to someone on the phone as they are online only to keep costs down) - but I must admit I was slightly suprised and disappointed to see that they did the whole silly quote for renewal thing like everyone else - was expecting better of them somehow - I wonder if they'll contact me to try and do better now I've cancelled the renewal? - I simply selected the "too Expensive" option when I did so earlier...

It does seem a shame that as far as I'm aware there's not one insurance company that doesn't play this game with their customers though...I must be just old-fashioned I suppose :-)

tbourner

MikeyMacbeth wrote: »

Impressive - 264% increase! think you've set the thread record there :T what did you do - change jobs to being a film stunt driver or something?

I did wonder if they'd got me mixed up with someone else. Nothing changed apart from being 1 year older and 1 more year claim free. :think:

Cubbington

I was with Directline last year and had 5 years named driver no claims and 2 years outright and yet they sent me a renewal through at silly prices. I phoned them up and the person in the call centre couldn't have cared less and said unfortunately it was irrelevant that I was a loyal customer!

I eventually last year went with Admiral, who are owed by the same !!!!!!! parent company, and they were miles cheaper with more included (never had a hire car on the policy before as I worked for a hire car company and could get one free)

I mean in this day and age I don't think loyalty is something insurance companies care about, they just want lots of money in and very little claims to pay out. It does seem ridiculous to pay all that money in marketing for new customers with no care of keeping existing ones.

NB: I'd check the job description thing as last year when I took out my new policy my job could be described in varying ways and the difference was about £20 (my job title is nice and ambigious)