Do you know what really gets my goat!

davidjwest

Hintza wrote: »

If you had done that with the banks the dealers got the money not the shareholders. Imgine it is not much diffrent with the insurance companies. Same animal at the end of the day.

Depends on when you bought and sold, as with all shares.

The banks pay vastly more to their shareholders than to their staff, you just need to have a *lot* of shares.

Oldfatgrumpy

I've been with Churchill for 5 years now and my premiums are reasonable enough that I can't be bothered to shop around. Last year the premium (fully comp) went up mid year from £251 to £311 when I changed my car from a Ford Focus to a Honda Civic. I renewed in April this year, still with the Civic, it's down to £216.

Gloomendoom

davidjwest wrote: »

That's astronomical, do you get a free car with that?

When I was 17 I paid £500 to insure my first car, a Morris Marina, 3rd party F&T.

Ha ha! You were ripped off. Same car, same age, same cover... £150.

I'm only paying just over twice as much as that now for a group 43 car.

Horizon81

I'm sure insurance companies just make it up as they go along. Last time I was getting quotes I forgot to save the quote with one major company but I'd written the quote down as it was my best quote. I went back on the website a day later and the quote came back £50 cheaper, needless to say I signed up as quick as I could.
Also some places refuse to give you much of a discount come renewal time (Direct Line!) whereas others drop the price by a decent amount when you say you'll be going elsewhere. It's all a complete joke and thankfully the game only has to be played once a year.

Farzackerly

davidjwest wrote: »

That's astronomical, do you get a free car with that?

When I was 17 I paid £500 to insure my first car, a Morris Marina, 3rd party F&T. I am now paying almost £400 a year to insure my current car, a 2.0 Mondeo fully comp. I'm 41 years old, where's the discount for my experience and NCD etc?

OK so I know £500 was a lot more back in 1987 and as a percentage of my disposible income it was again much more, but still.

I have NEVER claimed on my car insurance, it's just like throwing money down the drain.

Have a look at this site...
http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/
Using that, I can see the premiums I remember my father paying in the mid-70s are on a par with what I'm paying now in real terms at the same age. So, it's not as bleak as it's painted. The value of money has plummetted in the near forty years, and even if claim figures and payouts are up, the overall cost to me is the same as it was back then to him.

dontone

I refuse to use comparison websites because I think that they don't half take the wee-wee.
I.E I had a Smart car a few years ago, my first car even though I had a licence a long time and went on one of those websites (think it was compare the market) to try for a good deal.
The cheapest one was through Diamond and it worked out to £550. The dearest was £2000 (yea right)
Taking the Diamond info, I went on Diamond's actual website and found the exact same policy for £301. So obviously I went for that. I now have a Pegueot, and last year went with Tesco because they worked out £100 cheaper than Diamond. This year they put the policy up £100 so shopping round, Direct Line was £258 so I phoned Tesco up and said "can you do better or I'm off".
Ended up with 1000 points extra and a policy for £250.
Always works out better for me if I go direct. Might be a little extra work but always worth it.

thor

Horizon81 wrote: »

I'm sure insurance companies just make it up as they go along. Last time I was getting quotes I forgot to save the quote with one major company but I'd written the quote down as it was my best quote. I went back on the website a day later and the quote came back £50 cheaper, needless to say I signed up as quick as I could.
Also some places refuse to give you much of a discount come renewal time (Direct Line!) whereas others drop the price by a decent amount when you say you'll be going elsewhere. It's all a complete joke and thankfully the game only has to be played once a year.

I agree.
We have been conditioned unintentionally by the media into believing that premiums have to rise hugely due to fraud, legal costs, more accidents etc. This has given insurance companies the green light to raise premiums more than is required. Sure some may have seen a small decrease but the vast majority are paying waaaaaay more so I can't believe that insurers are still losing money.