Changing Car - Admiral

brett316

I am looking to change the car I currently have on a multicar policy to a newer bigger car. Obviously this is going to cost me extra for the size of the car im upgrading to and after having done a new multicar quote on admiral it came to about £15-20 extra a month which I expected.

I then rang Admiral and they told me it would cost around £300 to change the policy as the value of the car is almost £2000 more than the previous and then on top of that an additional £80 A MONTH!! At one point they said premiums have gone up but to have my insurance pretty much double with a quote over the phone compared to it being only slightly more expensive with a brand new quote.

Surely this can not be correct if common sense was used it could be matched to what I was quoted online? Even cancelling the whole policy and taking out a new one works out a few hundred quid cheaper

dunstonh

Surely this can not be correct if common sense was used it could be matched to what I was quoted online?

Depends on whether they are discounting first year prices with online quotes. Sometimes year one discounting can be as high as 40%.

You could ask them why its more. You can even complain if you dont agree with it and feel something is wrong in their pricing (it may be a keying error that you cant see).

ihateyes

i have been with elephant a couple years now, have to say no problem, i was paying around £380 for a clio, and have since, went to a 1.4 megane coupe, and now to 1.8 mondeo, and im now at £580, which i think is fair..... my premiums have always been inbetween £37 and £54ish....

breaking that £60 barrier would be heart breaking

brett316

ihateyes wrote: »

i have been with elephant a couple years now, have to say no problem, i was paying around £380 for a clio, and have since, went to a 1.4 megane coupe, and now to 1.8 mondeo, and im now at £580, which i think is fair..... my premiums have always been inbetween £37 and £54ish....

breaking that £60 barrier would be heart breaking

Do you pay for your insurance monthly? Did they charge a large amount to change the policy and was it part way through an existing policy?

Peter_L

I can vouch a similar thing happened to me earlier this year, when renewing my multi car policy with a newer car. My actual renewal was £300 more than when I got a new quote online with them with EXACTLY the same details. When I rang them up to check, they agreed it was more expensive on the renewal and offered to match the online price - no questions asked nor explanations given ...

InsideInsurance

New customer discount, its fairly standard in many industries and certainly not just insurance.

Some insurers are getting better IT systems though that now recognise an existing customer returning for a new business quote and that then either decline to quote or quote exactly what they receive in their renewal.

Brand loyalty certainly can help you when you make a claim but rarely when your talking premium

brett316

Rang them again and they quoted about £550 for the next 6-7 months so about £80 extra a month is right. However I asked about cancelling and then applying again and he said with all my payments about up to date a cancellation fee would be very little.

So infact I could cancel and then re apply and get a quote for probably about £550 cheaper and even if they do notice new polices I could just go with Bell or Elephant for pretty much the same quotes. Does mean I lose 5-6 months so far towards another years no claims though.

That or I stay on the same policy, see if I can maybe get it dropped to £70 a month extra or something for the next 6-7 months, get a 2nd years No claims and then apply for a new quote after this.

InsideInsurance

Bell and Elephant are also both part of the Admiral group anyway.

If you cancel the policy and buy new you lose any months NCD you had accrued

brett316

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Bell and Elephant are also both part of the Admiral group anyway.

If you cancel the policy and buy new you lose any months NCD you had accrued

They are but they are different companies so it wouldnt be as if I was going straight back to the same company so I cant see they would refuse the quote.

It is significantly cheaper to cancel and start again though, roughly about £90-100 a month compared with £150-160

spikyone

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Bell and Elephant are also both part of the Admiral group anyway.

If you cancel the policy and buy new you lose any months NCD you had accrued

Oddly enough when I've come to renewal I've managed to knock £100 off my Elephant renewal for the last two years, by giving them a quote from Admiral, which has been cheapest. So the OP could get cheaper insurance from one of those. I wouldn't expect Admiral to match them if the OP is changing car mid-year though, they'll probably play the "you'll lose your NCD if you cancel" card.

Your earlier post is right, Elephant won't re-quote as I'm an existing customer...

InsideInsurance

Yes, different brands owned by the same company can have totally different rating tables to each other giving vastly different prices.

What they shouldn't do is compete against themselves or worse still offer to under cut one of their sister brands. A lot of that will depend on how the organisation is structure behind the scenes, certainly Churchill call centre sales staff used to override premiums to under cut Direct Line by £5 despite the fact they were both part of RBS Insurance.