Car insurance... Am I doing something wrong?

Samboskull

It's come to that time of year when I had to grind through comparison websites filling out endless forms to renew my car insurance. I passed my driving test just before I hit 18, and my first car was a Toyota RAV-4, that I still have now. It's been faithful for the past 3 years, but it's starting to wear down now (It is an N reg after all) so I decided to change. I ended up acquiring a W reg Ford Puma for a small £300.

Now be under no illusion that my insurance has been cheap, my first year of insurance was £1200. When it ended, Endsleigh said that they could no longer offer me the same insurance conditions, but could still insure me "under their great value for money service" for £3500.

Yeah, you know where I told them to stick that. So anyways, I got re insured for £1500.. With Endsleigh. Don't know how I managed that but I did, still, my premium went up £300 after a week solid of trying to get it down. Next year rolls around, Endsleigh send me a letter, "Renewal quote" at the whopping price of £Thanks for being a careful driver for the past two years but foxtrot oscar, we're not insuring you.

After much agony filling out forms AGAIN, I manage to get insured for £1500 again this time through autotrader and as a secondary (Something that I was not proud of, because it meant I lost my no claims and had to share my car)

So now it ends, I try and insure this Ford puma, I heard Endsleigh had gone cheap for young drivers again, I filled out the form, slapped enter, and wow! £1148! Oh wait, thats a month. Cheapest I can get is £3100, and on my old RAV is £2200. Two month ago I roughly tried to insure the Puma (before I bought it) and it was £2200 and the RAV was £1200 (cheaper than a same age 1.2 corsa, which was £1400). WHAT THE HELL!? I have three weeks before my insurance on the RAV is up and then I'm walking across town every day and night for work.

I'm 21 now, driving for three years, never had an accident, and my insurance just keeps going up, HUGELY! It's insanity! How can ANYONE justify paying these prices!? They're at least 3 times the value of the car almost every time.

I turn to this forum for help, because I am trapped and I don't know how to get out.

I live in the north-west, Blackburn. I have a friend who drives a puma over in York, she can insure it just fine. This is obviously an area of residence problem, but the prices feel criminal, surely something needs to be done?

mikey72

Your previous ncd will still be valid.

Samboskull

Oh. Well that'll trim £20 off then! Haha

mikey72

Two years ncd should be more than that.

Samboskull

Hey you were right, it went UP to £4k! I think GoCompare might be high.

EDIT: So I re-did it and GC is pretty content in quoting me £3010 for the PUMA, so it took off £300, which i pretty good. by that logic the RAV should be around £2k which is still £600 more than I've ever had to pay.

mikey72

Samboskull wrote: »

Hey you were right, it went UP to £4k! I think GoCompare might be high.

EDIT: So I re-did it and GC is pretty content in quoting me £3010 for the PUMA, so it took off £300, which i pretty good. by that logic the RAV should be around £2k which is still £600 more than I've ever had to pay.

You sound like you're putting in your real details.
Use amade up name, addres, generic car etc.
Multiple quotes can increase the price each time.

Samboskull

So I've jigged around with the information, and the insurance does fall cheaper when I use the address of my grandma who lives in a small village outside of town, but I mean, these are things that I can't lie about, I need to insure it with the correct details or I'm at risk of getting voided in the event of a crash. Nothing else makes it cheaper, got it down to an honest £2,600 on the Puma and £2,400 on the RAV

mikey72

I don't mean lie on the policy, just at the quote stage, use a made uo address, like a different house number, in the name of M Mouse, for a generic car, not your own numberplate.
It's quite common for quotes to rise if you use the same details over and over, as the system remembers you.
Best quote is always the first one.