Cheap Car Insurance Article Discussion

Kite2010

Quote time for the families Fiesta, managed to get it down to £117 from the AA (with £26 cash-back) or £120 from Lloyds (with £50 cash-back via Quidco).

I was going to go towards the AA, however they have decided to phoned up a couple times to see if the quote was right etc which has put me off them.

Any horror stories with Lloyds?

AlanM

Got quoted just under £1,000 for a 2 car policy renewal from Admiral. We had a no fault claim where our main car was written off when a driver came from a side street into my path. Checked with the comparison sites and got car one for £220 and car two for £200 both from Axa.

Gave them a call to clarify how to declare the accident as I was driving the car that was in my wife's name and discovered that they also do a multicar discount so got another 10% off the more expensive policy - result :beer:

Also Axa don't charge an admin fee for changes if you complete them online.

Winchy

My car insurance is up for renewal at the end of the month. Had a pretty bad experience with Admiral last week!

I went online, did the usual insurance websites and got multiple quotes at which Admiral came out around 10th on my list, which is unusual as they’re usually the cheapest.

They sent my renewal through @ £600 (up on last year despite another year of no claims)

I managed to get an identical package on searches for £500 elsewhere.

I went back to Admiral and tweaked a few things to get it cheaper and managed to get it down to £480. I then created a new account, with a different name and everything else identical, except my sex being female. The quote dramatically decreased to £380!

On this basis I decided to give Admiral a phone call and was put though to Jane.

Me: Hi Jane, I would like to change my renewal details to see what you can offer me.
Jane: That’s fine, what can I change for you.
Me: I’ve done it all online, here is the quote number.
Jane: Thank you, is there anything else you require?
Me: Yes please, if I was female, would it be any cheaper?
Jane: No, due to the European Laws and Legislations car insurance is the same for males and females blah blah blah
Me: Ok, please can you look at this quote number.
Jane: This person does not exist, the name is a false name therefore the quote cannot be processed.
Me: I don’t want to use these details to renew my insurance, what I have provided is an identical quote except I have changed the sex to female to show that if I was female my insurance would be £100 cheaper still.
Jane: Yes, this is because women are safer drivers and less of a risk to insurance claims, 5 years ago there would have been a difference of over £300.
Me: But what about the European Laws you quoted earlier in the phone call?
Jane: Yes…. But women are safer drivers and also park in a more sensible manor?!
Me: So you cannot offer me the same price?
Jane: We can offer you £480 as per your changed quote online.
Me: I would like to cancel my policy.
Jane: I have put a note in your personal file to say you falsify quotations online by pretending to be female, this will appear on all our sister companies files.

A complaint has been made….

I then went to Quidco, did a search on their price comparison section and with cashback managed to get a deal at £420.

Still a bit more than offered for a female but I have dropped it from £600 to £420 with a bit of phone stress in between.

Quentin

When you do quotes you do declare that the information you have given is true!

If you play with fire.........

Winchy

Quentin wrote: »

When you do quotes you do declare that the information you have given is true!

If you play with fire.........

Yes, but the point of the quote was to see if the gender of the applicant made a difference as it should not do, and it did.

Everything in both quotes was identical except the name and the gender.

I didn't request that the quote was transferred, just why there was a difference as they're now not meant to take gender into account?

thegreenone

.. don't always look at the comparison sites.

December 2011 I started the task of finding car insurance for my husband's policy which was due in January. I did the usual things and checked out TCB. I also got a quote from Sainsburys. A few weeks later, at the check out in Sainsburys, I was given a voucher for 3000 nectar points if you buy Car Insurance. Yes, I know they track. So in January I checked again and Sainsburys was offering just £1 cheaper than a comparison site and certainly cheaper than TCB even with cashback. Policy sorted. With double nectar points for a year.

Fast forward to November and our youngest son's policy was up for renewal. This was the last year we would pay for it - it's all his now! Anyway, I did the usual again searching through all the comparison sites with varying quotes from £1200 with a black box* to infinity. The company he had been with for two no-claim years was quoting £1800 ....... and then I went to Sainsburys. A multi-car quote, with this Dad, came in at £970 fully comp for a 19 year old in a 54 plate 1.6 Golf. Me Like. Me Accepted.

Upshot - lots of nectar points and cheap car insurance.

Our eldest son is doing his degree in The Netherlands and the nectar points paid for his Christmas flights home and return. £67 return with easyjet - all paid for with nectar points, I didn't part with a penny.

*Our youngest son can't have a black box as he works in a gym and quite often does the late shift which means he is driving after 11pm. A thought for parents, whose 17 y/os have jobs in pubs and restaurants.

bladders

LV= (Liverpool Victoria)

Credit where credit is due.

Just got my renewal offer and its nearly £3 cheaper than last year - AND cheaper than the quotes generated on two popular comparison sites

DW8

I am currently looking to renew my car insurance, Using the system outlined I go through the lists and see who is coming up cheapest. It can vary but there are usually a couple of companies about 25% cheaper than the next quote "bracket".

Tonight esure & Sheila's Wheels are coming in at about £230 and the next bracket starts at £330. So I follow through entering & re-entering details and declining things like "car hire" as I have two cars and when I "continue" to the page where I expect to make a payments I get a page saying that due to "background" checks they are unable to offer that quote and ring the helpdesk for a quote. Or words to that effect.

First point: It struck me that esure & Sheila's Wheels are either two parts of the same company or bought the same website software with just a change of colours.

Second Point: What are the mysterious "background" checks. The car is registered, currently on a SORN and has a current MOT. All linked by computer systems. They even know when the car was registered which I do not (nor care if I am honest) So the car is verified. I passed my test some 37 years ago and have a current clean full license, again all checked by HAL or R2D2 or some other computer system. I am paying for the complete year, so I wouldn't have though the purchase required a credit check. So what is this "background check"?

OR is it all a loss leader type scam to get you on the site because it is the cheapest but by the time you have added the extras like breakdown, car-hire, etc you pay the same or more then the next more expensive company on the list.

I have rung a help-desk and the gentleman (no, he was) on the phone didn't know why I had been declined by the interweb but could quote me over the phone for, surprise, surprise about £350.

If it is a scam, sorry, loss leader surely they should be excluded from the comparison sites for such underhand practices.

Timothy
(I think I need a lie down, that was much more of a rant than I expected)

(Update)
Just added the bro-in-law and the prices dropped to £206.46 & £206.48 (???) The next on the list is Octagon at £361.78 - I think I smell fish...

pink_boots

AlanM wrote: »

Got quoted just under £1,000 for a 2 car policy renewal from Admiral. We had a no fault claim where our main car was written off when a driver came from a side street into my path. Checked with the comparison sites and got car one for £220 and car two for £200 both from Axa.

Gave them a call to clarify how to declare the accident as I was driving the car that was in my wife's name and discovered that they also do a multicar discount so got another 10% off the more expensive policy - result :beer:

Also Axa don't charge an admin fee for changes if you complete them online.

Thank you. That is worth knowing. I always thought AXA was dear so never got a quote from them. But definately will now. Nothing to lose by doing so.

charlieheard

Needed a quote for my classic car, so I tried the suggestions in the article. Renewal was £108, and only a few brokers would get anywhere near that. On TescoCompare, I only got a single quote: it was from autonet (?) who wanted £21,026.66 - they even offered me monthly payments at 44.3% APR to give me a total cost of £23,803.97. The quote is linked here

Tried via Quidco, and I managed to get insurance from the same company that wanted to renew at £88, which with cashback got me down to £66.

So which to choose - £66 or £23,000?:rotfl: