Cheap Car Insurance Article Discussion

spgnana

It would appear that car insurance companies are doing credit checks when you go through comparison sights. My husbands car insurance is due for renewal next month & he went on comparison sites, even though he hasn't renewed yet he has been informed by Experian that all the companies have done a credit check. I thought only credit card companies did this?
Have I missed something (probably!)

TDVF10

I've had about 10+ quotes done on various comparison sites and companies not found on these sites and the cheapest was on Comparethemarket. However when I searched the same company direct I found the insurance quote £50 cheaper!!! Result!

roystonpy

Yesterday I tried out all the usual comparison sites and consistently got the the same firms for car insurance.

Most of which offered the same price with a£350 voluntary excess and £400 compulsary.

I then went to Tesco

They offered a very different set of companies one of the best was Lloyds Bank at £201 fully comp including free fully comp in Europe too which was on my list of must haves.

Plus £0 voluntary excess and £350 compulsary

It was over £130 less than the best of the rest from the other comparison sites

Tawny_Owl_2

Hi All

As you may gather, I'm a new member of the gang ! ;)

I'm a huge fan of Martin.
PLEASE CAN SOMEONE AT THE PALACE GIVE HIM A KNIGHTHOOD

Anyway, back to car insurance.......

I'm described as a 'mature' driver. Was with Direct Line for 2 years, then saw sense and went to some comparison sites.

Turned out that Hastings Direct was the best for me. So I took out a policy with them.

I received a renewal notice from them before the year was up, telling me that they had decreased my premium for the next year and if did nothing, this would be taken by DIRECT DEBIT at the time. That's a bit naughty of them, as I paid by debit card last time. :mad:

So, I phoned them back and told them to cancel the direct debit as I'd found a cheaper quote.

Oh.....I found the cheaper quote by going to a comparison site. The name of the insurance company was, er, Hastings Direct.

So, by IGNORING their renewal I'm effectively a new customer. To summarise, I've achieved the following.......

My new policy is with the same company as before
My new policy has the same terms & conditions as before
I've saved almost £40 compared to their renewal quote
I'm also going to receive a free meerkat toy

Moral of the story : There's no such thing as loyalty when you're dealing with car insurance.

Talk about Rip Off Britain !!!!!!!!

sillybilly2011

Got my renewal for diamond which was £900.

After shopping around, i found aviva, with my no claims protected and rescue and recovery for £602!

Very pleased!

Now only have to pay £51 a month! I was paying £95 last year so massive drop!

bloss0m_x

Hi, anyone here using Swinton?! Looking to renew my insurance and they've come up the cheapest but I've read bad reviews about them... Need some opinions! :think: Thanks in advance!

dacouch

bloss0m_x wrote: »

Hi, anyone here using Swinton?! Looking to renew my insurance and they've come up the cheapest but I've read bad reviews about them... Need some opinions! :think: Thanks in advance!

Believe the reviews

pink_boots

bloss0m_x wrote: »

Hi, anyone here using Swinton?! Looking to renew my insurance and they've come up the cheapest but I've read bad reviews about them... Need some opinions! :think: Thanks in advance!

I have been with them and would never use them again. They seem to be the cheapest but you have to be careful they tend to have very high compulsery excess. Sorry about spelling.

Tim_Kitchen

I think it would be more beneficial to add one more category. It would be beneficial to add a section for the drivers who have gone through the test and have cleared that test.

nocando

Hi first time poster so hope this is within the rules.

To be honest I was going to start a new thread as this might be a slightly separate issue (not money saving per se but could lead to uncovering their dodgy practices) to those being generally discussed although, again, didn't want to break any rules.

Anyway I've had a few battles with car insurance companies over the years and feel they are a law onto themselves sometimes.

My insurance is due to run out in May so I did a couple of quotes a few weeks ago and was astonished to find it had reduced from around £400 per year to £260. I saved this quote (with swift who are my current providers) to revisit this later. However the quote expired and I did another using exactly the same details (in fact it automatically saved on my account so just retrieved this). To my surprise it had increased to £360 this time, some 3 weeks after my previous quote.

I found this very strange and wondered if it was due to the month of renewal or maybe due to a general price hike (they've been up and down like the proverbial draws recently). So I emailed them to ask for a reason and naturally they came back very cagey indeed.

Firstly they said as my insurance hadn't expired I wouldn't be able to renew at this time (hmm why cant you renew in advance???).

After a bit of tooing and frooing then they denied the quote ever existed even though I was sent an email with this on and included it in the email response.

So I took a screenprint and sent this to them asking them to confirm why the price is fluctuating.

Now I don't know what their response will be (prob trying to brush it away) but I thought I would contact you guys to see if anyone in the know, knows how these things operate and whether this is just a general increase in price at this time of year (in which case is it best to time renewals another time if poss)?

This all might not be relevant to this time of forum so apologies if not and this isn't a whinge because Im going to follow their complains procedure and just tie them up so they spend the time investigating my complaint when they could have saved the man hours just advising me of the reason.

Any thoughts/comments appreciated.