Cheap Car Insurance Article Discussion

thecommonblackbird

Hi, I was wondering if anyone can help. I am 21 and I have 4 years no claims. I want to be able to drive my Mother's mini cooper occasionally, she has been driving for 30 years but has never had her own claims and has always been a named driver, but due to my Mum and Dad separating she needs her own car. Because of this we are getting ridiculously high quotes for me being a named driver, however if I am the main driver it is almost half the price!

I renewed my insurance in July, as did not realise my mum would be getting a new car due to unexpected family circumstances. I thought if I change my policy to fully comprehensive it will allow me to drive her car. However, I have rang up and one lady said I could change it, and I rang up again to be told I couldn't.

Has anyone got any experience? Am I allowed to change my policy from third party fire + theft to fully comp?

Also, I did 2 quotes with the company I am with and realised there is about £20 price difference between third party + fully comp, I always assumed third party f+t would be significantly cheaper!

Quentin

Check carefully that your insurer will allow you to drive other cars irrespective of allowing you to change to a comprehensive policy.

Usually you have to be over 25 to get that extra included.

Parking_Trouble

Even if you changed to fully comp on your insurance it would only cover Third Party costs when you drive your Mums car. So any damage to the Mini is not covered if the accident is your fault, or disputed.

vacsac

Have you any urgent advice on whether guarranteed or protected no claims is best? Have a quote from Aviva same cost for both and I dont know what to do!! Please help if you can. Thanks

Kite2010

Shopping around time is always fun. I've saved myself just over £150 on my insurance (First Direct wants £470, found quotes from Admiral for £319)

Although "Quote Me Happy" is quoting £330 but Quidco is giving £40 cashback, so do I risk paying an extra £11 to hope that Quidco pay out I ponder.

That can wait as for tomorrow, I will phone up First Direct and say "thanks but no thanks", last year they revised my quote to beat Admiral, I wonder if they will do the same this year (doubt it, £150 is a lot of money).

Lan_R

Hi All,

I'm currently looking for quotes to renew my car insurance but with the addition of my OH. The problem I have is with a massive discrepancy between quotes depending on how long he has held his provisional licence.
He originally got his provisional licence when he finished uni and moved to his parents in Wales, the live in the middle of nowhere so he need to learn to drive. However he very quickly got a job in a town and moved there, where he didn't need to drive as it has good public transport, because of this he has never had a driving lesson. He has now decided to learn (with a little persuasion ) We thought his licence had expired so when comparing how much it would cost to put him on my insurance so I could top up his lessons I entered that he had held his licence for 1 month thinking he would be getting a new one, this came back with quotes around £250 (about £20 cheaper than just me!). We then looked at his licence and realised it was still valid so I redid the quotes entering 7 years and the quotes came back at nearly £150 more! I called one of the companies and asked why the difference and was told that the underwriters feel that the longer somebody has held a provisional licence the more of a risk they are, I did explain that it wasn't that he has been unable to pass his test in 7 years but that he had never tried so effectively he is the same as if he had never held a provisional licence but it didn't make a difference.
Has anybody else had this kind of problem? Is there a way to fix it?

Sorry for the long post but the whole thing seems a little excessive.

Thanks

Lan

Quentin

See if a local broker (not swinton) can help get this message across to a sympathetic insurer.

Kite2010

It's amazing how quotes can vary between comparison website, even entering the same details.

Must be something to do with the commission the comparison sites charge

kwaichi

Kite2010 wrote: »

It's amazing how quotes can vary between comparison website, even entering the same details.

Must be something to do with the commission the comparison sites charge

Google have just launched their car comparison site where they charge insurers a lot less to appear on the site than the usual comparthemarket, gocompare etc.

I just tried it out and it's really quick to fill out compared to the other comparison sites. The annoying thing about the site is that you can't do a search unless it's within 40 days of you needing to renew.

http://www.google.co.uk/compare/carinsurance

Kite2010

That's another one to have a run at to see if they can beat £293 after cash-back.

Not even close, cheapest came in at £350, probably one of the more costly comparisons so far.

Time to give First Direct the phone-call later today.

Edit - Gave First Direct the phone-call to say "I'm not renewing" they didn't even try to keep me by offering a cheaper quote.