Tip to reduce your car insurance renewal quote

pinkteapot

Got my renewal quote through and phoned Admiral to try and haggle. They asked if the market value of the car was still £3,000 (which is what I paid for it in 2008). Obviously it's not - the car could be replaced for £1,200 tops today, though I told them £1,500 to make sure I was well covered. This reduced my quote by around £90.

With my home insurance, the insurer increases the value of my contents cover each year in line with inflation. I stupidly assumed that car insurers reduce the value of the car year on year. Errr no. Bad assumption.

So - check the actual market value of your car each year and get new quotes accordingly. :money:Even if you don't shop around for quotes, phone your current insurer and ask them to change the car's value and adjust your renewal price accordingly.

I may look stupid at this point - maybe everyone else knew about this already. But just in case.

mikey72

It'll be interesting to read what the posters that claim "it's not the value of the car, it's the value of the car that you could hit that decides the premium" have to say.

pinkteapot

Well to be fair it only knocked it down from £390 to £300 so the bulk of the cost is still based on the damage you can do to other people. That was the only change made to the policy schedule though so definitely helped.

mikey72

25% isn't a bad reduction.

pineapple123

Sorry Op but I thought it was known that on comprehensive Insurance cover the value of your car can effect the premium you pay likewise many other factors.
I always use several insurance search websites and tweak milage, price of car, excess etc and sometimes it can make quite a difference then I phone my exisiting insurance company with my quote to a) encourage them to pricematch b) check details to ensure that I am correctly covered.
As Martin says never except a renewal quote. I saved over £200 with an existing insurance company by doing the above but with only a little change to my details.

dunstonh

mikey72 wrote: »

It'll be interesting to read what the posters that claim "it's not the value of the car, it's the value of the car that you could hit that decides the premium" have to say.

There is no one thing that affects the premium. It is a combination of things. Value obviously has some impact but it is not the only thing.

mikey72

dunstonh wrote: »

There is no one thing that affects the premium. It is a combination of things. Value obviously has some impact but it is not the only thing.

It was in this case.

raskazz

mikey72 wrote: »

It'll be interesting to read what the posters that claim "it's not the value of the car, it's the value of the car that you could hit that decides the premium" have to say.

I don't think anyone has actually said that value doesn't affect the premium.

However, where we hear the oft-repeated moan that "the premium is more than the value of the car" it is common, and logical, to point out that an insurer's liability is far greater in terms of TP liability than AD/FT costs.

Spiderham

mikey72 wrote: »

It'll be interesting to read what the posters that claim "it's not the value of the car, it's the value of the car that you could hit that decides the premium" have to say.

The OP has said they halved the amount they said their vehicle was worth. Their premium has not gone down by 50% but 23%. So yes the cost of insurance (because of the cost of claims) is not directly proportional to car value.

One could infer from the premium reduction that it's about 54% down to the car (or indeed person as personal injury claims are a huge part of claims costs) you could hit.

forgotmyname

Some companies wont insure cheap cars though. I changed an online quote from £3000 to £2900 and several companies dropped off the comparison list.

Quentin

It's just a game. The £90 reduction will have little to do with the new stated value (if the OP's car is a write off, the value paid won't be the insured amount!)

The OP had phoned them to "haggle" over his renewal quote. We know that renewals are usually far more than the insurer would charge a new customer, and agents have amounts on their screen they can discount if a customer comes on haggling - using the car value was just part of the game! The OP's insurer will have already put £90 as a figure to discount to keep the business.