This is for real - Car Insurance Quote - What To Do

Lyrrad

Hi

I have used this forum to get my mother's car insurance to a price of £180-£190 for her with £120 excess. It is with SAGA and although I have never used it before, I believe I can get £37 back via quidco. More on that later.

Today I was queueing in the Post Office and I saw £50 cashback on car insurance. I went online and got a price of £200.84. However right at the end of the quotation I was asked does person to be insured have medical condition that DVLA need to be aware of. The answer here is YES, my mother is insulin dependant, 72 and needs okay from doctor. That's all okay and in fact has not even been asked for my other insurers. However using Post Offoce website there is a number to ring that does not work. I was left with no alternative but to ring Post Office CarInsurance. Cut an already long story short, i mistakingly put my mother down as MR. Gloria ********. When the girl I was speaking to update that info the quote jumped to £268.00

I have verified this my doing another quote, and what happens is that the Post Office use a panel of insurers and it changes from Advantage Insurance to Zurich when going from Mr - Mrs.

If I just booked it as Mr. Gloria ******** do you think there would be any excess to the premium when they were notified that the obvious mistake of MR Gloria needs to be changed, or even if nothing was said. I mean Gloria is hardly a man's name and I have not had to choose male/female.


Comments please.

mattymoo

Gender is a rating factor for insurers so yes, it can make a difference.
The quote engine computers would not realise Gloria was a woman's name.

Lyrrad

mattymoo

do you think the insurer would put the premium up though. The increase was not a hike by Advantage, but a insurance move to Zurich. Anyway I thought woman drivers were menat to be safer. I entered 1000 miles as the annual mileage which is an over estimate. I cannot believe Advantage would increase their policy by anything at all, but the Post Office is using a panel of insurers to quote.

mattymoo

The weighting an insurer applies to a rating factor (the amount by which it will affect the premium) varies from one company to another. It is largely driven by that insurers past experience with that market demographic.

In other words, Zurich has had good experience with female drivers aged 70-75 so will skew their quote system to favour them.

It could however be the case that Zurich were only marginally cheaper than Advantage but the PO quote page only shows the cheapest. (not sure on this last point - have not used the PO quote site).

Lyrrad

Okay


What you are saying is that Advantage have become more expensive and Zurich are now the cheapest. If I went ahead with Advantage, got the documents through, am I correct in assuming there is a cooling off period. Could I contact them, tell them of the error, and if they then quoted more, cancel. I assume at that time I could deal directly with the insurance company rather than the Post Office.


On the other hand, do you happen to know if I have used SAGA for a quote, can I then go via quidco, retrieve my quote and still get £37.00 reduction, or does the quote have to be created after the quidco link. It might just be more straightforward.

mattymoo

Sorry - never dealt with Quidco.