Updated Cheap Car Insurance guide - new system

charlieheard

DD1 passed her test over a year ago. I went to the price comparison sites and got a great deal with Diamond (part of Admiarl) to put her on a Yaris with SWMBO and me. Our insurance went up from £250 to £750, which wasn't too bad. When the renewal came through, the price comparison sites were suggesting at least £1500, while DD1 had been driving for a year. We renewed with Diamond for £850, which was still a significant rise when the cost should in theory have dropped.

Last week DD2 passed her test and we tried to add her to the Diamond policy. They wanted an extra £3000 :eek::eek::eek: for the eight months remaining. So I looked at multi-car policies. We've recently bought a third car, as DD1 now has a job which needs transport, and it saved shuffling who had which car when every day. That meant we had to take out a completely new policy with zero no-claims discount. Surprisingly, Admiral were best. It turned out cheapest to insure DD1 as the main driver on the Yaris, with the 3 of us as named drivers - it cost less than £2000, which is still a lot, but is much less than Diamond wanted and gets her started on a no-claims discount. The third car meant we got a discount on the other 2, so it only cost us £50 extra for the new car!:money: Best of all, Admiral waived the cancellation fee on the Diamond policy as we were bringing them new business. So we saved loads of money by staying with the same group - even though we actually spent quite a lot

robertoegg

I hope someone can offer some advice - my father's car is about to fall out of insurance, however, he is in hospital with what appears to be a rather aggressive lung cancer. We are having discussions about palliative care and the like. Clearly he will not use the car again, however, I don't want to get rid of it yet nor leave it uninsured.

Can I insure it myself? Can it be deemed to be effectively off-road? It sits in a locked garage (and has a flat battery lol!)...

Your thoughts on a cost effective solution would be appreciated, thanks.

AlT_2

:beer:Followed you advice of the comparison websites and wow what a difference in price particularly from the same insurance company. Your number 1 choice of comparison site Money Supermarket cheapest quoted £301, Confused.com quoted £246, Go Compare quoted £393 and Compare the Market quoted £286. Apart from Go Compare the others all quoted cheapest for the same insurance company with identical policies.
Well wasn’t hard to choose which site I went with.

schiff

My premium has gone up by 50% from last year. I've had no claims, nothing affecting the terms of the policy. I do about 5K miles per annum. All the comparison sites produce much larger figures. I've not tried haggling yet but I really can't understand the rationale about the big percentage increase which is a lot more than the general reports on the topic suggested they would be.

Quentin

Maybe to do with your age?? (That's changed since last year)


Or increased claims in your neighbourhood??

mathew1971

Be careful with Aviva they are crafty.

I received my renewal for £177.00 - i knew using cashback sites i could get better and got 3/4 companies quoting around the same price via comparison sites all with approx £30-£50 cashback.

I then tried Aviva as a new quote via TCB - exact same details as my renewal and price quoted was £241.00 !!!!! - cashback was £50

I then cleared all cookies etc and tried another new Aviva quote but not via a cashback site and again all the same details etc and price came through at £197.00 ???

Quite how they can quote three such varied prices for exactly the same policy within the space of a few minutes is beyond me. Pretty obvious that if you use the cashback website Aviva system inflates the price to compensate so in effect you are getting nothing as its virtually just as cheap to not use the cashback.

Probably worth checking when you use other insurers as pretty sure they all try these dirty tricks.

schiff

schiff wrote: »

My premium has gone up by 50% from last year. I've had no claims, nothing affecting the terms of the policy. I do about 5K miles per annum. All the comparison sites produce much larger figures. I've not tried haggling yet but I really can't understand the rationale about the big percentage increase which is a lot more than the general reports on the topic suggested they would be.

Tried to find out exactly what has caused the 50% increase with no success. The increase in the IPT was mentioned but that's tiny. It was suggested that there have been extra claims with my model of car, a bog standard diesel, or my area, a very quiet residential suburb. Couldn't get further than that. With my pressure the increase was reduced by £50 so I accepted that, the other premiums I had got via comparisons were well over it.

They keep it a secret how they arrive at premiums, it's a racket but what can you do! I never do insurance on fridges, etc where it's not obligatory, but you can't escape this.

silvercar

Just reduced admiral multi car for 2 cars, from £1080 to £909.

I got quotes from confused.com and then phoned admiral.

:j

pastaman123

I'm with Hastings who gave me a staggeringly good price of £236 last year for a Range Rover Auto Sport. 5 star Defacto as well. It seemed too good to be true and sure enough when the renewal notice came last week it had gone up to £336 (still good compared to what the sites could offer) - a 55% increase for no apparent reason. I'm retired, do 7k miles per year and haven't ever claimed. I rang and eventually they came back with £306 which I've taken. There is no logic or reasoning to premium prices SO NEVER EVER AUTO RENEW.

pastaman123

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