A strange thing happened on the way to my insurance renewal

Joe_Horner

It's that time of year again and, as normal, my current insurer has quoted WAY over the odds (up from £290 to £385 despite an extra year of no claims). So it was off to talk to the meerkats.

I drive an old heap of a Pug 405, with a book value of probably about £600, so usually put in a voluntary excess that covers the entire value of the car. Sure enough, best quote was £295 - no drop for the no claims but no real increase either.

Then, just out of interest, I tried re-quoting with no voluntary excess. Best price this time was £270. The AA had entered the race, whereas on the original comparison they were an "unable to quote".

A little bit of playing with numbers found that they were cheapest up to an excess of £500 but, at any more than that, they refused to quote (presumably because the voluntary + their compulsory £100 came to more than the stated value of the car)

Final price was £265 - a saving of £30 by dropping the excess by £100. Go figure!

forgotmyname

Yeah i tried that previously but with more expensive cars. There is a point where the premium starts to rise again.

£500 -£1000 depended on the company. Going over £500 sometimes pushed the price back up.

Also having an older car pushed the price up. A 2001 car was cheaper to insure than the identical model/spec 1998 car.

arcon5

I've also read putting a value too low can up the price. I thought the golden point was £1k. Maybe play with that also - within reason of course