Saved £300 renewing home insurance with Direct Line...

baked_beans_lady

... but not happy!

I received my renewal notice from Direct Line this week - something that I have just "let ride" in the past. The premium was £521.85, and I tried a couple of the comparison sites for alternative quotes - and got prices in the region of £250.

Surprised by this, I went back to the directline.com site and plugged in exactly the same details to get a like-for-like quote - and came up with a price of £220.50

I got onto their customer help line first thing this morning and asked them about the discrepancy - they helped me to check that the quote was for exactly the same cover and gave excuses about "new customer discounts for on-line sales" etc. but were quite happy to renew the policy at the on-line price, saving over £300, more than 50% of the original premium!

This may not be news to regular readers of the forum, but I was stunned, and the moral of the story is that you must always shop around, and challenge your renewal price. Obviously the insurers just increment policies year on year by more than the amount required to be competitive in the market.

I'm left with a somewhat bitter feeling that I have probably been paying £200 over the odds for home insurance for the last few years...

BBL

real1314

I had direct line for years, now switched to master quote (I think) after an on-line check.

You might notice that a lot of the "we'll beat your renewal" ads only refer to renewals, not "we'll beat your quote" as they are all playing the inertia game - put the price up on renewal and hope they can't be arsed to check it, even if they do, we've already bumped it up, so the others can quote a new policy cheaper, but we can quote a new policy cheaper than their renewal.

methinks trading standards / oft should be looking at renewal prices that are not the best price?

I'm trying to avoid the majors at all costs now.

flossy_splodge

Hope you went through Quidco! I did the same, massive saving for both car and home insurances through the comparison sites, (following martin's instructions to the letter of course!) and have just received £155 back from Quidco as well. Thanks Martin!:rotfl:

roddydogs

Barclays £100 off if they cant beat your renewal price-plus you get the renewal price as well.