Car Insurance Article Discussion

ioscorpio

I bought Aviva insurance last year through TCB and obtained my cashback. My policy ends tomorrow, just done a new quote via TCB £211 which is slightly less than renewal quote £218. Will I get cashback again this year with a new quote? If I use renewal I can get £20 discount for paying online or £51.50 cashback if they class me as a new customer with the new quote.
Update
I had an online chat and was told I could have new quote price for £166.95, so have got price down to a bit more than getting cashback thro TCB was 211 - 51.50 = £159.50 without having to wait to see if I get the cashback. So not sure if they drop the price the nearer you get to your renewal date.

hallamj

Just got my car insurance renewal notice from the people with the little red phone on wheels. I've been with them for six years and never made a claim. My premium has just gone up 24% - just under £100 a year! Disgraceful.

stripee

hallamj wrote: »

Just got my car insurance renewal notice from the people with the little red phone on wheels. I've been with them for six years and never made a claim. My premium has just gone up 24% - just under £100 a year! Disgraceful.

I agree. I've been trying to help some friends beat their renewal quotes recently - they're all too busy so I'm doing the searchign for them (they give me 10% of the saving!) but I have to say, I'm amazed by how much prices are going up by.

It seems almost instinctive to me that your renewal with the same company is goign to be more than the year before, and for as long as I've known it it's been possible to shop around and beat your renewal quote by moving to another provider. the last two friends I've helped, this hasn't been possible - it's felt more like damage limitation - helping them pay the smallest amount more than their renewal. My last friend's insurance went up over £160 on her renewal, and only after endless searching I managed to help her find it for "only" £80 more. THat's crazy stuff. And my 10% became a bit irrelevant! Shame!

But it still definitely pays to shop around. When you see that prices between insurers on the comparison sites regular range in cost from, for example, £400 to £1700, it gives you a good idea that it's worth looking in the open market each and every year.

Good luck!

Quentin

stripee wrote: »

And PM me if I can help in any way!

Do you mean pm you to take advantage of your service???

We would be crazy to pm you our personal details so that you can do what we can do, but charge us for the privilege!

(And you break the site rules by attempting to abuse the pm system like this).

There is lots of free advice throughout this forum as well as the main MSE site on getting the lowest price on your insurance (if you consider cheapest = best deal!)

stripee

Quentin wrote: »

Do you mean pm you to take advantage of your service???

We would be crazy to pm you our personal details so that you can do what we can do, but charge us for the privilege!

(And you break the site rules by attempting to abuse the pm system like this).

There is lots of free advice throughout this forum as well as the main MSE site on getting the lowest price on your insurance (if you consider cheapest = best deal!)

I realise there's plenty of people that have the gumption to shop around themselves, of course I do it myself. When I talk to friends, it's amazing how many people know they should do it (let's face it there's enough ads telling us) but either don't quite get around to doing it, have such busy lives they don't have (or make) the time, or just plain don't know how to do it. that's where I figure I can help.

Perhaps a forum where people can discuss car insurance is the last place I should expect to find people who don't make the time to shop around.

Regardless of all that, it has staggered and shocked me how much prices have increased over the last year, especially as it is a legal requirement.

Plus having had my windscreen chip repaired yesterday I discovered that even this is no longer a free service with most insurers. For new policies as of September the charge is likely to be between £10 and £25 for a repair. Amazing!

Apologies to any offended parties once more

All the best

Stripee

Quentin

stripee wrote: »

having had my windscreen chip repaired yesterday I discovered that even this is no longer a free service with most insurers. For new policies as of September the charge is likely to be between £10 and £25 for a repair. Amazing!

It has never been a "free" service!

Using your insurer to get a chip repaired is a claim, and your premium will be affected by it at renewal (and you have a claim to declare to all new insurers you approach for a quote!) (Though as you do all this shopping round (for a fee) for your friends, you presumably know that!)

It is cheaper overall not to put in a claim, but either DIY or use a local independent repairer to do the job privately.

stripee

Quentin wrote: »

It has never been a "free" service!
Using your insurer to get a chip repaired is a claim, and your premium will be affected by it at renewal (and you have a claim to declare to all new insurers you approach for a quote!) (Though as you do all this shopping round (for a fee) for your friends, you presumably know that!)
It is cheaper overall not to put in a claim, but either DIY or use a local independent repairer to do the job privately.

Thanks Quentin, I have to say I thought that if a chip can be repaired it wouldn't affect your NCD or have to be declared as a claim when renewing; my bad. I thought this was only for when a windscreen is replaced. I guess it's always best to contact your insurer first to double check.

But as I said, I really appreciate your reply - I certainly don't want to be losing friends for the sake of a fiver! Nor do I want to declare more claims than necessary for my own insurance, so in the future I'll look into kits and/or private repair; thanks for the good advice.

Stripee

Quentin

stripee wrote: »

Thanks Quentin, I have to say I thought that if a chip can be repaired it wouldn't affect your NCD or have to be declared as a claim when renewing; my bad. I thought this was only for when a windscreen is replaced. I guess it's always best to contact your insurer first to double check.

I didn't post that your NCD is affected after a windscreen chip repair! (And don't know any insurer that does change NCD after a chip repair)

And you cannot rely on being told by your own insurer the chip repair need not be disclosed to other insurers, even if told this by an agent over the phone as you now "guess". You are bound to disclose all claims/losses to new insurers (and if you fail to mention a chip repair claim, then you leave yourself open to problems when they discover the truth - if not at the time you take out the policy, then worse, when checking your details should any claim be made by you or against you)

stripee

Quentin wrote: »

I didn't post that your NCD is affected after a windscreen chip repair! (And don't know any insurer that does change NCD after a chip repair)

And you cannot rely on being told by your own insurer the chip repair need not be disclosed to other insurers, even if told this by an agent over the phone as you now "guess". You are bound to disclose all claims/losses to new insurers (and if you fail to mention a chip repair claim, then you leave yourself open to problems when they discover the truth - if not at the time you take out the policy, then worse, when checking your details should any claim be made by you or against you)

again, thank you for your help, most appreciated.

System

I'm not sure that other insurers can check if you have had a windscreen claim (either chip repair or replacement). Where would they find this information ?
According to the info I have been able to find out about the CUE database, it does not hold windscreen claims data.
See : http://www.experian.co.uk/insurance/cue/objects/PartnerDataSheets2.pdf

P.S.
I have also learned that the CUE database does not record when an insurer cancels a policy. (Just holding my hands up to being wrong with something I said about this in a different thread)