Car Insurance Renewal Prices

MsLomas

I recently had an e mail to remind me that my car insurance is due for renewal. I have gone on to one of these price comparison sites and have found the exact insurance I am on at the moment but £100 cheaper! Is it right that insurers can do this as it makes me a little uneasy that they can charge an existing customer more, and if I don't auto renew and just book a new policy it will be cheaper?? Should I trust this company?

alfred1950

That's is normal...when you first take out insurance with a particular company they give you an introductory discount which you usually lose after the first year so the premium 'usually ' rises.
Ring them up and tell them you've found cover cheaper elsewhere and they ' might ' knock some off ...if not go elsewhere.

Hasbeen

MsLomas said:

I recently had an e mail to remind me that my car insurance is due for renewal. I have gone on to one of these price comparison sites and have found the exact insurance I am on at the moment but £100 cheaper! Is it right that insurers can do this as it makes me a little uneasy that they can charge an existing customer more, and if I don't auto renew and just book a new policy it will be cheaper?? Should I trust this company?

Ok New driver, first insurance? They give you intro rate to get business.

Shop around and get best policy that suits you.

Also this is same for any insurance / contract that runs  for specified time

dunstonh

I have gone on to one of these price comparison sites and have found the exact insurance I am on at the moment but £100 cheaper!

All quite normal.  Providers with early year discounting frequently do this.  Its like broadband and other non-customer deals getting a joining discount.

Is it right that insurers can do this as it makes me a little uneasy that they can charge an existing customer more, and if I don't auto renew and just book a new policy it will be cheaper?

You see it in all walks of life.

Should I trust this company?

Year 1 or early year discounting has nothing to do with trust.

not all insurers have early year discounting.  However, you rarely find those at the top of a comparison site. (although often you do find them not that ar off the top)

Mickey666

I had a similar situation with Direct Line for a few years.  I’d get my renewal quote From then then go online and get a new quote from Direct Line.  I then phoned them to say I wanted to renew with them but not for their renewal price but for my online quote from them.  This worked for a few years until they eventually refused the online price saying that it was only for new customers. So I asked them if they thought that was a decent way to treat loyal customers - which of course the script-jockey on the phone couldn’t answer so they passed me on to some other department, ‘retentions’ or something.  This time we had a bit of a conversation about fair customer treatment and they eventually agreed to honour their online quote, at which point I told them no thanks because of their appalling attitude towards loyal customers and I’ve never used them since.

I know the insurance market is competitive but by offering new customers better deals than their existing ones they pretty much guarantee a huge turnover of customers every year.  It’s madness really, but that’s the way it is.

Wadhamman

My car insurance is coming up for renewal. The renewal premium is about 20% higher than last year.  No claims made and no changes to the cover, though I am one year older.  Can I expect to be able to negotiate the premium down, because lockdown has meant that I have used the car three times in three months, rather than the normal frequency of nearer 100 times?  Insurers must be receiving fewer claims across the country for this reason.  Should our renewal premiums reflect this benefit to insurers?

Hasbeen

Wadhamman said:

My car insurance is coming up for renewal. The renewal premium is about 20% higher than last year.  No claims made and no changes to the cover, though I am one year older.  Can I expect to be able to negotiate the premium down, because lockdown has meant that I have used the car three times in three months, rather than the normal frequency of nearer 100 times?  Insurers must be receiving fewer claims across the country for this reason.  Should our renewal premiums reflect this benefit to insurers?

Put your details into one of the comparison sites.

See what others are offering.

If you find cheaper quote that suits your purposes then you can call existing insurers and see if they can match.

If not, take your custom elsewhere.

davidmcn

Wadhamman said:

My car insurance is coming up for renewal. The renewal premium is about 20% higher than last year.  No claims made and no changes to the cover, though I am one year older.  Can I expect to be able to negotiate the premium down, because lockdown has meant that I have used the car three times in three months, rather than the normal frequency of nearer 100 times?  Insurers must be receiving fewer claims across the country for this reason.  Should our renewal premiums reflect this benefit to insurers?

You should be giving them a realistic estimated mileage for the coming year (which I appreciate involves some guesswork). You're not going to get a discount for future insurance because you used the car less than expected in the past year.

mac505

CAR INSURANCE RENEWAL - I recently received emails advising me my car insurance renewal was due , I never auto renew but I could not see a cost of the next years insurance on any emails and I  was too slow to sort before the renewal date . Apparently I  needed to sign in to my insurance company portal to see the details and there I noted I had been moved onto a Platinum policy which was auto renewed on a monthly basis not annual . I quickly found a cheaper alternative but discovered there was no cooling off period with this monthly policy and would have to pay for the first months insurance even though I wanted to cancel it so quickly after it started . I suppose I should have headed to the portal straightaway but not happy that the cost/quote was not shown on the renewal emails and that there is no cooling off period . 

Sandtree

They are legally required to give you a cooling off period but I think you may be mixing up a cooling off period with a period that you can cancel free of charge which are not one and the same thing... cooling off periods give you a right to cancel but don;t preclude charges being applied. Post the cooling off period you have no automatic right to cancel at all.

pollypenny

I never just renew, but follow Martin's advice and look on comparison sites. Prices came out, for Mokka automatic in N. Wales, as £251 to low £300s. 

Out of interest, I also tried Admiral, mainly because of its considerate returning£25 to customers during lockdown. The price came out at £553! 

I was just about log out in derision , but thought I'd give them a ring to check this price. It was correct.  Very odd. 🤔