What is your most ridiculous car insurance renewal quote? By Miles named and shamed

michaels

I thought By Miles where you pay a flat premium and then extra depending how far you drive was a pretty decent company and have referred them to several friends.

I have just had my renewal quotation through, 2 years ago the base price was £160, last year it was £172, this year it is (wait for it) £340.  What have I done to deserve this?  No new drivers, no accidents, no convictions, few miles driven (due to the lockdown).  I can only guess that they have not been making any money due to not enough miles driven and they are trying to get rid of loss making customers.

Of course they win big time as I have £200 of free miles from referrals that they will no longer have to honour because they are so uncompetitive on the renewal.  I have suggested to their CS that they might want to make a donation to charity in respect of this but of course they are having none of it.

So is that the worst example of a company trying to get out of a marketing promise via quoting a joke renewal premium or do others have worse examples?

Grumpy_chap

I had to renew a policy this month.  One quote came in at £39,996 third party only.  Sometimes, your profile just doesn't match their target.

dunstonh

I see nothing wrong here.  Certainly, nothing that needs to shame a company.

michaels

I have introduced 6 new customers, they have decided they no longer want my custom and this will allow them to pocket the remaining referral bonus they paid me for doing their marketing.

dunstonh

michaels said:

I have introduced 6 new customers, they have decided they no longer want my custom and this will allow them to pocket the remaining referral bonus they paid me for doing their marketing.

I'm never a fan of gimmicks on financial products.  There is usually a reason why companies need to offer something to get business.
However, I would suspect their pay-by-the-mile model has undershot their expected income over the last 12 months and expectation that 2021 wont be much different.   
How much are alternatives coming out on price?

missile

I thought By Miles where you pay a flat premium and then extra depending how far you drive was a pretty decent company and have referred them to several friends.

Just a gimmick to attract the gullible

Sandtree

I'm not sure "recommend a friend" schemes are really "gimmicks", they are fairly standard marketing tools used across many industries. Many things can also be created to try and create lock in - think the old Named Driver NCD that is almost certainly only going to be honoured by the awarding company. 

The world of L&P is very different as generally once you've sold a policy its going to be in force for 20+ years but GI is typically an annual policy with annual acquisition costs to attempt to retain customers as your highly unlikely to do so for the majority simply by being good. Joys of a commoditized distress purchase.

Never had a crazy renewal price but the craziest price I have had is a £15 premium refund (on a ~£600 premium) for adding a learner driver to a nearly new 4.7L /450BHP Merc

Thrugelmir

michaels said:

So is that the worst example of a company trying to get out of a marketing promise via quoting a joke renewal premium or do others have worse examples?

Use the MSE comparison tool to source alternative cover. Alternatively a good broker.  Little point in getting overexcited and taking it personally. Waste of energy. 

Mickey666

michaels said:

I thought By Miles where you pay a flat premium and then extra depending how far you drive was a pretty decent company and have referred them to several friends.

I have just had my renewal quotation through, 2 years ago the base price was £160, last year it was £172, this year it is (wait for it) £340.  What have I done to deserve this?  No new drivers, no accidents, no convictions, few miles driven (due to the lockdown).  I can only guess that they have not been making any money due to not enough miles driven and they are trying to get rid of loss making customers.

Of course they win big time as I have £200 of free miles from referrals that they will no longer have to honour because they are so uncompetitive on the renewal.  I have suggested to their CS that they might want to make a donation to charity in respect of this but of course they are having none of it.

So is that the worst example of a company trying to get out of a marketing promise via quoting a joke renewal premium or do others have worse examples?

Can you go online and get a new quotation from the same company?
Many years ago I used to be with Direct Line and their renewal price was always significantly more than they would offer me online.  So I'd phone them up, say I wanted to renew the policy at their online quoted price . . . which they did!  After a couple of years of doing this they refused to honour the online quoted price saying it was for new customers only.  So I told them if they were going to penalise existing, loyal customers with high prices then no wonder they need to attract new customers!  Waste of time taking to their telesales people of course but it made me feel better.  I've never used them since.

PRAISETHESUN

That time Admiral messed up their mail merge and put the date instead of my renewal price into the box so they tried to charge me over £20mill...

csgohan4

PRAISETHESUN said:

That time Admiral messed up their mail merge and put the date instead of my renewal price into the box so they tried to charge me over £20mill...

Did you find cover for cheaper than 20mil?