Car insurance

Hoof_Hearted

MSE: Car and home insurers are to be banned from charging existing customers more at renewal than they would expect to pay when taking out a new policy with the same firm, as part of a ‘loyalty penalty’ crackdown.

Has anyone told the companies this? My renewal quote from LV was £400. On the Meerkat it was £70 less with everything identical (except cinema ticket deals with the latter). Flow Insurance, which is owned by LV, was considerably less, still. Is anybody actually monitoring this? The woman I spoke to squirmed a bit when I asked her why my quote was higher than a new person. She couldn't really explain except that it was a matched quote to the Meerkat. Don't assume the new rule is being applied.

Jaybee_16

As you mentioned it, a similar thing happened to me yesterday.
Property renewal arrived (different insurer) and the cover letter showed last years premium was £370, this year £457. Went on their website and got a quote as a new customer and it came out around the same as last years £370. Phoned the company. explained the price difference and without any haggling, they offered the renewal at the same rate as last year.

sheramber

A few years ago we queried why we could get the same cover online cheaper than the renewal quote.

it was explained that the renewal quote comes from your current underwriter.

But, they use several underwriters and an online quote gives you the cheapest quote, which will be from a different underwriter.

No doubt the same principal applies.

Sandtree

Hoof_Hearted said:

MSE: Car and home insurers are to be banned from charging existing customers more at renewal than they would expect to pay when taking out a new policy with the same firm, as part of a ‘loyalty penalty’ crackdown.

Has anyone told the companies this? My renewal quote from LV was £400. On the Meerkat it was £70 less with everything identical (except cinema ticket deals with the latter). Flow Insurance, which is owned by LV, was considerably less, still. Is anybody actually monitoring this? The woman I spoke to squirmed a bit when I asked her why my quote was higher than a new person. She couldn't really explain except that it was a matched quote to the Meerkat. Don't assume the new rule is being applied.

The FCA is regulating it, as they do all conduct risk; complaints would go to the FOS

You have to understand the full detail of the rules not just the red top press headlines, so for example they can segment by channel so if you haggled and bought over the telephone then your renewal price should not be more expensive than a new business telephone quote but they are free to offer new business via aggregators like Compare the Market or their own website at lower prices.

There are other abilities to segment like by product so you cannot compare your "Gold" policy to the price of a "Bronze"

Flow Insurance isn't LV, it'll be at least a different product and potentially a different company even if it forms part of the same group. 

Have to admit I have not looked into the guidance notes close enough about brands -v- products and other ways to segment business but even the initial guidance from the FCA was clear that channel was an allowable distinction for pricing.