I tried different professions for car insurance quotes and the prices went up and up

Spanky_Deluxe

I'm not really looking for advice as I don't think there's anything I can do but I'm providing this as a cautionary tale more than anything else.

We've been looking to get a new car for a while now and have had one on order for several months. When I first did a comparison quote to see how much the insurance would be, it suggested around £800, which was ok. A month later, I decided to see if I could improve upon it, so I used the job titles tool on this site to try a few different professions. I got it down to £750 first, then £715. However, after trying about five or six different job titles, every new title I put in would increase the price. After trying the 10th profession, my quote was up to £1100 and putting in my original details didn't bring it down.

I left it for a month, hoping that whatever I'd done to mess up my profile would reset. I tried again today and the cheapest quote was £1900. I can get a 'better' quote by clicking on the original email link for the cheapest £715 quote and clicking 'update' and it brings it down to 'only' £1230. I've gone onto Admiral (the cheapest offer) and put in my details there and they give the same high prices.

It looks like this 'break' in insurance quotes is on my address as changing my name has made no difference. I've used different browsers and have reset my IP address all to no avail. Every quote I do now basically just increases the price and I'm now probably going to have to pay £1-2k more in insurance when I get my new car because of my attempts at cost saving. My insurance renewal is early July so I'm hoping somehow it will fix itself before then and the change in car won't affect my current policy too much until then but it's not looking good although I have got a more reasonable quote from Direct Line so a switch at renewal may work out ok.

elsien

Trying so many different job titles looks like you’re playing the system and puts up a big red flag. There’s not many jobs which would accurately allow that many options. 

The advice is generally not to use your own details if you’re playing around with options like that.
Out of interest what is your job, and what alternatives were you looking at? 

Spanky_Deluxe

elsien said:

Trying so many different job titles looks like you’re playing the system and puts up a big red flag. There’s not many jobs which would accurately allow that many options. 

The advice is generally not to use your own details if you’re playing around with options like that.
Out of interest what is your job, and what alternatives were you looking at? 

I used a different name but not date of birth or address as that's always worked fine in the past (e.g. about ten years ago when I was still checking quotes, Admiral companies wouldn't quote if I had the same name as my existing policy but changing the name was enough to consider it 'fresh'). I'm the finance and technical director for a small company, so there's a whole string of things I could try - technical director, company director, finance director, pensions manager, payroll manager, systems manager etc etc.

k3lvc

Spanky_Deluxe said:

elsien said:

Trying so many different job titles looks like you’re playing the system and puts up a big red flag. There’s not many jobs which would accurately allow that many options. 

The advice is generally not to use your own details if you’re playing around with options like that.
Out of interest what is your job, and what alternatives were you looking at? 

 I'm the finance and technical director for a small company, so there's a whole string of things I could try

So a reasonably responsible role and yet you still chose to try and play the system and ignore the box you ticked saying that you confirmed the details you entered were correct ? You may get away with a single change/alternative but you've played the system and lost

Voyager2002

k3lvc said:

Spanky_Deluxe said:

elsien said:

Trying so many different job titles looks like you’re playing the system and puts up a big red flag. There’s not many jobs which would accurately allow that many options. 

The advice is generally not to use your own details if you’re playing around with options like that.
Out of interest what is your job, and what alternatives were you looking at? 

 I'm the finance and technical director for a small company, so there's a whole string of things I could try

So a reasonably responsible role and yet you still chose to try and play the system and ignore the box you ticked saying that you confirmed the details you entered were correct ? You may get away with a single change/alternative but you've played the system and lost

I think it is clear that a large number of the options given by insurance companies would give an accurate description of this particular role. Your judgmental tone is really not appropriate.

Spanky_Deluxe

k3lvc said:

Spanky_Deluxe said:

elsien said:

Trying so many different job titles looks like you’re playing the system and puts up a big red flag. There’s not many jobs which would accurately allow that many options. 

The advice is generally not to use your own details if you’re playing around with options like that.
Out of interest what is your job, and what alternatives were you looking at? 

 I'm the finance and technical director for a small company, so there's a whole string of things I could try

So a reasonably responsible role and yet you still chose to try and play the system and ignore the box you ticked saying that you confirmed the details you entered were correct ? You may get away with a single change/alternative but you've played the system and lost

My details were correct on every try as my job covers a broad area and my specific job title wasn't on there anyway as an option. I'm just using what this site suggests at https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/car-insurance-job-picker but what's tricky is my role covers three 'sectors' - Technical, Finance and Office and you can't see all the job titles that would be applicable listed at once and the 'try another sector' comparison plain doesn't really work as each sector only really compares well with itself.

dunstonh

I left it for a month, hoping that whatever I'd done to mess up my profile would reset. I tried again today and the cheapest quote was £1900. I can get a 'better' quote by clicking on the original email link for the cheapest £715 quote and clicking 'update' and it brings it down to 'only' £1230. I've gone onto Admiral (the cheapest offer) and put in my details there and they give the same high prices.

Clear your cookies and wait a month.  Or try a different device.   The fraudulent quotes checks usually drop off after a month but if you have cookies on your computer from when you did the quotes, they can re-trigger them.  If you retry before they drop off, it resets the timer. Get quotes from a provider that isn't on comparison sites.

And in future, do not attempt to obtain quotes using dodgy information using your real details.  Check your date of birth, name and address on test quotes.

I'm just using what this site suggests at

The tool doesn't tell you to go on comparison sites and put in a load of different jobs.  It instead gives you the potential differences without passing on your personal details.