Car / home insurance increases - more than expected?

Mosh

I was expecting the usual rise when I got my premium from Admiral this year (I have combined home / car) but was flabbergasted by the increase this time. Usually it's 10-20% and a phone call with the usual dance sees it discounted down to near enough the previous year. This time... approx 50% increase. £392 last year, £612 this year.

I called them and they discounted down to £546.81 which is still ridiculous compared to last year. Even with the new figures, the car has gone up from £268 to £382, and the house from £124 to £168. The only other way to reduce the numbers was to start changing the policy. I've made no claims, have had no accidents, had no tickets, etc. and have 11 years no claims.

Is anyone else seeing increases like this? I've shopped around and the cheapest car insurance I'm finding is ballpark the same (£376). I've used the MSE tool which offers me no options to reduce (no viable job title adjustment, nobody else I can add as a second driver, etc). The industry bumph recently was quoting rises of 20%, not 50%!

johnbhoy70

Yup. Just spent the last half hour or so dealing with car insurance comparison quotes. Me and my wife have multicar with Churchill and it's gone from approx £400 to £600.  I've just gone into the top 3 comparison sites to get quotes as apparently i'm in window for best quotes and i think the best i got was a company called Beam from comparethemarket. Not doing anymore tonight but that seems the favourite at the moment and  coming in just over £400 but might go up when i tweak it but pretty the extras are in these quotes too.

Mosh

Yeah I had Beam come up on one site and Hastings on another - £377 / £376. A hair between them. Likewise I'm bang on the sweet spot for quotes, too.

johnbhoy70

Just off the phone to Churchill and they've knocked off nearly £105 over  both me and my wife's policies. So roughly now about £495. They've saved these on the system for me for now but i will still follow up a couple of the lower quotes on the comparisons. Beam look quite a bit lower than the rest which might be a bit suss but alongside the quote it mentions they've currently got reduced rates for comparethemarket. We'll see. Will maybe look at cashback too.

By the way does anyone if  there a list of specialists in multicar where you're likely to get a competitive quote?

Just ignore above folks just found a bit about multicar in main car insurance article

kwalke44

Last year I took out a Home Buildings and Contents policy with "home protect". The policy cost was £199.
I recently received an auto renewal quotation for £650.
When I talked to "home protect" they told me that the huge increase was due to a Flood Re ceded risk clause.
My property is not in a flood risk area, being about one mile from the nearest river. There is no history of flooding in my local area.
Has anyone else experienced this situation.
If your current policy is with "home protect" be careful with your auto renewal!!

Mosh

kwalke44 said:

Last year I took out a Home Buildings and Contents policy with "home protect". The policy cost was £199.
I recently received an auto renewal quotation for £650.

Ouch, you "win" so far! Been busy all week myself, so I'm going to start shopping over the weekend to see if I can bring my quotes down further without giving up any policy cover.

Brie

check that they haven't added extras on the sly.....do you need key cover, legal cover, still have that special item that's a name thing in your contents?

Mosh

Brie said:

check that they haven't added extras on the sly.....do you need key cover, legal cover, still have that special item that's a name thing in your contents?

They'd added nothing. I like legal cover, so have it on any quotes. Admiral managed to discount me down £70 when I rang, but beyond that it was "let's see what we can take off / reduce" to knock the price down. There's not much to take off! I only do 6-7000 miles per year :-/

mgfvvc

Mosh said:

They'd added nothing. I like legal cover, so have it on any quotes.

There's a bit of a saving to be had there. I'm guessing Admiral charge £30-£40 per vehicle insured. The RAC legal cover is £15 for up to 5 people in a household, IIRC. There is even a free legal cover product.

TheBanker

Both my car and home (b&c) insurances fell due in the last two months. Both had increased by about 60% compared to last year. I was expecting an increase due to inflation but not to that extent. Nothing about my circumstances has changed and I've not made any claims.

Fortunately through changing insurers, I was able to get the price down. My car insurance was about 10% more than I paid last year, my home insurance is about 10% lower. Across both policies, shopping around has saved me about £400 so well worth doing. 

I wonder if we'll see an increase in uninsured drivers as a result of the rising costs?

Mosh

mgfvvc said:

Mosh said:

They'd added nothing. I like legal cover, so have it on any quotes.

There's a bit of a saving to be had there. I'm guessing Admiral charge £30-£40 per vehicle insured. The RAC legal cover is £15 for up to 5 people in a household, IIRC. There is even a free legal cover product.

Seems odd that it's potentially cheaper to split products across insurers now. I went with Admiral 3 years ago as there was a discount for having house and vehicle on the same policy. Even with that discount it's now better to split and go to multiple elsewheres!