Car Insurance Renewal Very Near Home Move

fiish

My car insurance expires at the end of this month - new policy needs to start on 1 August.

I'm preparing for a possible home move in the first two weeks of August. What do I need to do to avoid or minimise unnecessary costs from the change in address? 

Currently I'm thinking I should get quotes for both the old and new address, pick an insurer based on the new address since most of the insured period will be at the new address. The admin fee (£25 with my current insurer) for updating the address seems steep though, given the change in address is 2 weeks or less after the policy starts. Wondering if there are any other ways I could approach this.

dunstonh

The admin fee (£25 with my current insurer) for updating the address seems steep though

Actually, £25 is cheap.    Remember that explicit charging tends to have a lower premium than implicit charging that has lower/no admin fees.  So, you need to consider all aspects.

i.e. don't go switching to an insurer with no admin costs without comparing its premium as you could be paying for the admin costs indirectly within the premium.

DullGreyGuy

fiish said:

Currently I'm thinking I should get quotes for both the old and new address, pick an insurer based on the new address since most of the insured period will be at the new address. The admin fee (£25 with my current insurer) for updating the address seems steep though, given the change in address is 2 weeks or less after the policy starts. Wondering if there are any other ways I could approach this.

Just be careful as to if you are buying from an insurer or an intermediary with a panel... 

For example if you get a quote from the Post Office, which is a white label of the brokers Budget, the quote for the first property could be PO placed with Aviva and the quote for the second property is PO placed with Axa. So you buy from the PO based on your first quote (Aviva) but when youdo the change of address the reprice will keep the policy with Aviva and could be a very different number than Axa via the PO. 

I'd more be minded to choose a provider with very low cancellation fees/preferable terms and be minded to cancel the policy with effect of your move date and just buy new from your move date (or at least compare the cost of that to the option of doing a CoA)

fiish

Thank you for the replies.

I think it is the move potentially occurring so close to the insurance renewal, that makes it feel expensive. £25 is still 5% of a £500 policy. I probably wouldn't notice the expense if the moving happened 6 months into the policy.

Noted on the providers. I'll check the underwriter behind each provider quote and hopefully will avoid being caught out. That said, the cheapest provider is the same (Aviva, and I don't think they do insurance from anyone but Aviva) both addresses at the moment. 

TELLIT01

It doesn't matter if the change of address is 2 weeks or 6 months after the policy starts.  It's still the same amount of work.  You could check out potential insurance cost for the new location, then try to determine how much each would charge for the change of address.