Advice on car insurance renewal and change of address

charlotteh96

Hi,

Just hoping for some advice please.

My car insurance renewal is due on 14th December. I'm aware that (according to MSE/Martin Lewis) the best timing for buying a new policy is 20-27 days prior, to get the best deals.

Unfortunately I am also due to be moving within the next month (still awaiting confirmation of exchange and completion date) so will need to change the address on policy, potentially before or shortly after it starts.  I went on webchat with Admiral, their agent advised me it'd be £25 to change my address.

I can't put the new address now in case the purchase falls through or in case something happens whilst I'm still at the old address before we move. 

Therefore I just need to decide whether to go for it now, and suck up the £25 admin fee when we do move - perhaps this is likely to still be cheaper than waiting and buying insurance closer to the time? I know no one other than the underwriter can say for certain, but I'm not sure whether the savings achieved by buying early are that significant or not. 

To put it into perspective I'm currently looking at quotes of between £670-800 (it's for a Kia Sportage). I realise there are other insurers out there, but have read that Admiral is most reliable/most likely to pay out.  Any suggestions of other, decent insurers to look into would be appreciated. 

Any advice on the best course of action would be greatly appreciated. 

Many thanks

cw8825

The £25 is only the admin fee, there will also be the cost of the new premium whether more or less.

At this point you will need to choose the insurance based on your current address, when comparing make a note of the admin charges on the policy for changes and also the cancellation charge.

If you already had a date to move it would be a bit simpler but for now you need to renew on your current address then change once you have actually moved.

born_again

Have a look at Aviva online car ins. Any change of details are free.

DullGreyGuy

charlotteh96 said:
Therefore I just need to decide whether to go for it now, and suck up the £25 admin fee when we do move - perhaps this is likely to still be cheaper than waiting and buying insurance closer to the time? I know no one other than the underwriter can say for certain, but I'm not sure whether the savings achieved by buying early are that significant or not. 

To put it into perspective I'm currently looking at quotes of between £670-800 (it's for a Kia Sportage). I realise there are other insurers out there, but have read that Admiral is most reliable/most likely to pay out.  Any suggestions of other, decent insurers to look into would be appreciated. 

Any advice on the best course of action would be greatly appreciated. 

You can always do a dummy quote based on your policy renewing on 14/12 and then another one renewing 21/11 and you can see the price difference for a short notice renewal. 

The doing it early however won't only attract the £25 admin fee but also any delta in premium between the two addresses. Ratings are calculated frequently and so it's impossible to definitively say what the different prices will be. 

The other consideration is how long Admiral honour their quotes for, many its weeks in duration and so you could do the quote now and sit on it until you know if you are renewing at your current address or buying new at the new address. 

Admiral traditionally are cheap and cheerful, as long as you understand and accept the limitations of their policies then they are perfectly fine and I've used them several times. The industry standard for Motor is 97% payout rates and the 3% will include all those cases where the repairs are below the excess, people call up to say the cars got a mechanical problem which the insurer has to advised isn't covered, people who withdraw the claim etc etc. Not getting a payout is rarely an issue... if you agree on the amount paid out can be a different matter.