Unfamiliar Car Insurers

DarcySarto

My car insurance renews in about a month's time. I've used the MSE tool to get various quotes and some really good quotes have come up from two companies called Darwin and Geoffrey. Does anyone here know anything or have experience (good or bad) about either of these companies?

Geoffrey seem to have two kinds of policy - "Essential" and "Plus", I've checked out their website but can't find out the difference between the two.

I'm currently with LV but their renewal quotes are horrendous!

If anyone knows of a good, competitive car insurer not listed on Compare, I'd be grateful for the tip.

Have a lovely Thursday!

Iceweasel

Darwin is part of the Direct Line Group.

Frozen_up_north

LV renewals are strange, I switched away due to a price increase that had no obvious reason, saved around £100.

On the other hand, my partner has just renewed with LV and the annual cost only increased by £8, the year before it also increased by a similar amount. We both are retired, no claims and modest cars.

Penguin_

Im with Darwin & they are good. I have just added business cover to my policy due to a job role change & they didn't charge me anything for adding it. Not even a mid term adjustment charge.

Frozen_up_north

Forgot to add, we have had two claims with LV (one car over 5 years ago, and a travel medical claim 5 years ago), both claims were settled in a few days. It’s one thing to have good value insurance, but only if they handle claims promptly and efficiently.

forgotmyname

This years quotes were 99% the basic policies even though I ticked the boxes for windscreen cover and protected no claims etc.

The quote were all the basic no frills policies.

My initial thought was why bother with that comparison website if they cannot get the basic cover right.

ButterCheese

I've only made 1 claim in my life and that was with Tesco car insurance.  Although their website facility for logging a claim was good, the follow up was very poor.  At the end of the day, it's a person on the end of the phone that you are trusting to handle your case correctly.  These people can be very good of very poor, regardless of whether they are a huge well known company or one you've neevr heard of.

In my case, I was told to book the car in for repair.  I waited 4 months (with me personally chasing every couple of weeks) to be booked in.  After 4 months the bodyshop decided that they "couldn't get the parts" so refused to fix my car.  I was then booked into another bodyshop where the work was done wihtin a week.  But Tesco never really helped apart from doing the bare minimum and it was left up to me to chase.

DullGreyGuy

Iceweasel said:

Darwin is part of the Direct Line Group.

Darwin is underwritten by DLG however its administered by a third party unlike other DLG brands

Geoffrey is a trading style of Budget, an insurance broker, who trade under a lot of different white label arrangements like Lloyds Bank, Coop, Post Office, M&S, to name but a few