Insurance renewal price

Spugx

Hi,
I insured some sports equipment with Insure4sport in 2023 for £68 which included a 30% intro discount - renewal price this year was £194 !! - when I checked the same cover if I was a new customer it was £65 - I queried this with the company as I thought legislation had been introduced to stop this practice - the agent said that certain categories were exempt but when I pushed further he just said it was down the the underwriting company which in the case was Aviva.

In a similar manner my mother in laws house insurance with Nationwide more than doubled from 2024 to 2025 but was much cheaper if we posed as a new customer - and they even had the cheek to state “you have been with us for a long time and may find a better deal by shopping around”

So my question is - was there legislation to prevent this behaviour and have companies found a loophole so they can keep the auto renewal scam going - which particularly affects the older generation who are not able to shop around using computers and IT

Cheers

DullGreyGuy

The regulatory changes only applies to Home and Motor not other classes of insurance. 

The rules are more complex than some of the headlines may have made it seem... a renewing customer for the above two classes of business cannot be charged more than a new customer would be charged if they were to buy the same product (which is a more granular concept than just "motor" and "home") via the same channel (ie phone, website, aggregator). This has to consider any financial incentives but not any non-financial incentives (eg free cuddly toy).

So if she originally bought it over the phone and you are now looking at prices online it's perfectly allowable for them to be cheaper because its a different distribution channel. Similarly she may be on a retired product and new customers are being quoted on a new one - I've not worked on consumer insurance since the changes were proposed so whilst I know just changing a few words isnt sufficient to claim its a new product I dont know what the minimum level of change is required to say its a new product... there are further rules on retired products but its not possible for someone other than the price setter and the regulator/auditors to see if those rules are being followed or not.

Your product is neither home nor motor so not covered by the new regs.

Spugx

Hi - thanks for the clarification  - just have to keep playing the silly game of phoning up to get a better deal every year then