Car Insurance Renewal - ALWAYS Challenge!!

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81906174#Comment_81906174

Not offering your best price, or being so willing to give away margin, is one thing… a competitor being £48 cheaper is a very different kettle of fish.

Aggregators offer to tell you where you were in the rankings and there are third party companies that will, on an anonymised basis, tell you were you are on pricing compared to competitors but thats not on a like for like basis because you could be the cheapest full fat policy but are ranking 5th because someone with a cut down product is under cutting you.

The firm we used to use would give this for circa 50 theoretical customers each month but the OP is unlikely to precisely match any of the 50 so its always a bit of guess work as to what your price is compared to the unnamed competitors. Similarly we do pricing sensitivity testing to give us a reasonable idea of the impact on both customer counts and revenue if we increase the price of teenage drivers but reduce the price on executive style cars. We then have to wait a few weeks to see the impact come through on conversion and subsequently a couple of months to see the impact on pricing against competitors

Wouldnt be a bad thing? Not necessarily a good thing either though, a brand that holds itself up as highly ethical found the majority of their customers will leave for less than £5/year difference in premiums even if the company undercutting them is a unknown brand based overseas. If the competitor is a known name then most will leave for £1.50 a year saving.

There is a shrinking minority who never shop around, those that do shop around arent loyal to good service which ultimately costs money. I've seen it many times, a policyholder we in claims have gone the extra mile for, they've said they are really thankful, that it was a great experience, couldn't have been better then 2 months later they switched to another product.

Consumer insurance is a highly commoditised distress purchase. You can say what you want about how the insurer should be but for the majority of customers it won't make them stick around, price alone does that.

eschaton

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81905774#Comment_81905774

He was quite right.

One year I called the AA to cancel auto renewal on my home insurance. I was busy and as a one off I was prepared to renew if they matched a certain price even although I would have got cashback going elsewhere.

They were £2 out so I said no. The guy then had the cheek to say, so you’re cancelling for the sake of £2? I said, no you’ve just lost a customer for the sake of £2, goodbye.

sheramber

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81905795#Comment_81905795

He got it cheaper than other offers. My husband didn’t. That only offered the same amount. Too late. They could have offered that price in the first place.

Gloseeker

I had this recently as well my renewal jumped way more than I expected.

From what I’ve read, insurers price things quite differently depending on postcode, timing and even how close you are to renewal. Apparently leaving it late can actually push prices up which surprised me.

Definitely worth checking a few quotes before accepting it I managed to get mine down quite a bit doing that.

Juliejones

I have 2 cars, one business, one private and the renewal for both was at least £50 more than last year. Had no claims! Did comparison sites and the cheapest were all about the same - about £50 dearer than last year! I thought insurance costs had gone down but not for me! Obviously some comparison sites offer rewards which means you get a bit of discount but still feel ripped off!!