Car Insurance Tips & Tricks

nandrews

Fizz
Go for it.
You aren't doing anything wrong.
Just proving that, despite being an exsiting customer, they are prepared to fleece you!
BUT £100 sounds a big difference. Check your old policy docs and make sure you have missed out cover that you still want.

Nigel

forgotmyname

Shame you didnt tell them that 4 months ago when the needed advice

Barrhead

I am looking for help to find an insurance company that will give insurance to the people I support. They do not qualify for motability, but would like to lease a car. They would not be able to drive themselves and so would like an open insurance policy for their support team to drive them. It has to be an open policy so they don't pay for a car and have it sitting in the driveway most of the time because there's only a few staff that can support them to drive it.

Where I am finding difficulties is that this is counted as neither business or personal insurance, so i can't get a company to do the insurance.

Can anyone advise me of a solution?

rudekid48

Would the "support team" be getting paid to drive them (or performing the service as part of their employment) or are we talking about friends / family members driving the car.

Also what are the conditions involved?

forgotmyname

An open policy will be very expensive, Even the company insurance policies clamped down and request drivers details.

My company have to photocopy everyones licence every 12 months.

Norman_Castle

arie5119 wrote: »

We have posted a video with tips and tricks for getting cheap car insurance in America on our blog it's well worth a watch.

arie.

The spam button needs clicking.

Martinlus

Hi all, Just a quick word of warning to everyone. Be very careful when you are searching for the best price for Car insurance (or any other type, for that matter) on comparison sites. I got caught out his week by a company called 'One Call Insurance'. BEWARE AND AVOID! Read on....

Their service is awful, they keep you waiting on the phone for an age (perhaps that's why they're called One Call - you can spend what seems like your whole life waiting on that ONE CALL!)

One big problem I had was that even though you might select all the extras you want adding to your quote during the comparison process, they don't all automatically get carried through to the actual purchase 'click through' phase and you end up getting a policy that doesn't necessarily include all that you asked for!

Plus, AFTER having committed and paid and when you've added back on the extras you actually wanted, they then hit you with all kinds of extra caveats on the few extra that do get carried through, so the price you pay goes up and up AFTER you commit!

E.G. Courtesy Car included in quote - after paying, you're asked, "Do you want to guarantee you get a courtesy car?" Errrr duh! YEAH! Oh well that's extra then! Stuff like that! It makes a complete mockery of the whole COMPARISON process!

But I digress! The real issue is that if you take out a policy with these guys (I used Go Compare) and then change your mind, because you get a better quote, or you're not happy with the poor customer service or the extra costs or missing extras! Whatever reason - they charge you £49 (YES £49!!!) 'admin' to cancel! Even if - as was my case - you cancel within 24 hours of buying it and a good 7 days before the insurance even came into force. And they had me bang to rights because apparently it's in the T&C's you tick acceptance of before you commit! I KNOW, I KNOW! MY FAULT! But who gets the time to trawl through pages of T&C's right? Well I certainly will find the time in future! And I wouldn't mind if it was a more reasonable admin charge, say £10 or £15. All they did was issue me a policy via automatic email! Didn't even cost them postage!

So beware, check and read EVERY LINE of the T&C's before you commit to check for these hidden charges.

BTW - Please be aware that you are NOT covered under the distance selling protection with insurance services! No financial services are covered!

So please all, don't be a t**t like me! Take your time and check the T&C's before you commit.

And my advice - STEER CLEAR OF ONE CALL INSURANCE LTD! Awful customer service, really surly staff and you can end up paying MUCH more than what comes up on the initial comparison site!!

I'm off to drown my sorrows in a beer now!! BTW - I'm not driving afterwards!

G_M

The problem with this thread, and the MSE guides to insurance (and indeed other areas too) is that it over-focusses on price.

Yes, we all want to save money - but the reliability of the insurer (bank, utility co whatever) AND the extent of the cover are important too.

Tips to reduce cost are half the story. You need to know what you are getting in return too.

I have yet to find a decent, single source, which compares different car policies ignoring price (which obviously is customer specific).

A spreadsheet or similar showing each policy's
* medical cover
* key cover
* personal possessions
* european cover
etc

Then once the standard comparison sites had listed your cheapest 5 or so insurers you could easily compare which offers the best cover.

dacouch

http://defaqto.com/star-ratings/car-insurance

Gives details of cover, but bear in mind it can be easy for an insurer to achieve a high rating by tweeking the parts of the policy cover Defaqto rate.

It also does not reflect customer service and claims service but is a good reference point to use as part of your overall strategy.

A broker would have performed the type of search you want eg suggest quotes based on value for money, levels of cover and levels of service. Comparison sites retrained customers to buy based on price alone resulting in Insurers reducing the cover to enable them to give quotes in the top five returns of the comparison site

MSE derive their income from comparison sites and affiliate schemes which explains their focus on price alone especially now they're so moneysupermarket

dacouch

Incidently Insurers who offer cover through brokers and direct tend to offer wider cover through their broker products rather than the direct arms due to the reasons noted in the above post