Car Insurance Tips & Tricks

System

A note for jon shepherd. Try using admiral as well. It is the sister company of elephant and is sometimes cheaper for the exact same insurance policy. If admiral are not cheaper phone up elephant and say they are x amount cheaper than elephants quote and if they would be able to match it. Worked with my renewal saved £30. Also I think the claim would go under the name of the policy holder as it is you that is claiming from them but not 100% on this. You could try putting the policy in one name and having any driver so the other person with the claims could drive the car meaning you are not having to put any claims down on the policy

System

Dirty trick for insuring older cars and vehicles with lower market value, basically anything you would normally insure under Third Party Only:

Find a company that offers DOC extension to basic policy. DOC stands for "Drive Other Cars", it's a clause to normal policy which extends the third party cover for you to drive any other car that is not owned, registered, or being hired to you.

In practice what it means is that you get insurance (and DOC extension) for Insurance Group 1 dirt cheap Fiat Panda and drive Insurance Group 16 class car, be it 2.6 litre Ford Mondeo Ghia X or BMW Z3 Convertible as long as the car you drive is owned by your wife (and vice versa) and you're fine with the fact the car is covered TPO.

Obviously it would be insane to use it for new cars but if you drive a car like Mondeo, big Citroen, Cavalier or any vehicle with sky high depreciation and market value lower than accident repair costs (especially in urban areas with risk zone factor 5 or 6) then £1,500 quote could suddenly become £400, all legal and in accordance with terms and conditions...

SORRY BUT THIS IS NOT CORRECT. Doc Is not Driving other cars - It is Driving any motor vehicle NOT BELONGING to YOU with the Insureds permission. This means If you insure a foat panda for example and then jump into your Mondeo that YOU ARE NOT INSURED as it belongs to YOU. Also Driving other cars would also mean that when you get out the Mondeo the car is uninsured and on the road. Also how would you get Road Tax?

System

I think the other car has to be insured tfor you to be covered under the DOC. Also if you are driving your friends Aston Martin DB7 under the DOC and crash into another car you are only covered third party. So if it was a right-off I don't think they would be your friend anymore.

System

"If you are a young driver, take "Pass Plus" lessons, it costs about £300"

I completely agree with this tip but not so sure about the cost. When I did it 3 years ago it was basically six extra lessons at the same rate as my normal driving lessons, which I took with the same instructor after I'd passed my test so cost me around £120.

Taking the Institute of Advanced Motorists Advanced Driving test costs £85 including all training. It's saved me over £300 in insurance premiums in recent years <with companies who will accept it <the AA, IAM Select, the RAC, alot of smaller brokers>! look at http://www.iam.org.uk

chewyjoint

I used confused.com about five months ago to compare car insurance quotes and found that Elephant.co.uk came out cheapest by about £30. They were over £100 cheaper than Direct Line, our previous insurer.

When I used the site about four weeks ago for quotes for my wife's car Elephant did not quote via Confused or Insure Supermarket.

When I went to Elephant's website direct it was easy to get a quote and again it came out about £30 cheaper than anybody else.

I'm not sure whether Elephant's absence from confused.com is temporary, but if not it may be worth the few minutes it takes to get a quote from them direct.

System

Heres a tip...

I recently purchased insurance through Norwich Union, who quoted me a price over £90 less than ANYONE else (trust me i looked around!).

I wanted to ask them a question in person so gave them a call (answered straight away), the man said that due to the 'inconvenience' of having to call, he would keep the online discount and send me a cheque for £20 in the post. Luckily, the question was how much would it cost to put my girlfriend on, which came to £19, so the cheque has covered that cost....bargain!

Maybe its worth a try, do the research online, get a cheap quote and then call, you never know what they may do to get your custom!

arbitrajeu

[Not sure if this is in danger of taking this thread off topic, so feel free to move]

NU were cheapest for our second car last year, especially with the 5% dual policy discount for having house insurance with them. However, this year elephant.co.uk came in £200 (33%) cheaper.

I had a similar situation when I owned my TVR (pre-kids ). I insured it with NU at £900 for the first year (including just 3 years NCB) but the quote rocketed to £1800 for the second year, despite having another year's NCB. Needless to say, I moved insurer.

Perhaps it's just coincidence, but it appears NU suck you in with a decent quote then milk you dry in subsequent years. One to watch (and exploit if possible).

simonfr

When i renewed my Insurance, and spent 3 weeks honing down the cost, i plumped with the AA, who not only used my existing in use NCB, they also took into account a bikes NCB.
Some of the companies used it, some didnt.
I also had a lorry, and some would convert that to a car NCB (although the scales are different, i.e 6 years equaled 60% NCB).

Just gotta keep plugging away 8)

Andrea

Its definitely worth following the whole system rather than just stopping at Confused.com.

I couldn't quote with Insuresupermarket as it would only give a drop-down list of jobs that weren't applicable to me and wouldn't allow me past the occupation stage if I didn't pick one.

Confused.com brought up Diamond as my best quote (£424). I then went directly to the Diamond website and re-quoted (they allow you up to 10 quotes). This reduced the price to £380.10 (on a 12-month £150 excess policy).

I got a couple more quotes from companies Confused.com didn't cover including Elephant.co.uk. The Elephant website format is identical to Diamond's so I just input the same information. It brought up a quote of £379.

I paid for it on my Circle Rebate card, will transfer it to a 0% card and initially went through Martin's Provider A to Z so have paid something back to MSE.com at the same time

System

Just a quick note, one to try for all young drivers with a fast car!!

I purchased a 2 year old Clio 172, group 17 insurance & me being 19 with 2 years no cliams caused it to be really REALLY expensive to insure!

Elephant where quoting me £2800 before I tried a little trick of adding my mother as a named driver. Just 40 years old, been driving four years, dropped the price to £1700!! Unreal & it works!! With a go for young drivers!