Car Insurance Tips & Tricks

System

This year I did my usual research of veh. insurance quotes online to find the cheapest and saved myself £200!
I beat my Direct Line quote by £160 with Sainsburys (and had a lower excess). £80 saving of that was on the car insurance itself and the other £80 was for dropping out roadside assistance which had been part of my previous package. I found that I could get the same roadside cover by upgrading my Smile internet bank account to a Smilemore account for a monthly payment of £6 (£72 per annum)
The Smilemore upgrade not only gives me the same roadside assistance cover for slightly less cost, but also included other benefits such as extended overdraft and an interest free overdraft facility, plus an annual holiday insurance cover, which included snow holidays. Our annual holiday insurance from Direct Line had previously cost us £120 (without snow cover).
So I reduced our insurance costs by £280 for an outlay of £72 by changing my car insurance this year and upgrading my bank account. Hence a saving of over £200!
It was certainly worth a couple of hours at the keyboard and didn't even involve long and annoying phone calls.
We have had bank accounts with many of the big banks in the past and been disgusted with their service, practises and mistakes and I can happily say that with Smile (Co-op online) both my husband and I have been really satisfied with the whole set up and now get interest on any credit balance into the bargain. I highly recommend them ;D

System

In reply to being able to drive cars third party without actually being insured on it...You guys wouldnt happen to know any insurance companies that will do this for drivers under 20...if you do then can you tell me thanx

Fran

I've just renewed mine - went through confused.com and looked at other online quotes. Then armed with a "lowest quote so far" got out the Yellow Pages, on the first one I tried they already had my details - they asked if I went through confused.com. I got the quote £23 cheaper.

System

Can anyone help me?
My husband and I are trying to get our first car insurance.
He is 26 and holds an EU license and I am 22, have a provisional uk license and am just about to start learning.
Does anyone have any ideas of how we could reduce our quotes?
Confused.com have quoted 758 pounds and I can't use insuresupermarket because I'm on a mac.
Also I was wondering - as the price of insurance will go down when I have passed my test, is there any way of taking advantage of this and buying a policy for less than a year? ::)
Thanks!

System

Just to add to my comment above...
I haven't been able to view the quote at confused.com - seems to be a problem with the site. it won't tell me who the quote is from.
Has anyone else had problems?
Our cheapest quote at the moment is 730 pounds from prudential over the phone!

drivelikeUstoleit

A BIG THANK YOU MARTIN

We have just tried all the tips and tricks in Martins book, regarding car insurance, and managed to get car insurance, from norwich union, for our fiesta for £137 third party F+T and then £32 for breakdown cover. The breakdown cover is 1/4 mile and further from home take you to a garage and if they dont fix it they will take you and 7 people, in a taxi, to anywhere within 20 miles. (only question is how do you get 7 people in a fiesta). The only other thing to add is this we are childminders and this covered carrying other people's kids in the car.
We first tried insuresupermarket.com then we basically haggled between the top three and our current provider, who we have house insurance with and still wouldn't budge from £182 without breakdown cover would have been an extra £90. We are very happy with this.
My wife and I have got a competition going to see who can get the best deal haggles etc and out of interest she seems to be able to get the best deals this is her 3 deal in about a month. She managed to get £20 off the BD cover with this one.
I was wondering if there was a difference between men haggling and women.

Salami

Hey folks.

Heres a few tips for getting your car insurance quote (I work for one of the largest):

These tips only apply to my company (I’m not going to name them just in case, but you should find them listed first in the phone book), they probably do to the others, but I can’t guarantee it.

Also, although there is a certain amount of leeway, please don’t tell fibs on your info. If you claim, we check it. All.

1. Most importantly (to the folks you are talking to) every sale means that we are that much closer to getting our bonuses. We really do try to get the best quote for you.

2. Discounting.

At present we can discount only on quotes over £450 or any amount if they are being paid for on instalments. Max 10% <450, 15% >450. and we each have a limited amount of discount we can use. We will use it if we think it may get that sale but we have to use it sensibly. 250 pound quotes, for example, would only be discounted down by 10 – 15 pounds unless you are buying extra products (membership etc.) 300 pound quote, 20 – 25 pounds. If we come in 10 – 20 pounds more, ask to see if we can get a discount for you.

3. Web quotes.

Go online, get a quote there, get the reference number, then give us a call. We can still apply the web discount and we should always run through the info with you and mabey drag the premium down a bit more.

4. 1 car families

Husband and wife on the policy? Try putting the wife as the main driver. The insurers do like the lady drivers. This only tends to work on small to mid range cars, fiesta to escort size. Don’t fib here, only use this one if it is 50/50 usage between you (or close enough).

5. Second car.

You can (usually) only use one set of No Claims Discount (NCD) on one car. There are at least 3 insurers on our panel who will give you an introductory bonus equivalent to that on your existing policy (the first one doesn’t have to be insured with us). For example: you have your car insured with 5 years NCD with whoever. we could insure the second vehicle with an introductory discount of 5 years. This has a few rules attached… It doesn’t affect you existing NCD at all (different policy) it’s based on the fact you have them and are obviously a good (?) driver. It is an introductory bonus, in the above case, if you re-insure with us next year it’ll be 6 years. If you leave, it’ll be with 1 year (the amount you actually earned). Theres also a few things that will stop it being offered. Young drivers (theres a way round this, I’ll cover that later), some fault claims (depends on the amount, usually), high spec cars, excessive convictions.

6. Young drivers.

We do sympathise, it’s extortionate. The company I work for will quote for anyone (just about) but we don’t specialise in the younger drivers so the prices tend to be a little high. We do come out with the occasional gem though.
I only have a few general tips for this one.
a. Best car. 1000cc or as close as you can get. 90-95 model. Nothing with an injection.
b. Pass Plus. Get your kid this qualification. As far as I’m aware it costs about 100-120 pounds to do, and theres at least 3 on our panel who will give a free 1 yr NCD, which means 30-40% discount. If you are looking down the barrel of a £1000 - £1500 quote for little timmy and his shiny new fiesta, that’s a good saving. And it has the bonus of making you feel a little better that you young ‘un is a little better prepared for the road.

There is also a bit of a roundabout way to get cheaper insurance for you teenagers first car. It’s up to you wether you want to take the time, but it could potentially save you hundreds. Take this scenario…

Mr and Mrs smith have a family saloon with 9 years NCD. Their daughter Sam has just passed her test and wants to get started in her own car. The smiths go out and get Sam a nice 1.1 litre fiesta on a 2000 plate (more reliable). They call for insurance and are flabbergasted when they are told prices in excess of £1000.

Obviously, the introductory discount ploy from above will not work because of Sam’s age. The smiths could take a policy with all three of them to drive the fiesta, using the family car’s NCD, Then insure the family car with an intro NCD with only mr and mrs smith to drive. It’s a bit of a roundabout route, but it works. I would advise the Pass Plus every time though. The quicker they have their own NCD the faster they can get into that nicer car that they are screaming for.


7. Other Drivers.

Male drivers, does your wife drive? Put her on your policy. 9 times out of ten it’ll create a discount. “let the wife drive??” I hear you cry. Just because she is on the policy, doesn’t mean she has to drive the thing. “My wife doesn’t drive” I’ve seen policy prices drop when a husband puts his wife on his policy and she only has a provisional.

We don’t make much distinction between married couple and common law partners, the above works for both.

This will usually work for ladies putting their other halves on, but not as well (the insurers like the ladies)

8. Mileage.

Know how many you do. As a general rule the prices change at 3k, 5k, 8k, 10k, 12k, 15k, 20k. it’s usually only a few quid between them, but it’s better a few quid in your pocket. Again, don’t fib here, in the event of a claim, they will check MOT certs. If you do 10k per year, say 9990. you’ll get 10k but (oddly) it sometimes puts it in a lower price band.

9. Courtesy car.

The standard is now a courtesy car for the duration of any claim you have (no waiting for repairs to start) regardless of fault or circumstance. What is your insurers policy? 10-14 days? “Whilst your vehicle is being repaired” usually means that if it’s waiting for parts, you don’t get a courtesy vehicle.

10. EU driving. You should be getting this free for at least 90 days.


That’s it for now. I’ll post more in the near future.

Salami

Just a little addition to the above.....

You should give a little thought to your approach, if you go to your advisor with a gimme gimme approach shouting that some bloke on the web said that you could do this or that, you'll probably end up with nothing.

as long as they don't think you are scamming or giving false info, you'll be fine.

i also thought of something else for moneysaving. The company I work for gives a discount of 1/3 off buildings cover if you have motor insurance with them. thats nearly £70 off a £200 buildings policy.

let the advisor know if there is any discounts for buying extra products.

ie. buy motor, contents and buildings. You could get:

10% off motor
10% off contents
33.3% off buildings.

more products opens more opportunities for discounts.

David1964

Hello Everyone.
My car insurance expires this month so I went on to Confused.com to find something competative.
I got stuck on the part of the questionaire that asked for the total value of any previous claim so I phone Ford Insure to find out how much. (I am not with Ford Insure anymore, but my accident was only last year).
I was told that under the data protection act they didnt have to tell me and in any case the claim was classified as as a High Cost Claim and so they wouldnt tell me anyway unless I was going to reimburse them!
Are they right? I cant find anything in the small print that says they can hide this information from me.
How do I know that repairs have been carried out at reasonable cost and no fraudulent charges made if they keep the value secret?

David
Steaming with Rage!!!

System

Hi, I'm new to all this web stuff but everyone likes to save a couple of quid. Regarding you car insurance 'tips & tricks' I was told (by an ins company)not so long ago that saying you car is sat on a private drive opposed to in a garage will save you money, everyone says there car is in a garage so they put the premium higher, don't know if it will work for you but it did for me saving me twenty squid. Also try and hit the newly set-up companys cos there after your trade and you will get the policy cheeper! ::) Happy shopping.