Cut Your Car Insurance In 4 Steps Discussion Area

bingobango_3

wrote:

I received my renewal for motor insurance from Direct Line - £395.85.

"Not bad" I thought but I took the maestro's advice and visited directline.com to see if I could better than by starting up a new policy. I entered exactly the same info as held by Direct Line.

£283.50 on the website !!!

I called them up for an explanation about this but they "couldn't understand the difference".

It's scandalous that they are ripping off loyal customers and encouraging new customers by offering cheaper policies.

direct Line is still the cheapest for my profile but remember to renew your policy every year !!!

Same here!

Just got my renewal letter. If I fill in the web it quotes me less (£7), which INCLUDES guaranteed car hire, whereas the quote they sent me doesn't!

What's more, if I change the excess to be lower than in their renewal letter quote it only costs £1 more than their quote....

What's that all about????

charlie2309

did you know your job description dramatically increases/reduces your premium,my mum was a taxi driver now she is the office manager instead and its dropped loads yet you would think being a professional driver with no accidents in 22 years that would go in her favour and apparently if you have a doctorate the price drops loads.. better get studying lol, also i have been told us singletons are discriminated against so might make up a him indoors next time !! checked mine and my mums car insurance on confused.com they were both over 100pound cheaper and amazingly her best offer through them was with her existing insurer, she phoned to ask why and they couldnt say but offered her the renewal at confused.com's prices!!

Victors_Bruvver

Just got my car insurance renewal for £373.99 from Norwich Union Direct. By taking Martin's advice I have used insuresupermarket.com and the cheapest provider they are quoting is swiftcover.com at £177.69 - a saving of £196.30!
It is not a company I have heard of before, and I wonder if they are reliable. Has anyone here had a policy with them and have they been satisfied with their service?

FemaleGamer

I usually research my car insurance on the internet followed by a couple of phone calls.
This year I had my renewal quote come through and it had gone up from the previous year pretty substantially, so I looked around and was about to go with another company when I thought why not get a completely new online quote from my current insurer just to see what it would be.
Imagine my surprise when they quoted just over £100 less than the renewal quote they'd sent. This was even better than the other cheap online quotes that I'd found earlier, so I went for it.
Next time I will research using Martin's tips plus get a new quote from my present insurer after they try to con me again with a renewal amount!

carinsuranceman

i paid a lot for my insurance for this year. hope i get a better rate next year!

ila

Victors_Bruvver wrote:

Just got my car insurance renewal for £373.99 from Norwich Union Direct. By taking Martin's advice I have used insuresupermarket.com and the cheapest provider they are quoting is swiftcover.com at £177.69 - a saving of £196.30!
It is not a company I have heard of before, and I wonder if they are reliable. Has anyone here had a policy with them and have they been satisfied with their service?

I had not heard of Swift but they were cheapest quote for me on insuresupermarket.com, however excess was £1,000! Changing the excess to something more realistic resulted in them being quite a bit dearer than some of the other quotes

DonGrunbaum

Some companies (e.g. Sainsbury's Bank) offer a discount if you have one of their own credit cards and pay the premium with it. Sainsbury's offer 5%.
Of course you don't need to use the card for anything else!

I increased my excess from £100 to £250 and that saved over £10 on the policy - doesn't seem much but it's about 4% - I'm a good risk, even if I do have a fairly powerful vehicle (Group 14).

My experience of Its4me suggests that they charge more than going direct to the insurers' websites - about £40 in my case.

Happy Hunting!

raymac31

I tried the confused.com etc route and found that the lowest quote was still higher than my renewal quote.I am with Liverpool Victoria , but I had another 3 points to add to my policy. So I thought that this would bump my premium up but to my surprise it made no difference , I was told ' Its so easy to pick up points these days we don't penalise people for it'.A very refreshing attitude I thought.

Also Martin I am not using the associated Frizzels budget account , 12.5%, that I did last year . Going to transfer the balance to Amex Platinum card at 4.9% life of balance and pay it off over the year.

KayS_3

I didn't find InsureSupermarket or Confused offered me any better deals than I was already getting from CIS (part of the Co-op). I like CIS as they have an ethical investment policy, so I'm pleased I'm staying with them. But I like the reassurance that I already had a good deal. I'm renewing later this week, so I will try asking "is that your best price?" and see if I can shave a bit off.

And this site has still saved me a lot of money, as I'm now going to pay the annual fee all in one go by credit card and then do a 0% balance transfer, which will save me about £35 as I usually pay by direct debit.

Also, I will not go for the protected No Claims option. Instead, I'll do what I've started doing for our pets and our white goods - saving a monthly sum into a high-interest account. And I may think in future about buying my daughter a safe old banger so that she can build up her own no claims bonus, instead of letting her drive my car and bumping up my insurance.

This site has saved me a lot of money since I joined it in Dec. I had a huge unexpected vet and white goods bill to pay, and I thought I would have to bit the bullet and put it all on credit card, with hulking fees. Instead, I got it all shifted by 0% balance transfer to the & More card I had recently taken out - I hadn't even realise I could do that! I now have time to pay it off.

I've also managed to negotiate a slightly better deal on my next car than I would have got (I'm not much of a haggler, but I spent two weeks searching around and having a go at it anyway, and although someone else could have done better than I did, I reckon I've saved £150 on what I would otherwise have spent). And I've shifted from my useless charity visa card (£10 fee a year and only pennies given to charity) to a cashback visa card.

It's been a lot of work and a steep learning curve. My daughter moaned about the amount of time I was spending learning the ropes. But now I'm amazed how much money I can save while still being able to do nice things like going to the cinema. I always thought cutting back meant suffering, but not so far! Thanks, Martin - you're a star!

SimonSimon_3

Anyone looking to get a better deal should try the Post Office. I went in to renew the tax disc and the sharp eyed assistant spotted that the renewal date for the insurance was due soon. He suggested I try to renew at the Post Office as they are giving a £50 postal order (refund) to anyone who signs up. I got a quote via their web site and then phone up to check if the quote was correct - yes it was and then asked does this include the £50 postal order. No it didn't!! So my Subaru Impreza doing approx 7000 miles a year wil be approx £260 net including the nice postal order.

I've not seen the £50 bit advertised anywhere yet but it is there if you ask!

OOOH