Cut Your Car Insurance In 4 Steps Discussion Area

System

For years I've shopped around each time my renewal comes, as the article says companies encourage new business.....That was until this year I found Sainsbury's cheap last year and this year they still couldn't be beaten, I even tried Esure who are Sainsbury's insurers and they couldn't match the quote!! Finally if you do have more than 5 years no claims don't bother to protect it, there is nothing to gain. If a claim is made you only have the protection with the same company so you can no longer shop around for a cheaper quote if they load your insurance your stuck with them

System

Re haggling:
It works. I bought a pickup and had to insure for 'business'. All quotes were ~£1000 except current insurer on the car (Direct Line), who wanted £720. Went back to Commercial Vehicles Direct with that and said 'how about it?' and in fairness to them they didn't seem at all !!!!!! off with my eventually paying them £684! Note that 15% of the quote was underwriter's fee, about which they could do nothing - so they knocked 15% off the premium to get the final figure down - bless 'em!
Thanks Direct Line.
Many thanks CVD.
HAGGLE! They want your business as £500 from you is £500 better than £0, even if they did ask for £700.

Jon

Keep up good work Martin - we'd all be bust without folk like you!

System

This is the area for questions, feedback and discussion about the four step solution to cutting your car insurance costs.   For the article containing this system click here.

If you are providing feedback.  It would be very helpful to hear the results of each of the steps.  As this is a new system all feedback is greatly appreciated.

My fingers are crossed that it saves you some money though.

Martin

wallyberry

Has anybody else had serious problems with the 'confused' site, as at the moment it seems a particularly apt name for it?  I've been trying on and off all day to get a quote for my husband's LR Disco and get a dsn error everytime I try to get into the 'car insurance' section.  I suppose it's better than it crashing halfway through, but I wondered if it was me or whether I should just try again tomorrow?

Stokey_2

We took Martin`s advice after receiving our renewal premium from Norwich Union by applying through insurancesupermarket.com as a new customer with Norwich Union and saved 15% for the same policy.

Thanks Martin.

£$&*"($£&(

I used the confused.com site and was given a quote of £171 through kwikfit which was rather better than the esure renewal quote of £214. I took this offer up and was given an extra £10 of though this did include a £30 cashback so that was a saving of £53.

Unbelievable_2

It's worth haggling with your existing insurer.

I have been with NU Direct for years - my renewal premium was £463. I managed to get £379 from DirectLine and told NU Direct so. They came down to £384 plus £10 cash back, £89 less than orginally quoted!

Finally took the DirectLine quote - their excess was only £100 v £270 with NU, also DirectLine take AMEX so another 2% cashback. Lovely ;D

Sabrina

Hi! I'm the newest of the newbies with this being my first ever post eeeeeeek so please be nice if I'm asking silly questions and going on too long! ::)

I'm going to be turning 21 in October and really want a car for my birthday. My parents may agree, provided I do a lot of the legwork!

First question is new or used...my parents like the idea of a new car simply because it's less likely to break down/ I'm less likely to have problems with it but I may also be looking into a car that's a year old or so. Secondly, the make and model. My parents are into their Japanese makes for reliability and the Nissan Micra and Toyota Yaris seem to be their favourites. I prefer the look of the Yaris, so for the purposes of this discussion am sticking with that.

Next, insurance (the relevant bit after all that rambling!)...I may forfeit the right to free insurance if I go for a 0% APR deal, if indeed such a thing exists when coming to buy a new car. So assuming I have to find my own insurance, I stumbled upon this website For 2 years now, since passing my test, I've been on my mum's insurance and have not had any accidents or bumps *touch wood*. My parents consider me a good driver, which is why they're considering buying me a car.

As I have no details about my car (since I haven't chosen or bought it yet) I decided to skip confused.com in favour of the less questionny insuresupermarket.com. I made up a few details about the car (I called it a 1000cc 2003 Yaris something) and then put my details in as far as I could. Interestingly, playing with my details and the 'back' button, I discovered putting in my uni postcode (where my car is going to be most, to be fair) saves me 400 pounds! Anyway, my cheapest 'quote' for fully comp (what my parents will insist on I'm sure) is 544 GBP, from a limited number of insurers since I have no vehicle registration number. Is this a good deal or do you think I can get it down further?

I really don't know ANYTHING about cars or insurance (or life to be honest!) so any golden nuggets of information you might have would be so greatly appreciated! (On ANY part of my story from new/used to best cars to insurance, though I appreciate there's probably another bit of the board that better addresses my concerns!)

Thank you!

mutley74

Sabrina,

cars: look out for offers on new cars with free insurance. I know that vauxhall sometimes have offers for free insurance..useful for new car owners like you. Search around at local dealers. I personally think most modern cars less than 3 -4 yrs old are pretty reliable. Honda/ Toyata do come out the best, but i have a citroen and that has been good to be since new. Peugot is also very good, only needs servicing every 20,000 miles (306 model petrol).

Insurance: Eagle star 7 years ago, took into account my clean named driver history on my Dad's and Sister's car insurance when i took out my own policy, and gave a discount for this. if you are going to buy your own insurance i.e. its not free with a car, i would personally go for an old 2nd hand car. place your XS high as possible, and keep milegae stated to them low. trying adding your Mum or Dad as a named driver on Your policy..may make a difference. Admiral and Elephant sell 10mth bonus policies. Policies that last 10mth sto enable you to build up a fast no claims discount, but then you do pay more for this service.
Other thing is to shop around..use MSE link for moneysupermarket. I found Screentrade.co.uk very good, but i have 6 yrs no claims.

Pal

I just reinsured one of our cars and initially went through confused.com - got a quote of £990 (insuring for a provisional driver   ).  On a whim I went through egg and got a better insurance policy for £730 with another £50 cashback.

Bit annoyed I didn't go to them when I insured our other car a few weeks ago.  I got an egg quote and it would have been £100 cheaper and £50 cashback.  >:(

Egg is also much quicker to complete as they only ask minimal questions.