New car quote cheaper than renewal

wibble_2

I have just had my car insurance renewal notice from Admiral. Out of curiousity I went to their web site and entered my details to get a "new" quote. I was surprised to find that the new quote was £229 compared to my renewal quote of £270. The details were identical to the previous year.

£20 of this difference seemed to be due to them sneakily adding windscreen cover which I didn't have in my current year.

I'm tempted to ring up and tell them not to renew my policy when it expires, then after a few days go back to their web site and re-apply from new to get the lower quote.

Has anyone got away with this strategy before?

Their web forms do not ask who my current insurer is, but they will probably find out it is themselves when they ask me to post them my proof of no claims discount!

Am I likely to run into any problems here?

jonesMUFCforever

Why not just ring them up and tell them what you have done. They might offer you the cheaper quote but if not then you have time to look elswhere for insurance.
I would not drive without insurance even for one day because you may be the best and most careful driver in the world but sod's law says someone else is'nt and you are bound to have an accident.
Eric

wibble_2

I would not drive without insurance even for one day

Of course, and I wasn't suggesting for a moment that I would do so.

I have another approx 2.5 weeks before my current insurance expires, and the "new" quote is by far the cheapest.

I may give them a ring but I suspect that they may try to decline to renew me at the new quote, perhaps on the basis that it is an introductory offer even though there is no mention of such on the site.

wibble_2

Well I gave them a ring, and after consulting her supervisor I was pleasantly surprised to be told that they would renew my policy at the "new" quote price. So full marks for that.

However, it was a bit of a cheek in the first place to quote me £50 more. As it was set up as a continuous authority I guess they were hoping that a substantial proportion of customers would forget and just let the renewal go through by default.

So, the moral seems to be don't assume that your renewal quote is the cheapest figure that you will get from your current insurer. Get a new quote and you may be surprised.

deanos

Ive noticed this with a few insurance companys, when you apply online you usually get a discount like 10% but when it comes up for renewal you dont get the 10% discount as you are not doing it online anymore, Eagle Star did this a couple of years in a row i did get it matched no problem but i wonder how many hundreds of people dont bother checking !

jonesMUFCforever

Great news that you have had the premium reduced but can you explain your posting:-

''I'm tempted to ring up and tell them not to renew my policy when it expires, then after a few days go back to their web site and re-apply from new to get the lower quote''.

If you do not renew you have no insurance(unless you take out new insurance with someone else)so how would you be insured from expiry until you decide to re-apply? This is why I made the point of advising you not to drive whilst un-insured.

MarkyMarkD

It's obvious enough to me.

10 days before renewal (say) you phone and say "I don't want to renew". They note it on the system and the auto-renewal doesn't go through.

Then (say) 5 days before renewal, you sign up as a new customer.

With most insurers, they will suss you are an existing customer and not let you do this. But they haven't got much reason to do so if you go through all this hassle.

wibble_2

Exactly.

As there was plenty of time left on my existing policy I would probably have applied for the new quote more than a week before renewal. This would have allowed them plenty of time to reject by post and me enough time to get insurance elsewhere.