Direct Line car insurance - how to save a LOT on renewal quote

DotNetter

Hi all

My wife just recieved her renewal notice from Direct Line.

£305 (NOT including legal cover - +£17 for that) so £322 (note that this also didn't include guaranteed hire car but I can't recall how much more that was).

I used a comparisson site and came up with at least 20 insurers who were cheaper by on average £50 but we have our home insurance and my own car insurance with directline and as they're a 'big' company and we've been pleased with them in the past we preferred to stay with them.

My wife called them up and explained the other quotes we'd received and she was told that they don't do price mathcing but if she did an online quote, saved it 3 times and then waited for an email from customer services and then called back they could offer her a 10% discount???!!!

I suspect that the above was a way of ensuring that the renewal was allocated to the call centre staff rather than the website (so maybe they get comission) - either way I was very dissapointed.

I decided to do an online quote 'from new' with them to see how much I could get the insurance down to.

I inputed the details exactly as they were on the current/renewal policy and got a quote back for £217! bargain! I then added legal cover and guaranteed hire car got a price of £229 which I was more than happy with. I've now paid for the new policy which is due to start on the day her current policy expires.

So there you go. If you're due to renew with Direct Line, don't bother phoning for a price match but DO bother putting in a new quote as we saved over £100 and pretty much a third off their renewal price!

real1314

DotNetter wrote: »

Hi all

My wife just recieved her renewal notice from Direct Line.

£305 (NOT including legal cover - +£17 for that) so £322 (note that this also didn't include guaranteed hire car but I can't recall how much more that was).

I used a comparisson site and came up with at least 20 insurers who were cheaper by on average £50 but we have our home insurance and my own car insurance with directline and as they're a 'big' company and we've been pleased with them in the past we preferred to stay with them.

My wife called them up and explained the other quotes we'd received and she was told that they don't do price mathcing but if she did an online quote, saved it 3 times and then waited for an email from customer services and then called back they could offer her a 10% discount???!!!

I suspect that the above was a way of ensuring that the renewal was allocated to the call centre staff rather than the website (so maybe they get comission) - either way I was very dissapointed.

I decided to do an online quote 'from new' with them to see how much I could get the insurance down to.

I inputed the details exactly as they were on the current/renewal policy and got a quote back for £217! bargain! I then added legal cover and guaranteed hire car got a price of £229 which I was more than happy with. I've now paid for the new policy which is due to start on the day her current policy expires.

So there you go. If you're due to renew with Direct Line, don't bother phoning for a price match but DO bother putting in a new quote as we saved over £100 and pretty much a third off their renewal price!

Hope you used quidco.com too - £50 cash back last time I used it.