Car Insurance Renewal - Price Increase of 36% - No Changes

[didds]

34.7% increase..renewal on 11th April.

The insurance company is "Flow"

"Flow doesn’t haggle on renewal price or respond to emails about renewal price matching.

My translation

"Flow says here's the quote, take it or leave it!"

As usual, I'll be shopping around.

shrug. I always shop around. If I get a cheaper quote I take it. I'm not interested in giving my expiring company the chance of my money by me doing their leg work for them.

[kempiejon]

"Flow doesn’t haggle on renewal price or respond to emails about renewal price matching.

shrug. I always shop around. If I get a cheaper quote I take it. I'm not interested in giving my expiring company the chance of my money by me doing their leg work for them.

Quite, not just insurance. When I'm in the market collecting quotes the supplier offers me their quote to garner my business. I shop around, check the market or at least a couple of alternatives, then make my choice. Any firm asking me what my best quote has been from alternative suppliers so they can beat it isn't offering me their best price. I don't prefer this practice. I might give a favoured supplier the chance to better their price. Again not related to insurance but there's many a supplier I've used who when asked for a price would start with well list is £x. We then negotiate a deal, I'll still shop around.
Insurers probably suffer as they do not have brand loyalty. They generally only compete on price, have been shown to exploit existing customers at renewal. And most customers don't use their services; I've not had to claim in decades of insuring?

[monabri]

34.7% increase..renewal on 11th April.

The insurance company is "Flow"

"Flow doesn’t haggle on renewal price or respond to emails about renewal price matching.

My translation

"Flow says here's the quote, take it or leave it!"

As usual, I'll be shopping around.

I'm also with Flow, renewal 29 March. +22% on last year for my MG4 EV.

I did the comparison thing with confused. Nothing cheaper and Flow themselves were +10% there.

When I logged on to GoCompare...I also found that Flow were more expensive than the renewal cost quoted on their email. That's why I did a price comparison on Confused.com as they didn't have my details and I was thus a "new" customer and not a returning one for whom they knew the details and past quotes.

[Gersemi]

Insurers probably suffer as they do not have brand loyalty. They generally only compete on price, have been shown to exploit existing customers at renewal. And most customers don't use their services; I've not had to claim in decades of insuring?

This is very true. The true test of an insurance company is how they behave when you need to make a claim. But most of us very rarely make a claim, so base our purchase on price. Reviews are useless as they generally only tell you how easy it is to take the insurance out, which really shouldn't be very difficult.

I will cut my existing insurer some slack, if they are near to the best alternative quote I will generally renew with them, but I do find I need to change every few years. Having said that I see that my new car insurance still isn't the most expensive I've ever had - despite my OH managing to pick up an SP30(6pts)*(72% increase, would have been 29% without that). The most expensive was the 2nd year I had insurance, just after I demolished a wall near my new boyfriend's parent's house the first time I went to visit them 36 years ago. I really made a good first impression! I guess he is getting his own back now with that SP30 . . .

*Grrr - I had a minor incident in a car park just over 5 years ago (my fault) which didn't lead to the other party making a claim which has just dropped off. I was looking forward to nothing to declare.

[airbus330]

Keep your eyes open for a new wheeze. recently did the screen scraping rounds to renew a motor policy. Best deal on one of the big 4 aggregators gave me £79. After clicking thru to the insurer the price had risen to £121. As it happened, that was still my best price and with a reliable insurer, so I bought the policy, but was puzzled by the price difference. Anyway, long story short, I raised an official complaint with the aggregator, who palmed me off to their associated aggregator, who palmed me off to the insurer, who did the decent thing and said they'd investigate. A month later I got a letter acknowledging that the price difference should not have occurred, they'd had a technical investigation but wouldn't tell me the outcome, but they would honour the headline price and refunded the difference. I have no idea if this was a malicious attempt to hoodwink the customer or a tech glitch, but a few more people are reporting similar occurrences on feedback websites.
As far as price increases are concerned, I insure 3 cars 3 motorcycles and a van, and they all fall due in this quarter. Prices overall are up around 30% on my renewals, but so far I have either taken new policies or beaten down the renewal premium to about a 10% increase. No doubt that I'm having to spend more time getting the best prices.

[bungeejumper]

Keep your eyes open for a new wheeze. recently did the screen scraping rounds to renew a motor policy. Best deal on one of the big 4 aggregators gave me £79. After clicking thru to the insurer the price had risen to £121. As it happened, that was still my best price and with a reliable insurer, so I bought the policy, but was puzzled by the price difference. Anyway, long story short, I raised an official complaint with the aggregator, who palmed me off to their associated aggregator, who palmed me off to the insurer, who did the decent thing and said they'd investigate. A month later I got a letter acknowledging that the price difference should not have occurred, they'd had a technical investigation but wouldn't tell me the outcome, but they would honour the headline price and refunded the difference. I have no idea if this was a malicious attempt to hoodwink the customer or a tech glitch, but a few more people are reporting similar occurrences on feedback websites.

Sounds like your cookies have been giving away your infidelity. How dare you look at other insurers' quotes, instead of accepting their quote on the spot? Next time, wipe the cookies before you home in on the final deal. Or use another computer for the acceptance stage.

BJ

[Dicky99]

Keep your eyes open for a new wheeze. recently did the screen scraping rounds to renew a motor policy. Best deal on one of the big 4 aggregators gave me £79. After clicking thru to the insurer the price had risen to £121. As it happened, that was still my best price and with a reliable insurer, so I bought the policy, but was puzzled by the price difference. Anyway, long story short, I raised an official complaint with the aggregator, who palmed me off to their associated aggregator, who palmed me off to the insurer, who did the decent thing and said they'd investigate. A month later I got a letter acknowledging that the price difference should not have occurred, they'd had a technical investigation but wouldn't tell me the outcome, but they would honour the headline price and refunded the difference. I have no idea if this was a malicious attempt to hoodwink the customer or a tech glitch, but a few more people are reporting similar occurrences on feedback websites.
As far as price increases are concerned, I insure 3 cars 3 motorcycles and a van, and they all fall due in this quarter. Prices overall are up around 30% on my renewals, but so far I have either taken new policies or beaten down the renewal premium to about a 10% increase. No doubt that I'm having to spend more time getting the best prices.

Up 30% to £79

[staffordian]

Mine, with LV, is due early next month, up from £183 to £315; a 72% increase. No claims or other changes.

Time for the usual shop around, I think.

[kempiejon]

Mine, with LV, is due early next month, up from £183 to £315; a 72% increase. No claims or other changes.

Time for the usual shop around, I think.

There is apparently a sweet spot to shop around, about 3 weeks so it might be now. Moneysavingexpert studied the market,
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insur ... -to-renew/

[airbus330]

Keep your eyes open for a new wheeze. recently did the screen scraping rounds to renew a motor policy. Best deal on one of the big 4 aggregators gave me £79. After clicking thru to the insurer the price had risen to £121. As it happened, that was still my best price and with a reliable insurer, so I bought the policy, but was puzzled by the price difference. Anyway, long story short, I raised an official complaint with the aggregator, who palmed me off to their associated aggregator, who palmed me off to the insurer, who did the decent thing and said they'd investigate. A month later I got a letter acknowledging that the price difference should not have occurred, they'd had a technical investigation but wouldn't tell me the outcome, but they would honour the headline price and refunded the difference. I have no idea if this was a malicious attempt to hoodwink the customer or a tech glitch, but a few more people are reporting similar occurrences on feedback websites.
As far as price increases are concerned, I insure 3 cars 3 motorcycles and a van, and they all fall due in this quarter. Prices overall are up around 30% on my renewals, but so far I have either taken new policies or beaten down the renewal premium to about a 10% increase. No doubt that I'm having to spend more time getting the best prices.

Up 30% to £79

Last year was £98
Renewal was £129
Accepted new policy £116
With refund actually paid £79
With Reward of 12 car washes value £72
Actual cost of Insurance £7
Ducati 939SS m/c

[airbus330]

Keep your eyes open for a new wheeze. recently did the screen scraping rounds to renew a motor policy. Best deal on one of the big 4 aggregators gave me £79. After clicking thru to the insurer the price had risen to £121. As it happened, that was still my best price and with a reliable insurer, so I bought the policy, but was puzzled by the price difference. Anyway, long story short, I raised an official complaint with the aggregator, who palmed me off to their associated aggregator, who palmed me off to the insurer, who did the decent thing and said they'd investigate. A month later I got a letter acknowledging that the price difference should not have occurred, they'd had a technical investigation but wouldn't tell me the outcome, but they would honour the headline price and refunded the difference. I have no idea if this was a malicious attempt to hoodwink the customer or a tech glitch, but a few more people are reporting similar occurrences on feedback websites.

Sounds like your cookies have been giving away your infidelity. How dare you look at other insurers' quotes, instead of accepting their quote on the spot? Next time, wipe the cookies before you home in on the final deal. Or use another computer for the acceptance stage.

BJ

You are right that you need to clear out cookies as they can confuse the system. In this case I don't think it was the issue as I did the quote on 3 different browsers. Safari, Chrome and Edge. All gave the same headline price then this odd increase when clicking through to the insurer. Been battling the insurers for years and only seen that happen in the past if you change/add/remove a parameter.

[monabri]

Oh...and the excess values are being ramped up too!

[staffordian]

Mine, with LV, is due early next month, up from £183 to £315; a 72% increase. No claims or other changes.

Time for the usual shop around, I think.

There is apparently a sweet spot to shop around, about 3 weeks so it might be now. Moneysavingexpert studied the market,
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insur ... -to-renew/

I saw that, and despite receiving the renewal notice on 6 March, I have been patiently waiting for that sweet spot, which, as you say, has now arrived

[kempiejon]

There is apparently a sweet spot to shop around, about 3 weeks so it might be now. Moneysavingexpert studied the market,
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insur ... -to-renew/

I saw that, and despite receiving the renewal notice on 6 March, I have been patiently waiting for that sweet spot, which, as you say, has now arrived

Well played for being on the ball, so I'm probably giving egg sucking directions but if you want to try and wring a bit more value make sure it's incognito browsers or some other way of cookie management and then via Quidco/topcash back rebate sites.

[staffordian]

I saw that, and despite receiving the renewal notice on 6 March, I have been patiently waiting for that sweet spot, which, as you say, has now arrived

Well played for being on the ball, so I'm probably giving egg sucking directions but if you want to try and wring a bit more value make sure it's incognito browsers or some other way of cookie management and then via Quidco/topcash back rebate sites.

Yep, that's all part of the plan, along with seeing if adding my son as a second driver helps, as can sometimes be the case.

Mind you, when my son and his partner added each other to their respective policies, booth premiums went up a little

[bungeejumper]

In this case I don't think it was the issue as I did the quote on 3 different browsers. Safari, Chrome and Edge. All gave the same headline price then this odd increase when clicking through to the insurer.

I might be behind the times here, but don't all browsers use the same set of cookies, which are stored elsewhere in your computer? And Edge and Chrome are technical twins, of course. I don't know about Safari, though - you used to be able to get it for PC, although now it seems to be Apple-only.

Mind you, I can't remember the last time I downloaded a new browser and it didn't ask me whether I wanted to transfer all my existing favourites and so forth to the new progam?

Anyway, thanks for the heads-up about sweet spots. I've just read that my AA membership (for two cars, Relay and Home Start etc) is going up from £120 a year to £300 in May, when my cut-price welcome year expires. Cheeky bustards. Time to let my fingers do the walking again, I think.

BJ

[kempiejon]

I've just read that my AA membership (for two cars, Relay and Home Start etc) is going up from £120 a year to £300 in May, when my cut-price welcome year expires. Cheeky bustards. Time to let my fingers do the walking again,

I found AA keen to negotiate on renewal. It was a couple of years ago but the teleadvisor came back with a better price than RAC, I think Green flag might have been cheaper but I perhaps foolishly thought AA a better product.

[Dicky99]

Anyway, thanks for the heads-up about sweet spots. I've just read that my AA membership (for two cars, Relay and Home Start etc) is going up from £120 a year to £300 in May, when my cut-price welcome year expires. Cheeky bustards. Time to let my fingers do the walking again, I think.

BJ

I saved a bunch by adding RAC breakdown cover to my Aviva car insurance and increased the cover level too.

[airbus330]

I might be behind the times here, but don't all browsers use the same set of cookies, which are stored elsewhere in your computer? And Edge and Chrome are technical twins, of course.

BJ

Browsers don't share cookie data. As I understand it, there are other technologies that can produce an advertising profile that mimics a previously used browser on the same device, even on a different device using the same IP.
There are reports of supercookies that might be able to, but I've no come across a case of them being used on a commercial basis.

[GrahamPlatt]

“Smart” cars are sending your data to the manufacturers, who are sending it (presumably selling it) to insurers.

https://mastodon.social/@kashhill/112083090485396217