The Lemon Fool

Well, as per experience reported here, I got the insurance renewal on the car yesterday.

Up around 35%.

More worryingly in some ways though is that a search at the price comparison sites shows the nearest like for like policy elsewhere is £100 more expensive than my renewal. That's the first time that's ever happened, I shop around every year. I got a quote from Direct Line as they aren't on the comparison sites. DL were about 2x my renewal. I guess I'll be renewing then.

General Accident policy renewal, up 30%. Or an extra £1.50 a week, in my case. Sigh, I guess I'll find the money somehow.

BJ

Another scandal in lawless Britain.

CliffEdge wrote:Another scandal in lawless Britain.

Hmmm, did you read the early pages of this thread? A few quick reminders:

1) Inflation of 10% over the last year.

2) EVs having 50% more accidents than ICEs, and causing disproportionate damage to the other vehicles they hit.

3) Shortages of rare earth and high technology components (caused mainly by Russian and Chinese factors) pushing up the price and availability of new cars.

4) Long waiting times for new cars pushing up the values of secondhand cars, which are worth more at write-off and which are thus increasing the insurers' costs. Not to mention that all cars are getting more complex, and more costly to repair as a result.

5) Most if not all insurers made operational losses last year - or in other words, premiums should have gone up last year but mostly didn't, so a catch-up now was always going to be expected.

If you can find a way of arguing that any of that was down to "scandal in lawless Britain", I'm sure we'd all be interested to hear it.

BJ

My brother’s renewal quote from Esure this month for his 8 year old 1 litre Fiesta - £341.76 up from £170.88 last year with no claims, incidents or changes save that he’s 1 year older. Exactly doubled - doesn’t sound like any sort of calculated risk and just smacks at least a little of profiteering.

quelquod wrote:My brother’s renewal quote from Esure this month for his 8 year old 1 litre Fiesta - £341.76 up from £170.88 last year with no claims, incidents or changes save that he’s 1 year older. Exactly doubled - doesn’t sound like any sort of calculated risk and just smacks at least a little of profiteering.

One person's "profiteering" is another persons "recovering from the massive losses we made last year by underpricing our motoring policies", as Direct Line have discovered.

or a "we no longer want to bother with this demographic of driver/car combination so we'll price ourselves out of the market"

didds wrote:or a "we no longer want to bother with this demographic of driver/car combination so we'll price ourselves out of the market"

Oh, indeed. There was a time when Aviva trebled my wife's premium, despite nothing having changed. Five minutes with the meerkat sorted that little matter.

BJ

Just had my renewal quote from One Call (really AXA) and whilst no claim etc the premium is up by 56%.

Starting the usual search and looks like I will be able to contain the increase to 'only' 25%.

T7

Just received my renewal "invitation".

"Only" a 14% increase - so I guess I should be fairly happy with that.

Lokked on a couple of comparison sites but by the time I add on the extras I already have (Legal Expnses, NCD protection and Personal Accident Cover) the saving didn't seem worth the hassle.

We renewed today - last year was £136, this year £160.

Went online, lots of quotes from just under £100, but te first companies that didn't get "AVOID AT ALL CPSTS" in their reviews were back to £135-£140.

The differences were in the small print - cheap ones had £150 excess for a windscreen, with a £175 cap, other were a bit better, one had a £500 excess.

I tried playing with the mileage, dropping it from 7000 to 5000 pa put the premium up for most of the insurers!

Paul

Was expecting a rise but apparently it's slightly cheaper on renewal this year. Maybe they have learnt that I would probably move if they put it up.

No changes in detail on last year. An extra years no claims maybe but had full anyway. Will probably auto renew.

Aviva tried to increase mine when I passed 80. Switched to Admiral with a slight fall from the previous year.

Aviva just shrugged their shoulders at my surprise.

TJH

DrFfybes wrote:We renewed today - last year was £136, this year £160.

Went online, lots of quotes from just under £100, but te first companies that didn't get "AVOID AT ALL CPSTS" in their reviews were back to £135-£140.

The differences were in the small print - cheap ones had £150 excess for a windscreen, with a £175 cap, other were a bit better, one had a £500 excess.

I tried playing with the mileage, dropping it from 7000 to 5000 pa put the premium up for most of the insurers!

Paul

I noticed that too( dropping the expected annual mileage lead to a premium increase).

monabri wrote:

DrFfybes wrote:I tried playing with the mileage, dropping it from 7000 to 5000 pa put the premium up for most of the insurers!

I noticed that too( dropping the expected annual mileage lead to a premium increase).

Another oddity. While renewing my wife's policy with General Accident/Aviva, I experimented with reducing the excess. Dropping the voluntary part of the excess from £400 to £100 resulted in only about £3 more on the quote. Might make a worthwhile difference for a driver who's feeling unlucky?

BJ

bungeejumper wrote:

monabri wrote:I noticed that too( dropping the expected annual mileage lead to a premium increase).

Another oddity. While renewing my wife's policy with General Accident/Aviva, I experimented with reducing the excess. Dropping the voluntary part of the excess from £400 to £100 resulted in only about £3 more on the quote. Might make a worthwhile difference for a driver who's feeling unlucky?

BJ

I've heard 2 named drivers are better than one, but 3 named drivers is a bad thing. Our old Toyota was valued at £800, I upeed it to £2k and it made no difference. I did wonder if really cheap cars cost a bit more as generally people aren't bothered about them. Also (as I think I posted a while back) a friend went around several comparisson sites and each subsequent one knocked a tenner off the quotes from the same insurers - must have had cookies enabled

We did phone Santander back to see if they could match lloyds, but they couldn't shift it. Apparently we were pretty much bumping off their minimum premium.

Paul

DrFfybes wrote:Our old Toyota was valued at £800, I upeed it to £2k and it made no difference.

- because it would make no difference to the amount they would pay out in the event it was stolen or written off.

Unless it was a specific cherished vehicle policy.

Scott.

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.

Following my previous post..


I usually use GoCompare for insurance quotes. The quotes received back today on checking were even higher than the renewal quote.

I tried MoneySuperMarket but was "not quoted happy".

However....I did obtain cheaper quotes with Confused.com. The policy would be with Aviva ( 5 star defaqto rating) and is 'only'12.6% higher than last year.

Looks like I will be going with them this year!

monabri wrote: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.