Insurance renewal time

[ProfCJJ]

So my "automatic" insurance renewal quote came in today from 1st Central Insurance ... it has gone up over £100 from last year! (£382) This is after it took me over 8 months to recover my excess etc for a no fault accident in Spain where my car was hit whilst parked. I did recover all my costs and the car was sorted and it did not affect my no claims ...

I went online to Direct Line and for the same policy details they are offering £308 ... so I called 1st Central, told them all of this - they said I could use their "rewards scheme" to get 10% of my shopping etc (which I could always do anyway but don't use) I told them I wasn't interested and they told me that they are unable to budge on the £382 ... so I told them to remove my auto renewal I will go elsewhere ...

I don't know if Direct Line are worse insurers(?) but am exploring their multi-car insurance to see if I can make savings all round.

There is no such thing as loyalty these days ...

Cheers

[enuff_zed]

I use Direct Line and have found them helpful and approachable at all times.
I insure my house and contents with them and it gives me a discounted rate on the Z.
I paid £240 at last renewal but that was a few months back now.

[Nictrix]

Our renewal came in from Direct Line just last week and is a couple of quid cheaper than last year at £220.
Didn't bother searching around this time.

[stuartC]

I have a Direct Line multi car policy & my renewal just landed at £198 (which is up £22 on last year). My wifes' X5 insurance has gone up from £250 to £320 ish. Zero claims or incidents, so I'll be asking why and be shopping around.

[Adil_3]

I have direct line and theyve dropped my insurance down by 1k i mean im a younger driver in a major city, so im still paying quite alot but every other insurer was pointing me towards the upwards of 2k so direct line did me wonders

[Dr-Jon]

Im with direct line and have been since i got the car 3 years ago, this year it went up about 70 quid , last year it went up only £3
so cant complain
good service, now got the wifes car on with them and my home insurance

[Silverzedtom]

Mine went up late last year by £50, I think it’s gone up for a lot of people this time around

[Pbondar]

I use Compare the Meerkat as a starting point and for us, LV consistently come out cheapest, but we do have some car mods.

Two things..

If you use a tool like CtM then you can see who/how much things change by altering your mileage, excesses, named drivers and whether you use it for business..

You can see £100+ changes by twiddling with what appear minor innocuous changes

[buzyg]

We have just moved our house insurance, from Direct Line to LV. May well move the cars over from Direct line multi car to LV as well. They do seem to be cheaper at the moment.

[ProfCJJ]

Thanks for all the recommendations - Direct Line don’t appear too bad then. I’ll check the compare site (I always do) and see what pops up.

Cheers

[obewan]

If you use the compare web sites, try going via Quidco or Top Cash Back.
You will probably get a bigger discount (although it may take a few weeks to appear in your account.
If you've already searched make sure you first clear the cookies in your browser history or the cash back won't track
I got my insurance with Axa in February for £170+ and a £35 cash back

[enuff_zed]

I use Compare the Meerkat as a starting point and for us, LV consistently come out cheapest, but we do have some car mods.

Two things..

If you use a tool like CtM then you can see who/how much things change by altering your mileage, excesses, named drivers and whether you use it for business..

You can see £100+ changes by twiddling with what appear minor innocuous changes

I was quite surprised to find my insurance reduced by about £30 last year when I told them it was on a drive, not in a garage. Apparently, the fact that garages could fall in, burn down etc, make drives statistically safer.
Paying the extra for the garage though.... must save me more than the difference in reduced cleaning products

[ErrErrminator]

I have three cars in our household insured on one Aviva multi-car policy. I changed to them last year when my previous Admiral multi-car policy renewal went up in price a bit too much. Three cars insured for £450 and I was happy enough. Just had my renewal docs through and it’s gone up by about £30, so still less than £500. I don’t think I’ll save much on that shopping around, so am probably going to give them my business again this year.

[Nictrix]

I use Compare the Meerkat as a starting point and for us, LV consistently come out cheapest, but we do have some car mods.

Two things..

If you use a tool like CtM then you can see who/how much things change by altering your mileage, excesses, named drivers and whether you use it for business..

You can see £100+ changes by twiddling with what appear minor innocuous changes

I was quite surprised to find my insurance reduced by about £30 last year when I told them it was on a drive, not in a garage. Apparently, the fact that garages could fall in, burn down etc, make drives statistically safer.
Paying the extra for the garage though.... must save me more than the difference in reduced cleaning products

I have always wondered about things like this.
Say you insure your car as parked on your drive as thats where it normally is. What if you park it in your garage for a weekend and the garage falls down or the car got damaged while in it, would you not be covered?
Or if you couldnt park your car in the garage one night and it had a window smashed, would you not be covered?
Surely you cant phone your insurance every time you decide to park your car in a different place to make sure you are covered.

[enuff_zed]

I use Compare the Meerkat as a starting point and for us, LV consistently come out cheapest, but we do have some car mods.

Two things..

If you use a tool like CtM then you can see who/how much things change by altering your mileage, excesses, named drivers and whether you use it for business..

You can see £100+ changes by twiddling with what appear minor innocuous changes

I was quite surprised to find my insurance reduced by about £30 last year when I told them it was on a drive, not in a garage. Apparently, the fact that garages could fall in, burn down etc, make drives statistically safer.
Paying the extra for the garage though.... must save me more than the difference in reduced cleaning products

I have always wondered about things like this.
Say you insure your car as parked on your drive as thats where it normally is. What if you park it in your garage for a weekend and the garage falls down or the car got damaged while in it, would you not be covered?
Or if you couldnt park your car in the garage one night and it had a window smashed, would you not be covered?
Surely you cant phone your insurance every time you decide to park your car in a different place to make sure you are covered.

And that's a simple scenario. For years I struggled to explain that, yes, my car was parked in a car park, but it was on an RAF base patrolled by armed guards.
And don't even start me on the confusion surrounding where 'air side' started. My squadron was 3 miles away around the perimeter track, but that ran well clear of the operating areas. Yet the call handlers in their air-conditioned cubicles hadn't a clue what I was on about!