Car insurance

[Poynton ram]

Just had my renewal through and the premium has gone up 56%. Have shopped around using comparison sites and all are quoting a much higher premium. Cost of Living no doubt to blame but still feel I am being ripped off. Anyone else having the same issue?

[ketteringram]

29 minutes ago, Poynton ram said:

Just had my renewal through and the premium has gone up 56%. Have shopped around using comparison sites and all are quoting a much higher premium. Cost of Living no doubt to blame but still feel I am being ripped off. Anyone else having the same issue?

Yes. 

Last year was £401. Had the renewal come through yesterday at £617. So, stopped that , as it was going to auto renew. Shopped around and got £433. 

Which is still nuts. Driving 45 years, zero claims, zero points etc. Small car .

[Tamworthram]

50 minutes ago, Poynton ram said:

Just had my renewal through and the premium has gone up 56%. Have shopped around using comparison sites and all are quoting a much higher premium. Cost of Living no doubt to blame but still feel I am being ripped off. Anyone else having the same issue?

Mine went up 69% and despite plenty of shopping around, I couldn’t get it much cheaper.

[Steve How Hard?]

4 hours ago, Poynton ram said:

Just had my renewal through and the premium has gone up 56%. Have shopped around using comparison sites and all are quoting a much higher premium. Cost of Living no doubt to blame but still feel I am being ripped off. Anyone else having the same issue?

Have you tried Martin Lewis' Moneysaving Expert website? If you follow his advice you usually find a cheaper quote. It can be quite laborious but worth it if you get a quote you're happy with. 

[oomarkwright]

Either meerkat or moneysupermarket is good. 

[Tamworthram]

46 minutes ago, oomarkwright said:

Either meerkat or moneysupermarket is good. 

Tried them both for my renewal as well as Confused and Direct Line (as they don’t appear on comparison sites). No joy sadly especially once you add what isn’t included in the headline quote. For example, Swinton looked good until I realised the price quoted didn’t include foreign travel. The really bizarre thing this year was that the level of excess made absolutely no difference to my renewal quote with Aviva. My current excess is zero voluntary and zero compulsory. So I changed it to £250 and the quote stayed exactly the same.

[RoyMac5]

5 hours ago, ketteringram said:

Yes. 

Last year was £401. Had the renewal come through yesterday at £617. So, stopped that , as it was going to auto renew. Shopped around and got £433. 

Which is still nuts. Driving 45 years, zero claims, zero points etc. Small car .

I have to say that's some price for your original insurance cost, how come? Is it down to were you live?

There's been lots of comments about car insurance increases. Seems there's no way round it.

[ketteringram]

2 hours ago, RoyMac5 said:

I have to say that's some price for your original insurance cost, how come? Is it down to were you live?

There's been lots of comments about car insurance increases. Seems there's no way round it.

Do you mean the £401 is low? Or high? 

In my head , I always think of insurance being £300 to £350.

Seems those days are gone.

[RoyMac5]

6 minutes ago, ketteringram said:

Do you mean the £401 is low? Or high? 

In my head , I always think of insurance being £300 to £350.

Seems those days are gone.

Yeah I thought your original quote for a small car with zero claims and points seemed high. Did you have a NCB? But I agree the low insurance rates have gone.

[CongletonRam]

Marshmallow is worth a try.

[Stive Pesley]

According to this, there has been an unprecedented increase in claims/payouts, so I guess that is driving increased premiums

https://www.abi.org.uk/news/news-articles/2023/9/record-motor-insurance-payouts-to-keep-drivers-mobile

[FindernRam]

Mine up by 50% with LV. Comparison sites a little better but not much. LV sent me a soften up letter ahead of time pleading their case for massive increases. 

Do premiums get counted in the inflation indices?

[Wolfie]

I might have mentioned this before on here but stuff like this can't be helping....:

Some friends of ours had a collision last winter. Not their fault. Open and shut case for a write-off - their 2009 high mileage Nissan Micra had taken extensive bodywork and a twisted chassis. It was a write off. 100%. No doubt whatsoever.

They were provided with a nice shiny brand new VW Polo courtesy car the day after the accident and it then took their insurance company 5 months to send an assessor out, to spend 2 minutes walking round the car and tick the write off box. Crazy.

We're all paying for pathetic stuff like this with our premiums now.

[Malagaram]

Just had an email from Linea Directa for my Seat Ibiza insurance Renewal,quotation,336 euros,last year 329 euros,so in pounds 298,cant grumble after seeing uk car insurance prices on this blog

[BaaLocks]

18 hours ago, ketteringram said:

Yes. 

Last year was £401. Had the renewal come through yesterday at £617. So, stopped that , as it was going to auto renew. Shopped around and got £433. 

Which is still nuts. Driving 45 years, zero claims, zero points etc. Small car .

I'm in pretty much the same position - up the amount of excess you are prepared to tolerate, reduce your expected miles, take off any additional drivers that don't use the car.

I have the same philosophy when renting a car, I decline the insurance and I now am of the view that I've paid for any minor scrape I might have if it comes.

[Ram-Alf]

1.2 Vauxhall Corsa, 2013 model, I'm with Privilege Insurance with 3rd party fire and theft, I very rarely use it shopping and stuff but would hate to be without it, Free bus pass for town and such, Renewal quote in August was around £195 up from £146 last year, I did the comparison sites and Privilege came out cheaper at £192, Gave them a call and told them they had my home insurance too so got it down to £184, I asked why the big jump...her reply was the high level of claims and the cost of metal and repairs are going through the roof, So now I have a Cabriole 😁  

[1977 Ram Raider]

Renewal with Budget, tried to rip me off almost £300 more than the previous year, so touching £700. Meerkatted it, £480 with Aviva.

[Tamworthram]

3 hours ago, BaaLocks said:

I'm in pretty much the same position - up the amount of excess you are prepared to tolerate, reduce your expected miles, take off any additional drivers that don't use the car.

I have the same philosophy when renting a car, I decline the insurance and I now am of the view that I've paid for any minor scrape I might have if it comes.

I think you’ll find, for some bizarre reason, removing additional named drivers will often increase the premium. I tried it for my car (removed my wife who also has her own car) and the quote went up. Same for my mother in law. Took her husband off (who now has dementia and therefore can’t drive anyway) and the quote went up.

With regard to renting a car, surely you don’t mean you decline any sort of insurance or are you covered by your normal insurance? Minor scrapes are fine (if that even exists especially when it comes to rental cars) but what if you had a more serious accident? When renting a car abroad it’s also worth taking out excess cover insurance before you go (not with the rental company obviously). It only costs a few pounds but could save you big time. I friend of mine hit the curb quite badly when driving from the airport to the Villa they were staying at (probably because of driving on the “wrong” side of the road). The excess was a lot (as I think it often is with holiday rentals) but, fortunately for them they had excess cover. 
 

 

Edited October 16, 2023 by Tamworthram

[RoyMac5]

3 hours ago, BaaLocks said:

I'm in pretty much the same position - up the amount of excess you are prepared to tolerate, reduce your expected miles, take off any additional drivers that don't use the car.

I have the same philosophy when renting a car, I decline the insurance and I now am of the view that I've paid for any minor scrape I might have if it comes.

Redo the quote when you change your expected mileage. I found if mine dropped below 9000/yr then the quote went up.

[BaaLocks]

37 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

I think you’ll find, for some bizarre reason, removing additional named drivers will often increase the premium. I tried it for my car (removed my wife who also has her own car) and the quote went up. Same for my mother in law. Took her husband off (who now has dementia and therefore can’t drive anyway) and the quote went up.

With regard to renting a car, surely you don’t mean you decline any sort of insurance or are you covered by your normal insurance? Minor scrapes are fine (if that even exists especially when it comes to rental cars) but what if you had a more serious accident? When renting a car abroad it’s also worth taking out excess cover insurance before you go (not with the rental company obviously). It only costs a few pounds but could save you big time. I friend of mine hit the curb quite badly when driving from the airport to the Villa they were staying at (probably because of driving on the “wrong” side of the road). The excess was a lot (as I think it often is with holiday rentals) but, fortunately for them they had excess cover. 

Thx - good feedback. I have actually found that it doesn't move if I put my wife on/off but some other drivers it did.

Re: rentals I mean I decline the incremental options they always offer (no claims protection / excess cover etc) and I've been doing it for so long now that I am not sure I would be worse off even if I did scrape a kerb etc.

Interesting point @RoyMac5 - I haven't actually thought that quotes might actually go up if I reduce my mileage too much. I guess there is some logic in that very low mileage drivers would be a little more likely to crash.