Annual insurance game...
 

My (multicar) policy always renews in early January, which results in the same, slightly unnecessary, game play of a hiked renewal, a poker-like game play on the phone, and a magical reduction from the original excessive quote.

This years game with Admiral was on a 35 minute phone call, which shaved just over £310 off their initial quote of £1190 for my 4 cars, including my S8 (which was a 22% increase on last year, with no real logical justification)

An annoying way to spend ah hour in the first week of the New Year, but at least it didn't take too long this year... :rolleyes:

I'm running out of time to do the same for my 2.....not helped by the renewal from LV not looking too horrific, and many insurers not being keen to cover the S5 without some stupid excess level!

Also got to do the whole Sky/Virgin Media waltz for TV and broadband.....

This is really interesting,

Admiral Multicar here also, 4 cars and went from £600 to a quote of £1000 in an email that arrived yesterday.

I will have to do the same and play the phone game, what did you find got it back down again?

I've always found multi car policies more expensive than individual policies, and I always shop around at renewal, currently paying £630 for all 3.

So did I till a few years back Brian - funnily enough it was adding the Panda to the "fleet" that seemed to tip it decisively to being cheaper with Admiral, who have beaten separate quotes each year since then.

I too was on Multi car insurance with LV. Full no claims on 3 cars. Couldn't budge them last year so insured them separately with LV, Tesco and Sheila's Wheels. Saved £145!

I think this shows that with no datum to judge by, every person / car combination / insures combination is going to produce different results. I may try a couple of brokers this year to see what that gets me.

Not much really - just me saying I wasn't happy with the renewal figure and wanted to have a chat before looking elsewhere: cue 4 or 5 iterations of discounting/loyalty bonuses/etc over the 30 minute call, till it got to the number I was happy with.

And location as well. Looking at the prices mentioned, you're still all paying less than I do for a single car. My last premium was £335 for standard fully comp.

Just wish my house insurance was as cheap. Just got my renewal in and it's gone from £464 to £705. Time to get on the phone.

My renewal in September went up to £1K5 from £1100 for one car. In my case it is pure ageism. Everyone was quoting similiar apart from the ones that said no chance you are too ld for us.
Tesco emailed me offering it at £900 so I had to snap their fingers off.
Being old is crap.

30 minutes on the phone and £140 saved.....

Quoted a £90 increase this year for no apparent reason. Online quote halved the amount they wanted and when I did “the call” they just told me they couldn’t match it in any way despite it being the second car insured with them and they just said to cancel :o way to fight for my business! :ROFL:

£48 a month last year, got quoted 49-something for this year.

go compare showed 38, so i got back to current insurance and got roadside assistance added on for a total of £52 a month, i stuck with them because they allow me to drive other peoples cars insured, otherwised I would have went for the cheapest one

Was not there a law introduced a year or couple ago saying that they have to offer the same prices for renewal as for new customers?

Did the same myself with the house insurance. Ended up saving £265, so slightly less than last year. As B@fink mentioned, I got the same non-committal reason for the hefty increase.

There was indeed. Effective from 1st January 2022. The following page explains it well, and the comment by Martin that 'prices will meet in the middle' probably explains the sharp increases people are getting, as the insurance companies try to recoup some of their losses as a result of the law change.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ne...new--loyalty-/

What about an Anti Ageism clause?

Just done the Admiral multicar dance….quote went up over 20%….3 cars plus house. Went from £880 to £1080 back down to £950 after a long conversation. 32 years no claims, been with them since 008.

All good fun.

Z

All of which is meant to be illegal now, existing customers are meant to be offered the same deal as a new customer or anyone else

I know this is an old thread but I can't immediately spot a newer more relevant one. :o
Just been playing the "game" today, having been away and only having under a week to go I know my options will be limited, but......

My renewal quote is 31% up on last year which seems outrageous, so I called in to "see what they (Privilege) could do". Nothing was the answer, unless I had a competing quote.

So then I did the "Go compare dance" and scrutinised the options. Followed one in some detail onto their web site as it was reputable and seemed to be equivalent - Admiral Gold. That was about 5% more than my last years premium; given inflation not bad. I could have gone lower but I didn't see the point.

Called in again, told Privilege what I'd found and that I thought the competing quote was at least as good cover, better in some areas, specifying exactly which company and cover type and the price. It took about 2 minutes for them to come back with a better offer, not needing any finessing of excesses or any other changes. +++
Their price was now just £10 more than Admiral which I decided I might as well accept. Overall about a 7.5% increase over last year. Acceptable I guess. :cool:

My M5, the renewal in January was £2500 compared to £700 ish the previous year, shopped around and bought for £900 ish with Hastings Direct - I had one windscreen claim, first of any kind of claim for decades, but the increase is outrageous

The M340d is due next month, renewal quote today is cheapest quote I've had for it, £552 up from £473, that's a win after all the other daft quote of £800 plus, no claims, well done Aviva

Quoted the S8 today as almost ready to go back on road - down to £300 ish from around £500 previously, albeit not going with an agreed value policy this time, it was a waste of time - will be going with Admiral

PS I'd have told Privilege to get stuffed and voted with my feet, as i did to Swiftcover on the M5, as well as opening a complaint - got nowhere, but made them spend money and resource on it

I think the ridiculous increases are due to insurance companies writing off EV cars for the slightest bit of damage, and trying to recoup their outlay by hiking everyone's premiums.

Having had a wee 'bump' in the last year my second in a 5 year period my premium shot up from £325 to £765! I cancelled the policy as the S8 is SORN ATM. Just out of curiosity, as I'm probably only going to do a few outings this year I looked at short term cover. 4 day weekend £156. Given I'm only going to use it a few times, that would be cheaper so I think I'll do that.

Where did you look for short term cover and how would it work regarding road tax?

I briefly checked it couple of years ago and most short term covers were meant for additional cover for the car that is already insured, for example if I would borrow car from friend from a weekend or if I wanted to do test drive car I was looking to buy but would not cover car owned by me that is not insured by anybody else.

And if you don't have insurance then you have to declare car SORN. To get tax the car needs to be insured first but in my experience databases does not update instantly so if you want to tax the same day you get insurance it does not work online, you need to go to Post Office. Then you need to declare SORN when insurance runs out after 4 days but they take full months cost for road tax.

My biggest problem is that there are not many 3rd party only insurance offers so no competition on 3rd party only insurance and very high prices, often 3rd party only is more expensive than comprehensive. I am not really interested in insuring my car, I just want 3rd party cover. For example when I was last living in Latvia in 2003-2004 the 3rd party insurance for 9 year old A6 2.8 was around £50 and the insurance for car would have bee separate policy and would have cost around £200-250 but I never had it.

I've not done it recently, but when I bought my current S8 it overlapped with the old one for a while and my insurers were happy to do IIRC up to 30 days at "reasonable" rates.
I think I did something similar when I acquired the current Volvo.

As you say, you need to tax it as well and pay for a month of that (about £35?), but that's probably a lot less than the short-term insurance.

I've always overlapped insurance and MOT so they are 6 months apart. So this time I will MOT and tax and when the insurance runs out leave it on my driveway. When I need it I'll do short term insurance. When the MOT and tax run out I'll insure it on monthly payments and once taxed and mot'd cancel the insurance. You don't have to SORN for no insurance, you just can't use it on the road.

The interactions get ever more complex, you do get chased for "no insurance" these days, though it's not required if you're off a public road.
I always keep my MOT and tax renewals well apart! If it needs a 6-month payment or a "cheeky SORN" so be it!
I'm getting very good at playing the "SORN game" when i know it's going to be idle for a few weeks. :ROFL:

You must make a SORN if your vehicle is not insured (even for a short time, for example because there’s a delay renewing your policy). This was brought in quite long time ago, maybe 10 years ago. I know couple of people who have got fine in post because it was not SORN and not insured.

Source:
https://www.gov.uk/sorn-statutory-off-road-notification
https://www.mib.org.uk/reducing-unin...e-enforcement/

Thanks Ainars,
I did not know that. I'll have to coordinate SORN and insurance. So many ways the government stiffs you!

Hmmm interestingly my cabby which I sold at Christmas had been off-road for a few years and I hadn’t sorn’d it (thought I had but maybe did something wrong) never got chased or fined for it