Highs And Lows Of Insurance Quotes

[anaxcrosswords]

It always seems to be the case that renewal premiums are very easy to beat if you look elsewhere. Car insurance renewal through my current provider was quoted today at £423, which seemed very high, so I looked around and got a Swinton quote of £221 - obviously a massive difference!
So, AB-ers, what's the biggest discount you've found by shopping around?

[treetops68]

About the same but it was on Home and Contents insurance and I have moved my car insurance several times over the last eight years or so to keep it reasonable.

[New Judge]

Yes and very often you find that if, having received your renewal quote, you go onto a comparison website you can get a cheaper quote from your existing insurers. They rely on customer apathy: "oh, that'll do, I can't be bothered to shop around". New customers, of course, have nothing to lose by shopping arouns as they have to go through the quote process anyway. I've just renewed my car insurance at 60% of the cost I was quoted at renewal.

[woofgang]

I more than halved my home and contents insurance by shopping around.
Also big ups to BUPA who have just phoned me to point out I can save more than 30 quid a MONTH on my insurance and keep the same cover because they have changed the t and c

[Buenchico]

Last year I spent about half a day trying to find a quote lower than that offered by Post Office Insurance, only to find that they'd already found the lowest one anyway.

However it's worth remembering that firms like Post Office Insurance act as brokers, rather than insurers, and (because they want to get commission when you insure through them) it's in their interest to find you a good deal. If you go directly to an insurer it's in their interest to add quite a bit to your next premium in the hope that you won't bother to shop around.

I'm currently paying about £400 p.a. for a 'fully comp' policy but that includes the highest level of RAC cover (with 'home start' and 'relay' services) and it's for business use as well.

[woofgang]

I get my RAC membership with Tesco points. It costs me £48 in points for the £105 cover.

[WELSHYORKIE]

My son had a renewal quote of £1100 for his diesel Astra (he is 38) and decided to look online and found a quote for £600. He then asked if I would be a named driver - said yes and hey presto it dropped to £415. He rang the initial ins company to say he was not going ahead as he had found a cheaper quote for exactly the same cover with me as a named driver - they instantly price matched the quote of £415 with £50 less on his excess to keep him on their books. So why the high price in the first place?

[woofgang]

Because they thought they might get it. When I rang my home insurers to discuss the high renewal cost of my home and contents quote, I was immediately offered a 40% reduction! when I said i could get about 55% off by switching, I was told that Lloyds couldn't match that.

[boxtops]

We search around every year, very rarely just stay with the same company for either house or car insurance - or if we do, we've done our homework and found that the reduced price elsewhere is minimal. As NJ says, the insurers rely on people not being bothered to change.

[anaxcrosswords]

@WELSHYORKIE Yeah, adding my mum to the policy a few years ago made a big difference (which seems odd really – extra person = extra use of car = extra potential for accident/theft claim? Whatever!).
Seems to me like insurance companies are missing a trick. The prevalence of yer GoCompare / Moneysupermarket / etc etc services means that beating renewal quotes isn’t hard. If, for every ‘mug’ who unhesitatingly accepts a renewal hike, one other looks elsewhere (and I’d imagine more and more people do that) then they’re not gaining anything. Wouldn’t it be better if they, like us, searched for quotes and simply matched – or got very close to – the cheapest?

[TWR]

D.I. quoted me £290 renewal the 27 /4 / 2014, I had already shopped around and was quote £210, D.I. Soon dropped the price, do not take the quote as certain, shop around a month before your own runs out.