Just had an email from car insurance warning me renewal is on it way.

We always do a price comparison first , then you can talk to them armed with this information. They usually come down a bit but with the right information you can make a decision there and then .

It's standard practice to move insurers every year is it not?

No. Get your alternative quotes first so they know what they have to beat.

I went onto Money Supermarket and got quotes. They advise doing this 3 weeks before renewal as this is when you get the best price. My insurer sent through a renewal pack and it had increased by £100. I called them and said I'd found a much more competitive quote (which was actually less than the previous year) and they matched it so they kept my business.

No, I'm not - I always check every year which is the best price for me, its not a hardship to get new insurance

Do you not call the insurer you've been with for a long time first, see if they will reduce?

I find the cheapest quote on a comparison website then ring them up and see if they can match it. They usually do and then it saves actually switching insurers. Last time they didn't match it though so I left and went with new quote

This has happened pretty much every year for past 5 years or so.

I've just moved to someone cheaper.

There's no loyalty benefits these days.

Same here. I don't see how a bank/credit card company could give car insurance. Simply too many variables.

Mine went from £400 to £800 this year. I found one with comparable cover for £450. Insurance has gone through the roof the pas two years.

You’re just making your life harder by doing this. You have to go through the whole faff with a new company. It’s so much easier to stay with your existing insurer, and just get them to drop the price (which they always will).

And you can’t say you want to avoid a company who are greedy arseholes, because all of them do the exact same thing!

I think this is incorrect - I pay around £20 for my account, I get PHONE insurance, TRAVEL insurance and BREAKDOWN insurance not CAR insurance

I do comparison sites and then phone my existing insurer to ask them to price match. They have done so far.

No - I refuse to renew when their prices are stupid, they should have offered me the lower price first!

Greedy arseholes

Same every year.

1. get the letter from insurance with new (higher) premium.
2. if it’s not too bad I just pay it.
3. if it’s too high, I check on comparison sites to see if I can get it cheaper (always can)
4. ring existing insurer and ask if they can reduce the premium, quoting them the figures I’m getting on comparison sites
5. if they reduce (they always do), I pay it.
6. if they won’t reduce enough, I go elsewhere.

There had been so many worrying anecdotes about price hikes on car insurance that I was a bit worried last time around too - in the end, my renewal cost was only about £50 a year more than last year's.

My sons renewal jumped from 1k to around 1800
its a fairly sporty BMW M3 but even so and he’s been with the same insurers for a few years 6 years no claims and he’s 30 this year

So nothing has changed at all

I got on the a few comparison sites and got it for 956 there were a few others around a similar price

funniest thing is it’s a subsidiary of his original car insurance company

He was originally with AxA and now with Moja who are part of AxA
only thing he’s not got is windscreen cover
but he’s got that on his AA cover

I just had mine come through, it’s gone up £300! Comparisons sites are saying the same.

So that’s 2k a year for one car with two drivers (second hand BMW).

Our premiums have always been on the high side as we have had two cars stolen from the drive, and someone crash into us (whilst we was legally parked in a car parking bay and in a shop).

Car theft is absolutely rampant around me, it’s so annoying that I am paying for it.

Are you sure this is for full car insurance? It doesn't sound right. There are offers with credit cards that give rental car extra cover abroad or breakdown service but I've never heard of a credit card or bank account that gives car insurance as part if the perks.

Yeah, I'd definitely get that one double-checked. Without any other benefits of the bank account, £240 a year is still likely a bargain for car insurance these days.

What would they do if you had a 10yo Fiesta in your quiet affluent village and then swapped it for a brand new Aston Martin and moved to the middle of a big, high-crime city? Surely they wouldn't just still charge you a flat £20 a month regardless?

Maybe we should all agree in principle (easier said than done, I realise!) that, once they've tried it on with a huge price hike that they subsequently 'discover' that they can drastically reduce, but only once you tell them you're leaving and not before, we will nevertheless refuse to stay with them regardless.

Honestly, they're no better than these scum companies that purely exist to rip off elderly and disabled people with colossally overpriced accessible furniture and mobility aids for as much as they possibly can, only gradually reducing the prices (with a 'call to the manager') until they reach the highest amount they can manage to grab from you, regardless of the actual (far lower) price/value of the product.

It's beyond insane for some of these companies to spend such a huge amount on blanket advertising to attract new customers, only to then deliberately bin all those new customers a year later by ramping the price sky-high and refusing to come back down, even if they do give you another chance and don't leave on principle because of your blatant initial attempt to rinse them.

Why is it that successful small businesses know the very high value of maintaining their good reputation and keeping the bulk of their customer base (obviously, you will always get some whom you have to let go for various reasons) - but some massive companies just don't understand this?

I worked at one stage for a FTSE 100 company in their accounts payable department. Their policy was to keep all suppliers waiting for as long as they possibly could before paying them - three or four months - the result being that they had to pay more of us to keep fielding calls from angry suppliers, along with all of the damage to their reputation and bad press that it earned them.

It occurred to me - an absolute nobody in business - that if they just took the hit one single time and accepted a temporary three-month profit dip (on paper) as they got up to date, they would very soon more than recoup it in staff savings (I know: turkeys voting for Christmas!) and reputation and goodwill; however all of the bigwigs on the board of this multi-billion company didn't ever seem to get this.

Why should you?

If they can reduce, they should offer you that price in the first place.

Just had my house insurance renewal through. Up by 30%, although only by £30 for the year. There is nothing cheaper on the comparison sites. My car insurance is due soon. Let's see what that quote is!

Never. I go to a price comparison site.
Either my current insurer couldn't match my preferred provider/price (in which case it's a waste of my time to ring them) or it turns out they can in which case I'm too annoyed that they've tried to fleece me out of the difference

Nowadays I just switch, l don't think they are bothered about customer loyalty - it's just not how modern insurance companies work.

I got a similar email and it was up by 20 quid from like 306 to 327. Happy to renew as the comparison sites were insane! The cheapest was a few quid cheaper then most were more up to ££££ crazy amounts. I do have max no claims mind you not sure if that made a difference.

If you call Keith Michaels their hold message is a lengthy explanation as to why premiums have/are rising.