Car insurance renewal

[Foamybanana93]

Not really an aibu but when people receive their car insurance renewal quotes what do you do ? Do you go straight to a comparison site ? Ring the insurers ? Just leave it to automatically renew ?

Also what’s more important to people price or the cover ? Do people sometimes lie to their insurers about the prices that they’ve had just to chance their hand at lower quotes ?

Always take a couple of quid off my lowest quote! I change all the time. I've got a relatively new car, which is unlikely to go mega wrong and I work only 5 minutes from home, so I never get all bells and whistles on my insurance. It's not necessary to me.

I reckon, when I renew in January, I'll be down to about £25 a month.

This year, we didn't even compare quotes, just rang up and said "why has it gone up by XXX" and they instantly removed the increase and left it at last years fee!

I go on comparison sites to see how much different they are. Hastings Direct had come out the cheapest (even as a renewal) for about 3 years running.

Until this year that is, when they hiked the price by £100. I changed insurer and called up to cancel, when I was informed that the they could suddenly beat the cost of the insurance I had taken out instead (which was around £100 cheaper than my renewal quote). I declined on the principle that they shouldn’t be ripping people off if that isn’t the true cost of this insurance.

I've been a ride or die Hastings direct lady until this year when their price was £600 more than the cheapest, which for me this year is Sheila's Wheels shockingly enough!

Make sure you ring them if you do decide to go elsewhere to make sure the auto renew is cancelled.

Check comparison and then ring up and tell them lowest quote . If they can’t match I go elsewhere .

Go straight to compare the market... never stay with the same firm twice!

I have just saved nearly £40 a month, was with post office now with RAC, post office couldn't match it when I went to cancel

You can get free legal cover too which usually costs £30 per year www.freemotorlegal.co.uk

If you rang your insurers and they offered you a voucher from the value of £10-£50 for m&s, curry’s or b&q or a dash cam would you accept it ?

I always go on comparison sites when I get my renewal in.
Obviously when you call to cancel they ask about better offer, I’ve never had a company better a new offer.
My house insurance went up by 50%, a quick look found it for the same as last year. Car insurance went up over 100% (car theft is a complete fucking nightmare) but luckily managed to get insured with someone else for £50 more than last year, means previous insurers won’t get a chance to get their money back though - nae luck. Insurance pisses me off. Especially cause it’s important.

@Princessmushroom that's really interesting, thank you. Very interesting! I'm going to have a good read.

Hmmm only thing with that free legal it says you don’t have to tell your insurer, wrong, the claim would be recorded on the claims and underwriting exchange database, insurers do a search on your information and it would bring the claim up, if this hadn’t been disclosed you’ll be charged an additional premium which is whatever the extra is for the claim being added or worse case the insurer could void your insurance so don’t agree with it saying your insurer doesn’t need to be made aware of a claim

I go to a comparison site, making sure I'm also comparing the type of cover not just the price, if the office is close ish, I'll call current insurer to set off they can match it, if not I cancel, if they will I'll renew. I never auto renew, SIL let that happen this year, they were charging her more and swapped her to a policy with less cover (eg no courtesy car without additional charges) and much higher excess, which she only found out when she crashed it...

I called my insurer direct as the quote I got online was over £100 cheaper... from them.

They refused to honor it. They made me duck about cancelling and taking out a new policy, then they added the new policy to my existing online account. Fucking idiots.

If there had been another quote close in price I'd have taken my business elsewhere but I'm a new driver so have limited choice.

*price not office!