NX insurance comparison

Sybaris · June 24, 2016

Hello all.

I just wondered if anyone would be willing to reveal how much they pay to insure their NX. I have a 200T F Sport and getting quotes from £500 to £2200 (thank you Swinton for that one).

Elephant have been the cheapest and with a low excess. They won't honour the hire car/hire car plus if I use my own garage.

Axa have no clue as every time I ask them what is covered, I get a different story.

Churchill seem ok but they have a compulsory £250 excess and are around the £500 mark.

Lexus Insurance quoted £700 with a £300 compulsory excess, though they will protect that for £39.

I would go up to a £250 excess but would insure the excess otherwise I will go low. Oh also discovered that on some sites, a £50 excess gives you a lower premium than a £150 excess. Strange but true.

rayaans · June 24, 2016

52 minutes ago, Sybaris said:

Hello all.

I just wondered if anyone would be willing to reveal how much they pay to insure their NX. I have a 200T F Sport and getting quotes from £500 to £2200 (thank you Swinton for that one).

Elephant have been the cheapest and with a low excess. They won't honour the hire car/hire car plus if I use my own garage.

Axa have no clue as every time I ask them what is covered, I get a different story.

Churchill seem ok but they have a compulsory £250 excess and are around the £500 mark.

Lexus Insurance quoted £700 with a £300 compulsory excess, though they will protect that for £39.

I would go up to a £250 excess but would insure the excess otherwise I will go low. Oh also discovered that on some sites, a £50 excess gives you a lower premium than a £150 excess. Strange but true.

Sounds about right.

Just go for the cheapest one, insurance companies are all as crap as each other in the event of a claim anyway. The hire car will be supplied by Lexus if you get them to fix your car in the event of an accident anyway and itll be billed to the insurance company.

Reidy · June 24, 2016

All i can say my insurance with direct line dropped almost 50% going back to Lexus from Range Rover

PCM · June 26, 2016

Lifesure are good - a broker - worth a try?

Sybaris · June 26, 2016

Thanks, will give them a try.

For a point of comparison John Lerwis quoted £1300. Still the top was Swinton at over £2100. Best so far is Elephant at £480 and Churchill at £500.

I did get a reply from Axa, probably from reading my post. Its so full of rubbish Perhaps I will post it.

DAN@ADRIAN FLUX · June 26, 2016

Hi,

Please feel free to give us a try for insurance if you like. If you wanted to PM me some contact details I'd be happy to arrange for one of my quotes tea to give you a call back.

Regards,

Dan.

Aztecs27 · June 27, 2016

Lexus quoted me £1100 for a policy when I called up for my 3 day drive-away insurance.

I'm currently paying just over £300 with Elephant (with an accident as well - although I have protected no claims) for my 300h - my policy expires in Sept and I had to pay £17 to change from my Mondeo to my NX - that includes an £18.50 admin fee...so my premium is actually less, somehow!

Will be interesting to see what my renewal will be.

I've been with Elephant for the last 9 or 10 years - they always offer the cheapest rate and I've never had a problem with them.

DanD · July 5, 2016

One thing to consider is whether or not you are happy for the insurance to appoint their own repairers, or whether you want your car fixed by Lexus.

Whether this warrants paying extra for your insurance is another matter....

I had an accident in my previous Lexus. My insurance point blank refused to consider the quote provided by my local Lexus dealer... even though it was cheaper than their nominated repairer. Ultimately, the car had to go back to the body shop no less than three times due to substandard work and poor paint job. I contacted the insurance to make them aware as I did not want the repairer to pass the cost of the re-work onto them, with the concern that this would eventually negatively impact my renewal, but was met with little co-operation. I renewed with a different company and only had to pay an additional £20, which was a surprise.

Incidentally, I would always recommend to use a comparison website at the time of renewal. Insurances are always keen to attract new customers with low prices, relying on people's apathy to then stay with them for the following years. I have often found that you get a better deal as a new customer than as an existing one. And this applies to all types of insurances.

Sybaris · July 5, 2016

That is my main concern.

I realise that cheapest is not always the best, however I don't want to pay over the odds. Ultimately an insurer is there to repair the car to its manufacturers standard and if required provide you with a temporary car. I hate it when they sign you up then play hard to do the job that you are paying them to do. Insurance companies are nothing but financial cartels looking to squeeze every penny they can out of you and not part with it later.

I am looking for an insurer that is reputable and is going to help me not wiggle out. If I need them. Again I will mention AXA as useless because they are refusing to commit to an answer and I want to make sure people know this.

Infact you can see the reply they sent me when I asked them about their policy. I asked them if a Lexus Approved Centre is on their list of approved repairers and they wont answer me. So I am not going to renew with them and I have narrowed it down to 3 choices now.

AXA's Reply.

---------------------

I have been forwarded an email from yourself in regards to policy,

Please allow me to clarify any confusion regarding repairs on your policy.

When making a claim with through your policy you have the option to get your vehicle repaired.

There are 2 options for this.

Option 1

We get your vehicle booked into one of our recommended repair centres, all our repair centres use genuine parts, theses parts will be brand new. As well as this all repairs are completed a PAS126 quality, this means that your vehicle is repaired back to manufacturers standard. We also have a large amount of manufacturer approved garages, which means we should be able to get you into a garage that is authorised by the manufacturer to do repairs on their behalf.

Option 2

Using your own repair centre, if you wish you to use your own repair centre we would require full colour images and an estimate sent through to our engineers for approval.

Please see the terms and conditions below when using your own garage.

Courtesy Car

As stated under section A of your policy “If your car is repaired by one of our approved repairers, you will be supplied with a courtesy car while your car is being repaired. Unless you have purchased the Courtesy car upgrade under Section J of this policy,” Unless you have purchased the courtesy car upgrade we are unable to provide you with a courtesy vehicle if you choose to use a garage outside of our approved network.

Labour Rates

As stated in Section A – Damage to your car – ‘If your car is damaged, we will use one of our recommended repairers to repair it. If you choose not to use them, we may not pay more than our recommended repairers would have charged and we may choose to settle the claim by a financial payment’.

All garages in our approved network have contracted labour rates for all work they complete on our behalf. Due to the large volume of work we refer to our recommended repair centres we have been able to agree a competitive labour rate as well as paint and part discounts.

If you choose to use your own repair centre the labour rates are likely to be considerably higher. Our engineers will attempt to negotiate rates however if they are unable to come to an agreement we would look to settle the claim by financial payment. Consequently, this may leave you at a financial loss.

Storage and Recovery Fees

If you choose to use your own repair centre we cannot collect or deliver your vehicle, regardless of whether your vehicle is driveable following the incident. Additionally any storage or recovery charges incurred may not be covered by us.

Timescales

Please be advised that it is your responsibility to get an estimate and colour images of the damage to us. This is because we have no contract with your chosen garage so are unable to chase them for the required details. With our recommended repair centres we use an online estimating system called Audatex and therefore there is no delay in receiving the estimates and images.

You may face severe delays during the authorisation process; this is because we may need to negotiate labour rates with your chosen repair centre whereas with our recommended repair centres all of the rates are pre-agreed as part of our contract with them.

Due to the fact we hold no contract with your chosen repair centre we are unable to intervene if you have any problems with the quality of repairs, however if you are using one of our recommended repairers we will ensure that they rectify any issue providing the damage is incident related.

Warranty

For all aspects of the repairs which we instruct, we provide a full guarantee as to quality of workmanship in terms of repairs and the fitting of replacement parts by our recommended repairer: this guarantee is certified for a full 5 year period or the balance of any valid manufacturer’s body warranty, whichever is longer.

In regards to any parts guarantee, technically any parts that are replaced will no longer be under the original manufacturer’s warranty as they are different parts. We will warranty the fitment of any parts by our repairer, for all other parts of your vehicle bodywork, unaffected by this accident and the repairs, the full manufacturer’s body warranty remains in force for its full term.

European competition law states that the manufacturer does not have the right to withhold any aspect of the warranty cover on your car, relating to components which were unaffected by the accident or repairs, simply because you have had repairs carried out at an non-manufacturer approved repairer.

As all of our repairers are regularly vetted by us, we can guarantee the level of repairs and workmanship carried out. If they are unable to carry out a specific area of the repair work they will look to outsource the work to the dealership and this will still be covered under our approved repair scheme.

Non Fault Claims

Irrespective of whether you are found to be at fault for an incident, all insurers have a duty to mitigate their losses. This means that we need to ensure that all costs are reasonable as the third party may not reimburse us costs they deem to be excessive.

I hope this answers any questions you have

Mr ****** *****

The Incident Management Unit

AXA Insurance | Direct & Partnerships

(Please note that this inbox is only viewed between the Hours of 09:00 – 17:00 Monday to Friday excluding Bank Holidays)

bobmc · July 5, 2016

One place you might like to consider is NFU Mutual. They don't go through comparison websites so you will have to contact them for a quote. I doubt they will be the cheapest but I've found them reasonable and I've been with them since 2009.

Fortunately, I've not had any accident claims but I've used their breakdown service a couple of times. However, whenever I've had need to contact them for cover notes, change of car, etc. they have been excellent.

And never, any 'admin' charges mentioned!

It also helps that you are ringing a local branch office and not some mega-call centre somewhere.

Finally, most importantly, NFU have been in the top five for customer satisfaction in any survey of car insurance companies I have seen.

rayaans · July 5, 2016

2 hours ago, Sybaris said:

That is my main concern.

I realise that cheapest is not always the best, however I don't want to pay over the odds. Ultimately an insurer is there to repair the car to its manufacturers standard and if required provide you with a temporary car. I hate it when they sign you up then play hard to do the job that you are paying them to do. Insurance companies are nothing but financial cartels looking to squeeze every penny they can out of you and not part with it later.

I am looking for an insurer that is reputable and is going to help me not wiggle out. If I need them. Again I will mention AXA as useless because they are refusing to commit to an answer and I want to make sure people know this.

Infact you can see the reply they sent me when I asked them about their policy. I asked them if a Lexus Approved Centre is on their list of approved repairers and they wont answer me. So I am not going to renew with them and I have narrowed it down to 3 choices now.

AXA's Reply.

---------------------

I have been forwarded an email from yourself in regards to policy,

Please allow me to clarify any confusion regarding repairs on your policy.

When making a claim with through your policy you have the option to get your vehicle repaired.

There are 2 options for this.

Option 1

We get your vehicle booked into one of our recommended repair centres, all our repair centres use genuine parts, theses parts will be brand new. As well as this all repairs are completed a PAS126 quality, this means that your vehicle is repaired back to manufacturers standard. We also have a large amount of manufacturer approved garages, which means we should be able to get you into a garage that is authorised by the manufacturer to do repairs on their behalf.

Option 2

Using your own repair centre, if you wish you to use your own repair centre we would require full colour images and an estimate sent through to our engineers for approval.

Please see the terms and conditions below when using your own garage.

Courtesy Car

As stated under section A of your policy “If your car is repaired by one of our approved repairers, you will be supplied with a courtesy car while your car is being repaired. Unless you have purchased the Courtesy car upgrade under Section J of this policy,” Unless you have purchased the courtesy car upgrade we are unable to provide you with a courtesy vehicle if you choose to use a garage outside of our approved network.

Labour Rates

As stated in Section A – Damage to your car – ‘If your car is damaged, we will use one of our recommended repairers to repair it. If you choose not to use them, we may not pay more than our recommended repairers would have charged and we may choose to settle the claim by a financial payment’.

All garages in our approved network have contracted labour rates for all work they complete on our behalf. Due to the large volume of work we refer to our recommended repair centres we have been able to agree a competitive labour rate as well as paint and part discounts.

If you choose to use your own repair centre the labour rates are likely to be considerably higher. Our engineers will attempt to negotiate rates however if they are unable to come to an agreement we would look to settle the claim by financial payment. Consequently, this may leave you at a financial loss.

Storage and Recovery Fees

If you choose to use your own repair centre we cannot collect or deliver your vehicle, regardless of whether your vehicle is driveable following the incident. Additionally any storage or recovery charges incurred may not be covered by us.

Timescales

Please be advised that it is your responsibility to get an estimate and colour images of the damage to us. This is because we have no contract with your chosen garage so are unable to chase them for the required details. With our recommended repair centres we use an online estimating system called Audatex and therefore there is no delay in receiving the estimates and images.

You may face severe delays during the authorisation process; this is because we may need to negotiate labour rates with your chosen repair centre whereas with our recommended repair centres all of the rates are pre-agreed as part of our contract with them.

Due to the fact we hold no contract with your chosen repair centre we are unable to intervene if you have any problems with the quality of repairs, however if you are using one of our recommended repairers we will ensure that they rectify any issue providing the damage is incident related.

Warranty

For all aspects of the repairs which we instruct, we provide a full guarantee as to quality of workmanship in terms of repairs and the fitting of replacement parts by our recommended repairer: this guarantee is certified for a full 5 year period or the balance of any valid manufacturer’s body warranty, whichever is longer.

In regards to any parts guarantee, technically any parts that are replaced will no longer be under the original manufacturer’s warranty as they are different parts. We will warranty the fitment of any parts by our repairer, for all other parts of your vehicle bodywork, unaffected by this accident and the repairs, the full manufacturer’s body warranty remains in force for its full term.

European competition law states that the manufacturer does not have the right to withhold any aspect of the warranty cover on your car, relating to components which were unaffected by the accident or repairs, simply because you have had repairs carried out at an non-manufacturer approved repairer.

As all of our repairers are regularly vetted by us, we can guarantee the level of repairs and workmanship carried out. If they are unable to carry out a specific area of the repair work they will look to outsource the work to the dealership and this will still be covered under our approved repair scheme.

Non Fault Claims

Irrespective of whether you are found to be at fault for an incident, all insurers have a duty to mitigate their losses. This means that we need to ensure that all costs are reasonable as the third party may not reimburse us costs they deem to be excessive.

I hope this answers any questions you have

Mr ****** *****

The Incident Management Unit

AXA Insurance | Direct & Partnerships

(Please note that this inbox is only viewed between the Hours of 09:00 – 17:00 Monday to Friday excluding Bank Holidays)

Sounds about right.

I used my own repairer which was Lexus Bradford's - RRG bodyshop in Bolton. They collected the car and dropped it off after repairs. All work was warranted for 2 years (Plenty of time to find any faults) and parts were new and genuine (goes without saying really).

They changed the whole front bumper and fender. The insurance repairers wanted to "repair" the fender and replace the bumper.

Basically - go for the cheapest insurer and then use your own repairers when it comes to it - worked for me. Its illegal for an insurance company to refuse.

The whole industry uses Audatex. The images are not your responsibility - just get the car towed to Lexus via their breakdown, they'll take the images and send them to their own bodyshop - you don't really have to do anything.

DJP · July 5, 2016

I agree with Rayaan's post above. Admiral wanted me to use their approved repairer and I flatly refused, in fact I took it straight to Lexus before even contacting Admiral. Lexus rustled up a courtesy car, which my policy doesn't provide unless you use their repairers. There was a row over the labour rates until Lexus proved Admiral had previously agreed them on other claims, and Lexus provided the photos. Admiral eventually agreed and the work was done without any grief at all.

I doubt the approved repairer had even seen an NX, never mind replaced a front bumper and all that goes with it.

My renewal has just come up and I have a 4 car multi policy with them. The premium for all the cars went through the roof and I was able to switch all the cars to Aviva and reduce the premiums compared to last year, let alone comparing to the renewal premium.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Aztecs27 · July 5, 2016

16 minutes ago, DJP said:

I agree with Rayaan's post above. Admiral wanted me to use their approved repairer and I flatly refused, in fact I took it straight to Lexus before even contacting Admiral. Lexus rustled up a courtesy car, which my policy doesn't provide unless you use their repairers. There was a row over the labour rates until Lexus proved Admiral had previously agreed them on other claims, and Lexus provided the photos. Admiral eventually agreed and the work was done without any grief at all.

I doubt the approved repairer had even seen an NX, never mind replaced a front bumper and all that goes with it.

My renewal has just come up and I have a 4 car multi policy with them. The premium for all the cars went through the roof and I was able to switch all the cars to Aviva and reduce the premiums compared to last year, let alone comparing to the renewal premium.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

This is good to know as I'm with Elephant, which is the same company as Admiral effectively, so pleased to hear that I don't need to shell out for Lexus' insurance to ensure I get my car repaired by Lexus directly, if it ever came to it.

Sybaris · July 5, 2016

Think I will go to Elephant. Perhaps this is useful information. I put the same details in to a comparison site and also directly in to Elephants web site. I got 2 different prices, going directly was over £350 less than the comparison site.... Simples!

rayaans · July 6, 2016

16 hours ago, Sybaris said:

Think I will go to Elephant. Perhaps this is useful information. I put the same details in to a comparison site and also directly in to Elephants web site. I got 2 different prices, going directly was over £350 less than the comparison site.... Simples!

Yes sometimes there are discrepancies between the comparison website prices and going directly. This could be due to commission taken by comparison websites acting as a broker etc.

When going through comparison websites, its worth checking the details inputted by yourself after it redirects to the insurers website. Ive almost always had to correct some details which the comparison websites put in wrongly e.g. when it says "any incidents in the last 5 years" but the insurer only wants the past 3 years etc. Number of children is a common one that gets converted to 0 when going through comparison websites!

rayaans · July 6, 2016

16 hours ago, Sybaris said:

Think I will go to Elephant. Perhaps this is useful information. I put the same details in to a comparison site and also directly in to Elephants web site. I got 2 different prices, going directly was over £350 less than the comparison site.... Simples!

Yes sometimes there are discrepancies between the comparison website prices and going directly. This could be due to commission taken by comparison websites acting as a broker etc.

When going through comparison websites, its worth checking the details inputted by yourself after it redirects to the insurers website. Ive almost always had to correct some details which the comparison websites put in wrongly e.g. when it says "any incidents in the last 5 years" but the insurer only wants the past 3 years etc. Number of children is a common one that gets converted to 0 when going through comparison websites!

DanD · July 13, 2016

On ‎05‎/‎07‎/‎2016 at 2:40 PM, rayaans said:

Basically - go for the cheapest insurer and then use your own repairers when it comes to it - worked for me. Its illegal for an insurance company to refuse.

Really!?!

I was not aware that you could challenge the insurance "forcing" you to use their approved repairer.

I'd be interested in seeing a legal document saying this... and print it for future reference!

DJP · July 13, 2016

Basically - go for the cheapest insurer and then use your own repairers when it comes to it - worked for me. Its illegal for an insurance company to refuse.

Really!?!

I was not aware that you could challenge the insurance "forcing" you to use their approved repairer.

I'd be interested in seeing a legal document saying this... and print it for future reference!

They can't force you to use their approved repairer but can make it difficult, by not giving you a courtesy car for example. In my case they also challenged the labour rate Lexus charged, but soon backed down when Lexus showed they had previously agreed the rate on other claims.

They also offered me a cash alternative which was lower than Lexus's repairer quote, perhaps hoping I'd take that and go away. I didn't and they duly paid the whole bill, less the excess of course.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Sybaris · July 13, 2016

Yep. I have the choice to take my car to who ever I want. I spoke to Elephant and they basically said yes but you may not get the hire car, which is rubbish as I have in the past taken my car (not lexus) to my dealership and they paid the lot. If insurance cartels want to put premiums up by hundreds of pounds then they can't complain when their customers make a claim and want them to pay out for proper repairs. What do they want ? to take as much money as they can and then moan when they have to spend some? Really, what is the world coming to. Actually the insurance cartels need to be brought down a peg or two. All but 4 companies have raised my premium by around £350 since May 2016 (yes in a couple of months its nearly doubled).

C Mclean · July 15, 2016

Just had my renewal from Directline, £404, up from £265 on the IS. Ran a new quote on Directline and that came out at £239 ???

rayaans · July 15, 2016

29 minutes ago, C Mclean said:

Just had my renewal from Directline, £404, up from £265 on the IS. Ran a new quote on Directline and that came out at £239 ???

Yep renewals go up in my experience and yes sometimes it's cheaper if you get a new quote.

I think it's to make extra money off those that don't bother shopping around whilst also enticing new customers in

Sybaris · July 15, 2016

My quotes went up from £450 in may to £750/£800 as an average and a lot of well known insurers were even quoting me £1100 to £1500 in July.

Fortunately I had a quote from one insurer that I kept rolling at its lowest price.

I also came across wepayanyexcess.com For £50 I have an insurance excess protection policy that pays directly to the repairer regardless of fault. So upped the excess to £250, brought the policy down and saved a lot so had the £50 to play with.