Insurance Renewal Ripoff

[Linas.P]

It comes time to renew my insurance and current provider (Bell) gone mad. Yes I am young driver and London based, but their offer makes no-sense. I just wonder if that is just me or it is with all insurances trying to catch you out if you not careful and not shopping around.

Last year their tried to pull the same thing, but after some negotiation I got rather good deal ... Renewal was like £1360 (£200 more than first year), but after negotiating the price it got to ~£900 and later when I moved to different area they even refunded £150, so I ended-up with ~£750...

This year same story again - renewal price £1098. After priming call they let it down to £920.. which is still more expensive. Funny thing is that lady on the phone was going through each point on the form and the answer to all of them was "no, no change still the same" and somehow the price changed by nearly £200.

As a young, but "becoming older" driver and with increasing in NCB I am expecting my insurance to become cheaper.. but somehow that is not the case. It went £1129>£1360 (with discount and refund to ~750)>£1098 again.

I was told that price could be affected by non-fault claim which I didn't made, just let them know that police is investigating it and it will go to court... For me that makes no sense.. how can my premium raise from non-fault claim, which I didn't even made.

Anyways, checked comparison sites and it seems I can get quote for ~£698-724 from likes Esure.

Finally, one funny thing. When filling form on comparison site I got automatic car value as £7650 (I wish), so maybe some code has changed in their software because last year that was ~£5200 or my 2008 IS250SEL actually appreciating at rather healthy speed.

[Haylands]

I've been driving for nearly 40 years and it has always been the same, stay with the auto renewal and you will pay too much, every year I go through mine and my wife's and save money... funny thing is, this year it was cheaper to insure our cars separately with Admiral than it was on a multi car... Silly price for multi car renewal so I spoke to Aleksandr Orlov and Admiral was the cheapest for both of us but on separate policies...!!!????

Any accident you have will increase your premium whether it was your fault or not, or if you claim or not, their view is that if you have been involved in one, in any way, then you are more likely to be involved in more, so the risk goes up, and the premium. 

Value quoted at insurance renewal is NOT what you will get if you write it off, the value for insurance is to establish the risk so they always over estimate the value to put the premium up, always worth changing it to what you think it's worth... They only pay market value in case of a claim and then it's usually a very low one...!!!

[Linas.P]

Well lesson learnt - if I am not planning to make claim I am not going to let them know next time. The case was that a guy hit my car with a had and dented fender (like 5mm dent), but I had it on dash cam and get took him to the court where I had eventually "lost" - judge said whereas it is fact he hit the car, he cannot be sure (beyond reasonable doubt) that it is possible to dent fender with a hand. I actually tried it myself after decision (as repair is per part anyway) and it dents like a butter without any effort... anyway...

21 hours ago, Haylands said:

Value quoted at insurance renewal is NOT what you will get if you write it off, the value for insurance is to establish the risk so they always over estimate the value to put the premium up, always worth changing it to what you think it's worth... They only pay market value in case of a claim and then it's usually a very low one...!!!

Yes.. that I know. I mentioned it is because it is not the price I put in, but the one comparison site suggested. Actually, my insurance increases if I drop the value of the car e.g. if I leave it as £7650 - then £698, if I make it more realistic like £4500-5500, then it goes up to £724 or even more.

I was playing a lot with comparison sites before buying the car and the form makes no sense, not only I think it is breach of privacy and outright discrimination, but as well it is counter intuitive e.g. the most expensive quote for me is TP, TP&TF is little bit less expensive and FC is by far the cheapest e.g. my current quote for £698 is for FC and TP would be 10 times more .. £5490! Equally, the cheapest quotes is if I say I keep car on the street, which kind of true and the most expensive if I say it is garaged which it sometimes is (but isn't garaged meant to be safest?!). The funniest thing is to see how price fluctuates depending on the annual miles - my prediction based on best knowledge is that I do 8-12k miles, but changing it in 500 miles increments can change price by as much as £350 and it is not lineal either.

[rayaans]

1 hour ago, Linas.P said:

Well lesson learnt - if I am not planning to make claim I am not going to let them know next time. The case was that a guy hit my car with a had and dented fender (like 5mm dent), but I had it on dash cam and get took him to the court where I had eventually "lost" - judge said whereas it is fact he hit the car, he cannot be sure (beyond reasonable doubt) that it is possible to dent fender with a hand. I actually tried it myself after decision (as repair is per part anyway) and it dents like a butter without any effort... anyway...

Yes.. that I know. I mentioned it is because it is not the price I put in, but the one comparison site suggested. Actually, my insurance increases if I drop the value of the car e.g. if I leave it as £7650 - then £698, if I make it more realistic like £4500-5500, then it goes up to £724 or even more.

I was playing a lot with comparison sites before buying the car and the form makes no sense, not only I think it is breach of privacy and outright discrimination, but as well it is counter intuitive e.g. the most expensive quote for me is TP, TP&TF is little bit less expensive and FC is by far the cheapest e.g. my current quote for £698 is for FC and TP would be 10 times more .. £5490! Equally, the cheapest quotes is if I say I keep car on the street, which kind of true and the most expensive if I say it is garaged which it sometimes is (but isn't garaged meant to be safest?!). The funniest thing is to see how price fluctuates depending on the annual miles - my prediction based on best knowledge is that I do 8-12k miles, but changing it in 500 miles increments can change price by as much as £350 and it is not lineal either.

Its all based on statistics.

Street parking is cheaper because the statistics show that a lower proportion of cars get stolen from streets with keys. If you're car is in a garage, they know which house to steal the keys from.

Same thing with the mileage - their databases show the annual mileage of drivers who claim the most and they adjust the premium accordingly. 

Upon renewal (Admiral) my multicar policy went up to £890. I had paid £764 the year before and nothing had changed, in-fact, the value of the cars had dropped and our NCD had gone up to 17 and 13 years. 

Granted, it was the cheapest quote I had obtained anyway as brokers wanted £1000+ for each car. 

I rang renewals department and asked why it went up. The woman asked a few questions, all of which I said no to and the price went down to £750. I believe its a sales tactic - inflate the prices and some people either won't notice or it'll be cheapest for them anyway and they'll automatically renew. 

[Linas.P]

1 hour ago, rayaans said:

I rang renewals department and asked why it went up. The woman asked a few questions, all of which I said no to and the price went down to £750. I believe its a sales tactic - inflate the prices and some people either won't notice or it'll be cheapest for them anyway and they'll automatically renew. 

Yes this part is definitely tactical thing, same as you mentioned when I called all answers were same as before but price dropped from £1098 to £920 - just for the call.

Maybe less cars being stolen, but I guess more being damaged and it being Fully Comprehensive I guess it should count. As well there are no way to explain why TP is 10 times more expensive than FC.

As for mileage I understand statistics, but I would expect that to be general trend e.g. below 8k you are risky driver because you simply don't have enough experience, drive rarely (not necessary true, but can be statistically proven) and above say 15k you again risky, because the more miles you do, the bigger is the chances that you have accident. But, that is not the case e.g 8k is say £750, 7.5k is £724, 9k is £712, 9.5k is £789... and so on.. so it literally fluctuates by ~£350 every 500 miles. As analyst I know statistics is really a lie... or I can say it different - one can adjust any statistics to suit their claims. I understand that NCD, car power and age, car price, drivers experience are important to determine the risk, but collecting information about people job and family status is simply unjust for purpose of motoring insurance... anyway I am digging deep here. I stay with my theory that insurance companies have a deal with goverment to inflate the prices and force people out of car ownership.

Finally, thanks for your replies, I see that is general trend to try to catch out people on renewals where one doesn't pay attention or does not bother to negotiate. I guess that works perfectly well when people pay little for their insurance and price jumps from say £250, to £264 and obviously they don't bother negotiate it. Insurance companies probably gain billions each ears on such "fraud". But when my price nearly doubled.. I could not miss it.

 

[DAN@ADRIAN FLUX]

Hi,

If you haven't renewed your insurance yet then please feel free to give us a try.

Regards,

Dan.

[rayaans]

3 hours ago, Linas.P said:

Yes this part is definitely tactical thing, same as you mentioned when I called all answers were same as before but price dropped from £1098 to £920 - just for the call.

Maybe less cars being stolen, but I guess more being damaged and it being Fully Comprehensive I guess it should count. As well there are no way to explain why TP is 10 times more expensive than FC.

As for mileage I understand statistics, but I would expect that to be general trend e.g. below 8k you are risky driver because you simply don't have enough experience, drive rarely (not necessary true, but can be statistically proven) and above say 15k you again risky, because the more miles you do, the bigger is the chances that you have accident. But, that is not the case e.g 8k is say £750, 7.5k is £724, 9k is £712, 9.5k is £789... and so on.. so it literally fluctuates by ~£350 every 500 miles. As analyst I know statistics is really a lie... or I can say it different - one can adjust any statistics to suit their claims. I understand that NCD, car power and age, car price, drivers experience are important to determine the risk, but collecting information about people job and family status is simply unjust for purpose of motoring insurance... anyway I am digging deep here. I stay with my theory that insurance companies have a deal with goverment to inflate the prices and force people out of car ownership.

Finally, thanks for your replies, I see that is general trend to try to catch out people on renewals where one doesn't pay attention or does not bother to negotiate. I guess that works perfectly well when people pay little for their insurance and price jumps from say £250, to £264 and obviously they don't bother negotiate it. Insurance companies probably gain billions each ears on such "fraud". But when my price nearly doubled.. I could not miss it.

 

Agree completely, hence Ive only stayed with the same company for a maximum of three years. I always check the prices upon renewal and I only renew if its the cheapest quote I get. 

Something to note with the comparison sites though is when you click through to the insurer, check your details as Ive found on many occasions that some of them have been filtered through wrong or the comparison site didnt ask certain questions. Ive found them to almost always affect the price be it for better or worse

[Linas.P]

3 hours ago, DAN@ADRIAN FLUX said:

Hi,

If you haven't renewed your insurance yet then please feel free to give us a try.

Regards,

Dan.

Hi Dan,

I have filled the form on your site, but have not heard back yet (...since Saturday if I am not mistaken). 

[DAN@ADRIAN FLUX]

16 hours ago, Linas.P said:

Hi Dan,

I have filled the form on your site, but have not heard back yet (...since Saturday if I am not mistaken). 

 

Hi,

First of all thank you for taking the time to request a quotation from ourselves.

Although we do offer an online quotation service, we still process every quote individually - meaning there has to be a member of staff to process the details and offer a price. We don't just rely on computer generated quotations; we prefer a more personal touch.

You may therefore find you won't receive a quotation email reply for a day or two. I do apologise for this however we prefer to offer quotations by telephone - Over 75% of our customers find they receive a more competitive quotation by calling in as we can discuss options and make small changes to decrease the premium.

If you are still looking for cover, please feel free to PM me your details and I will chase the quotation up for you.

Kind regards,
Dan.