Car Insurance Companies

[dman2004]

It's that time of year, looking for a better price on insurance. Who would you recommend?

Has anyone heard of or have any experience with "Quotemehappy.com"? 

[ColinBarber]

Direct Line are worth getting a quote from.

[Linas.P]

I would recommend comparing them all on the price and getting cheapest. No matter which one you choose... in case of accident they will try to rip you-off... and many years after that even if it wasn't your fault.

[steve2006]

With insurance there are 3 “excesses”........compulsory excess, voluntary excess and excess prices!

Apparently you can now insure your insurance excess by paying an additional premium on your insurance, this is known as car insurance premium excess protection premium gold standard cover. I wonder if this is also subject to the IPT or insurance tax as I call it.

” Quote me Happy” used to be the slogan for Norwich Union, now Aviva I think, I rang them once for a quote...it wasn’t pleasant they even tried to add my Mrs onto the policy in an attempt to reduce the premium despite me telling them she has never had a licence never mind driven a car.

The eventually quote was triple my usual amount, I put the phone down and muttered “Quote me Wappy”

Apparently LV do good insurance but only for green cars. 

[B1RMA]

I always use Compare the Market, although the logging system of your quotes leaves much to be desired.

Each year the insurance for my wife's Yaris comes through at a real premium hike, I go on to CTM and always get much lower quotes, she then goes back to her original insurers and gets it down to near CTM's prices. It's a pain but it does save quite a wedge.

[steve2006]

Or in your case David “Compare the Colour” any advance on the choice for the V5c yet?

[B1RMA]

23 minutes ago, steve2006 said:

Or in your case David “Compare the Colour” any advance on the choice for the V5c yet?

I'm going to call the DVLA tomorrow, don't want to take any chances.

[Linas.P]

Yes, probably should be registered and "multicolour". 

[FTBBCVoodoo]

3 hours ago, dman2004 said:

It's that time of year, looking for a better price on insurance. Who would you recommend?

Has anyone heard of or have any experience with "Quotemehappy.com"? 

Quotemehappy are Aviva.  Comparison sites or official term "aggregators" are all owned by major insurance companies or banks.

They also "brand stack" where they put brands they own in a very close price bracket and basically fill the screen with the majority of brands they own.

I work for a rather large insurance company who own a smaller Bournemouth based company.  My wife used to work for said Bournemouth based company setting up the brand's on the comparison sites.

Car insurance is relatively cheap at the moment.  I have just renewed my FK8 Civic Type R and the wife's Alfa Giulietta for £370 for the year with a £250 compulsory XS (staff discount helps).  Thought it was funny that the Honda came to 170 for the year and the 10 year old Alfa was 200 🙂

My ISF was just over £200 a couple of years ago 

Good hunting 🙂

 

[DAN@ADRIAN FLUX]

Hi.

Please feel free to give us a try for insurance if you wish.

Regards,

Dan. 

[LenT]

2 hours ago, Linas.P said:

I would recommend comparing them all on the price and getting cheapest. No matter which one you choose... in case of accident they will try to rip you-off... and many years after that even if it wasn't your fault.

Alternatively your experience may be like mine with the AA, when an HGV wrote our car off on the M25.

Within a couple of hours we - and the car - were back home.  A couple of days later it had been collected and a replacement was available.  In fairly short order we had settled on what was pretty much market value - aided I should say by providing the other Insurer with dash cam evidence - and I bought a Lexus.

I can’t recall any point in the process about which I could complain.

My premium situation was unaffected and this year, like last year, was £425.  But obviously that’s just me and your situation may be very different as an insurable risk.  Buying the cheapest may work out very well for you.

And then you have a claim and may discover why they are cheapest.

[Linas.P]

10 minutes ago, LenT said:

And then you have a claim and may discover why they are cheapest.

I have long stopped caring about claiming from my own insurance or even speaking with them - I give vultures to the vultures, and fraudsters to the fraudsters... that is - I just use claims management companies, they will instantly give you comparable courtesy car (later they will claim £400 a day from TP insurance ), their hand picked assessors will give you best possible pre-accident valuation and if the case is fairly clear-cut non-fault they very quickly pay you full claim without asking questions (called pre-approved claims).

If you are at fault, then again there is no difference - you will be **** either way, do not matter what insurance you have. 

So in the end of the day, insurance for me is merely compliance measure, like road tax or valid MOT... If it would be up to me I would not have one at all.

[bobjol]

DIRECT LINE every time.   Used them for years and never had a complaint.   Always offered best quote for Quality cover.  

[Linas.P]

It would be interesting to know what the "quality cover" means. Direct line is certainly one of the cheapest, but not exactly known for good user experience. 

I mean sure if you never need to claim, then experience is always, good... 

[bobjol]

Quality Cover is what you require and request.  

[Linas.P]

Where I could I find such cover in UK? 

[bobjol]

I can only quote my own experience with DIRECT LINE.   My renewal was 2 months ago.  I had to pay £214 for fully Comprehensive Insurance on my LS430.  I requested the best maximum cover for me and 2 Named Drivers.  I was happy with the quote after doing research online and getting crazy figures from other Companies.  Everyone has different requirements and circumstances for car insurance.  Don't rely on Price Comparison sites for Insurance.   Do some groundwork, and you may discover some hidden gems.   Insurance costs are falling due to the reduction in claims following the pandemic.

[Martin F]

1 hour ago, bobjol said:

I can only quote my own experience with DIRECT LINE.   My renewal was 2 months ago.  I had to pay £214 for fully Comprehensive Insurance on my LS430.  I requested the best maximum cover for me and 2 Named Drivers.  I was happy with the quote after doing research online and getting crazy figures from other Companies.  Everyone has different requirements and circumstances for car insurance.  Don't rely on Price Comparison sites for Insurance.   Do some groundwork, and you may discover some hidden gems.   Insurance costs are falling due to the reduction in claims following the pandemic.

That’s not ‘quality cover’ that’s just a cheap premium. 
 

You will find out what their quality is like If you ever have to claim. 

[C.B]

I used brokers for many years with previous cars and they were a lot cheaper, primarily chris knott or brentacre and I would say they are worth a quote. However over the last few years, and I dont know if this is because of the F or my age now starting with a 4, the larger organisations have been significantly cheaper.

[Malc]

11 hours ago, Martin F said:

You will find out what their quality is like If you ever have to claim. 

and this is very very important  ......  I have had one absolutely terrible experience with AF and their associates involved in a dreadful and to my mind just aboput dishonest claims process ........... and brilliant claims experience with Saga, albeit they are often, sadly,  lousy on initial pricing

[Linas.P]

16 minutes ago, C.B said:

I used brokers 

You do realise that every single so called "insurance company" is a broker? Sure there are some brokers called same as insurance companies e.g. Admiral Group has and Admiral broker + Bell, Diamond, Elephant brands who are brokers. Esure has it's own broker and Sheilas' Wheels. Point is - you never get insurance directly form insurance company, you get it through the broker which only charges commission on policies they sell, but when it comes to claims you go directly to insurance company to claim.

Now you may say... "what is the difference" those are the people who sells insurance and has same name as underlying insurance company, so they are insurers... Whereas brokers are the ones who compare different insurance companies and almost does like tailored cover. Well... this becomes important in understanding how insurance companies are screwing us over and hiding their profits in offshore tax havens. 

[Womble72]

Unfortunately all insurance companies are in the money making game, their goal is to reduce payouts wherever possible, I’m with Admiral with a multi car policy, all usual excesses applicable, my premium is around £2000 for the year, this is an umbrella scheme where those on it actually accumulate their own N/C bonus BUT discounts are applied for numerous cars,

Auris hybrid - Wife

Civic type R ep3 - Son (22)

Jazz se- daughter (20)

ISF, C70 convertible and insignia estate (mine)

im under no illusions where insurance companies are concerned 

[B1RMA]

1 hour ago, Womble72 said:

Unfortunately all insurance companies are in the money making game, their goal is to reduce payouts wherever possible, I’m with Admiral with a multi car policy, all usual excesses applicable, my premium is around £2000 for the year, this is an umbrella scheme where those on it actually accumulate their own N/C bonus BUT discounts are applied for numerous cars,

Auris hybrid - Wife

Civic type R ep3 - Son (22)

Jazz se- daughter (20)

ISF, C70 convertible and insignia estate (mine)

im under no illusions where insurance companies are concerned 

Spot on, there is a price to pay for Compare the Market type competitiveness, as I mentioned when the DVLA messed up the registration of my car and motorbike I had to change my details four times and incurred a £30 fee for each one. It was of course in their terms and conditions so I had no choice, and of course getting any re-dress form the DVLA was futile.

[Guest]

On 5/6/2021 at 5:03 PM, dman2004 said:

It's that time of year, looking for a better price on insurance. Who would you recommend?

Has anyone heard of or have any experience with "Quotemehappy.com"? 

I ended up with LV. I paid £341. fully comp and protected no claims for an RC F. although I am what you may call a "senior " driver. I was paying about the same for my GS. 

[dman2004]

On 5/6/2021 at 5:06 PM, ColinBarber said:

Direct Line are worth getting a quote from.

Unfortunately they won't insure me even after phoning them. 

On 5/6/2021 at 6:11 PM, steve2006 said:

With insurance there are 3 “excesses”........compulsory excess, voluntary excess and excess prices!

Apparently you can now insure your insurance excess by paying an additional premium on your insurance, this is known as car insurance premium excess protection premium gold standard cover. I wonder if this is also subject to the IPT or insurance tax as I call it.

” Quote me Happy” used to be the slogan for Norwich Union, now Aviva I think, I rang them once for a quote...it wasn’t pleasant they even tried to add my Mrs onto the policy in an attempt to reduce the premium despite me telling them she has never had a licence never mind driven a car.

The eventually quote was triple my usual amount, I put the phone down and muttered “Quote me Wappy”

Apparently LV do good insurance but only for green cars. 

Weirdly enough, QMH are much cheaper than Aviva. Hopefully Aviva can price match.

On 5/6/2021 at 6:16 PM, B1RMA said:

I always use Compare the Market, although the logging system of your quotes leaves much to be desired.

Each year the insurance for my wife's Yaris comes through at a real premium hike, I go on to CTM and always get much lower quotes, she then goes back to her original insurers and gets it down to near CTM's prices. It's a pain but it does save quite a wedge.

That's the first website I check but I've realised something, prices are higher on comparison sites when compared to going direct!

On 5/6/2021 at 8:11 PM, FTBBCVoodoo said:

Quotemehappy are Aviva.  Comparison sites or official term "aggregators" are all owned by major insurance companies or banks.

They also "brand stack" where they put brands they own in a very close price bracket and basically fill the screen with the majority of brands they own.

I work for a rather large insurance company who own a smaller Bournemouth based company.  My wife used to work for said Bournemouth based company setting up the brand's on the comparison sites.

Car insurance is relatively cheap at the moment.  I have just renewed my FK8 Civic Type R and the wife's Alfa Giulietta for £370 for the year with a £250 compulsory XS (staff discount helps).  Thought it was funny that the Honda came to 170 for the year and the 10 year old Alfa was 200 🙂

My ISF was just over £200 a couple of years ago 

Good hunting 🙂

 

£200, Lucky! I doubt I'd ever see that price in London.

On 5/8/2021 at 11:31 AM, B1RMA said:

Spot on, there is a price to pay for Compare the Market type competitiveness, as I mentioned when the DVLA messed up the registration of my car and motorbike I had to change my details four times and incurred a £30 fee for each one. It was of course in their terms and conditions so I had no choice, and of course getting any re-dress form the DVLA was futile.

There's a reason why it's always hidden in the fine print 😞