Car Insurance

[BalKang34]

Here is an update. I'm getting a full refund from Hastings Direct You Drive, minus the days I've been insured and a £20 set up fee. (Apparently they have waived the £20 cost of the device) this was supposed to be all clear in the ts&cs?! I have got a quote for £475 without blackbox from General Accident. Inc the £20 set up fee that Hastings are keeping, it works out £3 cheaper than last year. 

I still believe Hastings have misold the policy so I'm considering seeking reimbursement for the time it's cost me to deal with this out of running my own business. 

[wharfhouse]

27 minutes ago, BalKang34 said:

Here is an update. I'm getting a full refund from Hastings Direct You Drive, minus the days I've been insured and a £20 set up fee. (Apparently they have waived the £20 cost of the device) this was supposed to be all clear in the ts&cs?! I have got a quote for £475 without blackbox from General Accident. Inc the £20 set up fee that Hastings are keeping, it works out £3 cheaper than last year. 

I still believe Hastings have misold the policy so I'm considering seeking reimbursement for the time it's cost me to deal with this out of running my own business. 

That sounds like a result - well done for persevering. As I also run my own business I always resent the time it takes every year to sort out the car insurances, which in reality should be a simple task. I now keep all my details in a comparison site (in my case I use confused.com but I'm sure the others are similar) and update the details with any changes through the year. Then when the renewal comes around it's relatively quick to get new quotes by running the comparison site with the current data - always do this around 3 weeks before the renewal date as that is when they will give the cheapest quotes. I then compare with the current insurer renewals and either change (the comparison sites transfer the data to the new chosen provider so that's easy) or may call the current provider if I think it's worth it - tbh if the renewal quote is way more than I am getting from the comparison site I often can't even be bothered calling the current insurer as they are just taking the ****. It's something of a PIA but the most straightforward process I have found!

[Linas.P]

Good luck with that,

When I have made a claim for Financial Ombudsman about Esure Insurance, they took good 6 months to make a decision on it and although in the end they agreed that T&Cs are confusing and conflicting with other documents in my "documents pack", they concluded it is a matter of contractual law and it is outside of their jurisdiction to enforce. They offered me to sue insurance company privately for recourse.

So please consider if it is worth it. For me it was worth it just purely on principle because in general I don't like how insurance companies operates in UK, but you should decide for yourself if you principals are worth the time it will take to prove anything.  

[DAN@ADRIAN FLUX]

Hi.

If you haven't taken up the new policy already then please feel free to give us a try for insurance if you wish.

Regards,

Dan.

[BalKang34]

8 hours ago, wharfhouse said:

That sounds like a result - well done for persevering. As I also run my own business I always resent the time it takes every year to sort out the car insurances, which in reality should be a simple task. I now keep all my details in a comparison site (in my case I use confused.com but I'm sure the others are similar) and update the details with any changes through the year. Then when the renewal comes around it's relatively quick to get new quotes by running the comparison site with the current data - always do this around 3 weeks before the renewal date as that is when they will give the cheapest quotes. I then compare with the current insurer renewals and either change (the comparison sites transfer the data to the new chosen provider so that's easy) or may call the current provider if I think it's worth it - tbh if the renewal quote is way more than I am getting from the comparison site I often can't even be bothered calling the current insurer as they are just taking the ****. It's something of a PIA but the most straightforward process I have found!

I've used that method aswell during the last 3 or 4 years. I agree about 3 weeks out is good timing. As today showed its still abit of a lottery and luck. I had generated a quote on the comparison site and the cheapest was £526. I wanted to double check something on the quote so I went back on my browser, what this did was refresh the entire search and then to my pleasent surprise I got £475, this significant change within 30 seconds. 

[wharfhouse]

3 minutes ago, BalKang34 said:

I've used that method aswell during the last 3 or 4 years. I agree about 3 weeks out is good timing. As today showed its still abit of a lottery and luck. I had generated a quote on the comparison site and the cheapest was £526. I wanted to double check something on the quote so I went back on my browser, what this did was refresh the entire search and then to my pleasent surprise I got £475, this significant change within 30 seconds. 

Yes it does seem that the prices change on a very regular basis for the same risk profiles...! 

[BalKang34]

8 hours ago, Linas.P said:

Good luck with that,

When I have made a claim for Financial Ombudsman about Esure Insurance, they took good 6 months to make a decision on it and although in the end they agreed that T&Cs are confusing and conflicting with other documents in my "documents pack", they concluded it is a matter of contractual law and it is outside of their jurisdiction to enforce. They offered me to sue insurance company privately for recourse.

So please consider if it is worth it. For me it was worth it just purely on principle because in general I don't like how insurance companies operates in UK, but you should decide for yourself if you principals are worth the time it will take to prove anything.  

I understand what you mean and the Financial Ombudsman are pretty much useless from what I keep hearing. Im going to think about what kind of 'case' I can put together then decide. But yes, there must be a more stringent better body to regulate and govern these insurance companies, its like they have us 'hand over fist' at all times. If they say the insurance prices have gone up this year, they keep singing that same song each year and we have to sit and accept it, how do we counter that? How do we know they have? That's just one example of the plots they use. 

[Jaro]

I would recommend Rooster car insurance.

They are not on comparison websites, and are much much cheaper than the rest.

What it does, is you download their app on your phone and drive around for couple of weeks.

Based on your driving, they send you a price. If you drive careful, and smooth over the weeks they will give you a good score.

I am 22, had points on license, and don't have the best postcode. I did the test drive and tried a test insurance on couple of cars..

IS200, fully comp was £482 for me. Smaller cars like a Fiesta were sub £400.

No devices, no hard wired boxes and they have pretty good customer service, last time I called them to make sure that was the actual price, as the comparison sites quoted me over £2000.

Also, another observations on reducing insurance prices - put your start date couple of weeks ahead - insurance companies will lower their prices as they think you are in no rush to get insurance, whereas if you put the starting day in few days they deem you more desperate so increase their prices.

Adding a female named driver also somehow reduces the prices, no idea why.