Car insurance for OAPs

[Sobraon]

I currently use LV - need to check that you ask for a green card as not automatically sent. Everything online
I have had Aviva insurance ,OK. Everything online but ramped the price.
In the past I used and really liked NFU, but it became eye wateringly expensive (in comparison with other insurers) , however the children of the ladies in the office I used all went to school with my kids and they remember me and Mrs S when I called. Everything by phone.
Only other one I have considered is Saga because *I think* they don't have time limits on foreign use ( EU?)

[Arborbridge]

We have just gone back to Saga - previously with LV. We have two cars, are in our mid seventies and each year do a quick turn around the various companies to see what's reasonable.

[dealtn]

Maybe I am just a little on the dense side today. You gave this link.

https://www.carbuyer.co.uk/news/141923/ ... -companies

So how do I (or the OP) access the survey to look at the ranks of customer satisfaction regarding claims etc. then?

Everything I click gives a Top Ten, or similar, comparing a number of factors, weighted and decided by the publisher.

Round and round we go. The annual Carbuyer/Autoexpress survey I mentioned is drawn from 50,000-odd responses - it's not as secretive or mysterious as you seem to be suggesting.

The seven charted categories are very specific - satisfaction with phone handling, ease of claims processing, speed to settle claims, and so forth. And in each category, for each of the top ten companies, you're getting a performance ranking out of the 54 companies surveyed. I'm struggling to see how this isn't enough to give the OP a few useful starting points.

You are, I think, an actuary, which is presumably why you're asking to see the detailed database of all 50,000 reader responses and 54 companies? I wouldn't know whether that information is available to the public, but I'd imagine not - probably they can make very large amounts of money by flogging the database to the insurance companies @ £10,000 a time. ) But for ordinary mortals I reckon the top ten listings with their 70 satisfaction consensuses would be good enough to help in assembling some sort of a shortlist. From there, it would be down to Fat Man and the Meerkats for the money angle.

BJ

I am making no claims about it being secretive or mysterious.

All I ask is that if I am looking at "cheapest" there are numerous websites that allow you to input your requirements, and within seconds a list will come back of insurance ranked on those lines. Easy.

If price isn't your determining factor then it is less easy. There was a suggestion by you to use "customer satisfaction listings". So it wouldn't be unreasonable to ask where one might find such listings that filter by the thing that matters most to me as a customer. Be that "claims experience", or "speed of settlement", or "ability to speak to a person when you ring" or "pay out ratios of claims" or possibly many other things that might be important instead of price.

The OP clearly stated the most important thing he was looking at was "helpful customer experience in the event of a claim".

I merely asked if it was possible, like price as the most important factor to some, to find a means of ranking on that score. I was lead to believe from your reference to a survey that it might be possible. My initial search via your link didn't provide such a listing, only a general scoring to rank the top ten. Hence my enquiry again whether it was possible.

If it isn't no problem, although it seems a shame not to able to use such a respondent database to search what is important to you.

I have no interest in seeing the detailed database, in the same way I have no interest in seeing the database and algorithms that drive the "fat man" or "meerkat". Why would I? I think you will struggle to find me anywhere asking to see such, unlike what you claim. It doesn't seem that different to me to a property portal where I can enter my requirements and maybe list them by "price", "number of bedrooms", "distance from station", "distance to nearest school", "time on market" etc.

People have different requirements. Mine is rarely price. I accept others will have different requirements to me.

It just seems odd that if someone asks a question about "which are the tastiest apples", replies always seem to come back along the lines of "this is the cheapest", or "have you considered oranges?". Not my OP, so it matters little, but I genuinely thought there might be a better way of finding who is the best for "claims experience". It appears not.

(Not an actuary - never considered it - but comfortable with the numbers nevertheless).

[bungeejumper]

(Not an actuary - never considered it - but comfortable with the numbers nevertheless).

My sincere apologies. Clearly a case of mistaken identity on my part. I still think you're overworking a rather simple task, but we're clearly not on the same page here. Maybe others can provide a more satisfactory pointer?

BJ

[DrFfybes]

But back to the OP - sign up to the meerkat or the fat man, put your details in, and every year you can get a good idea of prices within 5 minutes.

Yes, but price isn't his biggest concern though, as he explained.

I never said it was.

However from this...

I'm finally rebelling against our current insurers, who are relying on my apathy to charge us a high premium

...it is obviously their main driver for deciding to shop around, so why not start with price and then look at reviews of the cheaper ones?

Obviously the OP could look at reviews first, then pick the top scorers and go through the palaver of spending half a day putting his details individually into each company's site or phoning them all, but as most will be on the comparison site anyway then it makes sense to start there.

Paul

[88V8]

Customer service when it comes to taking your premium, thankyou.... and paying you a claim... are very different things.

The last time I was in danger of making a claim, was on a policy handled through Adrian Flux, whose customer service is great.
But the potential claim went straight to a Claims Management company and became a tick-the-box exercise.

If the OP wants sympathetic handling of a theoretical claim, I would stick with the existing insurer. At least there is the potential of playing the 'long-standing customer' card.

Also, it may be found that as one reaches a certain age, new insurers become less keen to provide any cover at all. Hardly logical when it is overwhelmingly the young who cause claims, but there it is..........

V8

[tsr2]

Does this survey help?

[dealtn]

Does this survey help?

Thank you

[yorkshirelad1]

It always amazes me that people are willing to spend many hours/days trying to save a few £'s on their annual car insurance whilst wasting much more in other areas of their lives.

Agreed. But a check once every couple of years to see the annual renewal premium is in line with the market keeps me happy. Some companies do try it on with inertia (they call it "loyalty") when it comes to renewal premiums, but I think the main culprits realise that consumers have learnt not to just accept the offered renewal, so they'll find another way of making money And probably the requirement for renewals to include the previous year's premium will offer an indication of any price change (mostly price rise).

Noticed this in the Saturday paper:

Article in the Times on Sat 27 March 2021 (doesn't seem to be online)

"Insurers given more time to end auto-renewal price hikes"

A crackdown on high auto-renewal costs that penalise loyal customers has been put off after insurers said that they would not be ready to implement the rules. The City watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), had vowed to end the so-called loyalty penalty, where customers' renewal quotes automatically go up, even though cheaper deals are avialable elsewhere. But the regulator has given insureres until the end of this year to implement any rules changes over pricing and auto-renewal after a policy paper set out what they need to do in May. Previously the FCA said the insurers would need to be ready four months after the paper was published.

The exciting headline from the FCA: "The implementation period for any rules arising from CP20/19"
https://www.fca.org.uk/news/statements/implementation-period-any-rules-arising-cp20-19

In our consultation on general insurance pricing practices, CP20/19, we proposed that firms would have 4 months to implement any rules that we might make. Following feedback, we propose to amend this timetable to give until the end of September 2021 for the systems and controls rules and the product governance rules and until the end of 2021 for the pricing, auto-renewal and reporting requirements. In reaching this decision, we have sought to balance ensuring firms have sufficient time to put the changes into effect and acting quickly to address consumer harm.

[airbus330]

I'm amazed that people don't take the time to screen scrape their insurances since the system has become quite straightforward. In the 'old' days, it meant multiple phone calls to each provider going over the same details. Tedious. Then we got the interweb and it was a case of typing in the details over and over again, Tedious. Then the likes of Comparethemarket got better and I now store all the details of my 4 drivers and 6 vehicles on their (and Confused.com) website. The quote for last years insurance is also stored for each vehicle, which I update if required, then re-run for a new quote. Make comparison with renewal from existing insurer and go with the cheapest. This process used to save me at least £500 a year, but these days it is more likely to be £200. I have even had a couple of recent instances where the renewal was cheapest. If I am currently insured with a reputable (to me that is LV or Aviva) I will ring them and invite them to lower their premium, which sometimes works. Also, the screenscrapers offer some valuable freebies. Confused, for example, is paying all my car washes for a year, value £72. I've wandered away from the OP's subject, so I'll just add that while I was doing this process for my father-in-law (88, poor health, new car) I knocked £300/year off his premium.