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Increase in insurance premiums

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Bouleversee
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Re: Increase in insurance premiums

#519879

Postby Bouleversee » August 4th, 2022, 6:00 pm

chas49 wrote:
didds wrote:
Bouleversee wrote: I have read that 2nd hand cars are fetching higher prices these days but I have no idea what an insurer would consider mine is worth.



whilst of course what an insurer thinks is up to them, nonetheless looking on something like auto trader for a similar match to your car should maybe provide a reasonable ball park figure as to its value.


If the OP is still looking for insurance, the value you put on the car won'y make much, if any, difference to the premium at that end of the market. However, in the event of a total loss claim, they would only pay the lesser of the market value and the amount you insured it for. So don't understimate the value of the car on the quote/proposal as it might limit your claim if that ever happened.


I did try Autotrader and after I'd put in all the details, they said my car (Nov. 2004 reg.) was too old for them to value! I haven't found an exact match on any website. Pity they didn't state their limit at the outset. I then went on to LV (who had been recommended by the local dealer who had suggested £2k for my car's value, without seeing it) and started doing the online quote application. I hadn't got very far before it started asking questions about my home and when that insurance was due for renewal. I tried to leave that blank as it actually expired a while ago as I found myself dealing with someone whose foreign accent was so strong I couldn't understand a word she said and when I asked if I could speak to someone else, I heard no more. However, I couldn't progress the LV quote unless I answered this so I entered August and it still wouldn't let me continue. I really don't see what my house insurance has to do with my car insurance so I tried to register a complaint but the number they gave for that led to the quotes dept. so I had to start over with a woman who wasn't aware of this online glitch and had to repeat all the questions as she couldn't access the info. I had entered. I wasn't asked to give a value or the total mileage the car had done, which is very low, though she did want current annual mileage. The quote I eventually got was a lot less than that from my present insurer but I haven't yet had time to study the detail which has been emailed to me. The excesses are a bit of a turn off. The standard is £400 and if I wanted to reduce that to £100 (as with my present policy) that would increase the premium by £75. I will now do Go Compare and see whether that produces anything better.

Incidentally, when going through the bumf from my present insurer, I spotted that they had me down for a conviction within the past 5 years which is complete nonsense and they also said I did far more annual mileage than I have been doing. ( Another insurer already knew from the car no. plate and my MOT record that I had only done 500 miles in the previous year.) I did report this to them but again found myself talking to someone with very strong foreign accent who didn't understand or wasn't able to answer my questions.

As with everything else, the devil will be in the detail. I can't believe how long it all takes.

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Re: Increase in insurance premiums

#519977

Postby redsturgeon » August 5th, 2022, 7:30 am

Bouleversee wrote:
chas49 wrote:
didds wrote:
Bouleversee wrote: I have read that 2nd hand cars are fetching higher prices these days but I have no idea what an insurer would consider mine is worth.



whilst of course what an insurer thinks is up to them, nonetheless looking on something like auto trader for a similar match to your car should maybe provide a reasonable ball park figure as to its value.


If the OP is still looking for insurance, the value you put on the car won'y make much, if any, difference to the premium at that end of the market. However, in the event of a total loss claim, they would only pay the lesser of the market value and the amount you insured it for. So don't understimate the value of the car on the quote/proposal as it might limit your claim if that ever happened.


I did try Autotrader and after I'd put in all the details, they said my car (Nov. 2004 reg.) was too old for them to value! I haven't found an exact match on any website. Pity they didn't state their limit at the outset. I then went on to LV (who had been recommended by the local dealer who had suggested £2k for my car's value, without seeing it) and started doing the online quote application. I hadn't got very far before it started asking questions about my home and when that insurance was due for renewal. I tried to leave that blank as it actually expired a while ago as I found myself dealing with someone whose foreign accent was so strong I couldn't understand a word she said and when I asked if I could speak to someone else, I heard no more. However, I couldn't progress the LV quote unless I answered this so I entered August and it still wouldn't let me continue. I really don't see what my house insurance has to do with my car insurance so I tried to register a complaint but the number they gave for that led to the quotes dept. so I had to start over with a woman who wasn't aware of this online glitch and had to repeat all the questions as she couldn't access the info. I had entered. I wasn't asked to give a value or the total mileage the car had done, which is very low, though she did want current annual mileage. The quote I eventually got was a lot less than that from my present insurer but I haven't yet had time to study the detail which has been emailed to me. The excesses are a bit of a turn off. The standard is £400 and if I wanted to reduce that to £100 (as with my present policy) that would increase the premium by £75. I will now do Go Compare and see whether that produces anything better.

Incidentally, when going through the bumf from my present insurer, I spotted that they had me down for a conviction within the past 5 years which is complete nonsense and they also said I did far more annual mileage than I have been doing. ( Another insurer already knew from the car no. plate and my MOT record that I had only done 500 miles in the previous year.) I did report this to them but again found myself talking to someone with very strong foreign accent who didn't understand or wasn't able to answer my questions.

As with everything else, the devil will be in the detail. I can't believe how long it all takes.


LV is one of the companies that will be included if you put your details into "compare the market"(meerkat) so it is not really necessary to speak to them separately. Over the last five years or so they have been the lowest quote over my three cars about 80% of the time though. When I have needed to speak to them over the last year I have definitely spoken to an English person though, perhaps once you have accepted the online quote then you go to a different call centre.

The wrongly noted conviction and extra mileage sounds a bit like a deliberate mistake to me, how many people would miss it and just pay the extra?

John

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Re: Increase in insurance premiums

#519982

Postby monabri » August 5th, 2022, 8:01 am

Bouleversee wrote:Many thanks to all. My premium quote was for £1042.39 whereas I only paid £150.98 plus fee for the current year. My car is a Honda Civic first registered when my late husband bought it in Nov. 2004. Low mileage and a good, solid car in pretty good condition. I find the difference in one year difficult to make sense of. I'll start getting quotes from the comparison sites a.s.a.p. Which one has the Meerkats?

Bouleversee.



I tried Go Compare using Bouleversee's "numbers" (age 85, car model and age, clean licence, ncd protected, parked on drive, retired, £3999 value, 3k miles per yr, social only) and the cheapest quote was coming in at £920. If I reduced age to 83, the quote dropped to £838.

The £920 figure is in the same ballpark as Bouleversee's £1042 ( bearing in mind I guessed a few details and the location was West Midlands and not B's home address).

Why has the premium increased so much?

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Re: Increase in insurance premiums

#520046

Postby DrFfybes » August 5th, 2022, 11:18 am

This morning I went to renew MrsF's policy.

I'd been playing with the age thing, so had to check the details. One thing I'd unchecked was for protected NCD.

I selected NCD and SAGA appeared as an option, at a ludicrously cheap £115.

Removing protescted NCD and they are still there, at £108!!

I think I really need to double check the other info I've provided.

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Re: Increase in insurance premiums

#520057

Postby monabri » August 5th, 2022, 11:47 am

monabri wrote:
Bouleversee wrote:Many thanks to all. My premium quote was for £1042.39 whereas I only paid £150.98 plus fee for the current year. My car is a Honda Civic first registered when my late husband bought it in Nov. 2004. Low mileage and a good, solid car in pretty good condition. I find the difference in one year difficult to make sense of. I'll start getting quotes from the comparison sites a.s.a.p. Which one has the Meerkats?

Bouleversee.



I tried Go Compare using Bouleversee's "numbers" (age 85, car model and age, clean licence, ncd protected, parked on drive, retired, £3999 value, 3k miles per yr, social only) and the cheapest quote was coming in at £920. If I reduced age to 83, the quote dropped to £838.

The £920 figure is in the same ballpark as Bouleversee's £1042 ( bearing in mind I guessed a few details and the location was West Midlands and not B's home address).

Why has the premium increased so much?



Adding a son to the policy helped, reducing the quote to (still a staggering) £746 with SAGA. "Mrs Boule Versee" is named as the main driver...assumptions made about the son is he is 60 y.o, full clean licence, UK resident, retired with access to another car.

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Re: Increase in insurance premiums

#520064

Postby Bouleversee » August 5th, 2022, 12:10 pm

DrFfybes wrote:This morning I went to renew MrsF's policy.

I'd been playing with the age thing, so had to check the details. One thing I'd unchecked was for protected NCD.

I selected NCD and SAGA appeared as an option, at a ludicrously cheap £115.

Removing protescted NCD and they are still there, at £108!!

I think I really need to double check the other info I've provided.


What site were you on and how old is Mrs F and how many years NCD does she have? Also what car and how old and value?

The quote I had over the phone from Saga (after I had responded to their letter offering a quote) was a lot more than that but also a lot less (around the £500 mark, depending on options chosen) than Monabri's kind attempts on my behalf. I don't think I had added my son as I didn't have his info. at that point.

What are people's views on voluntary excesses (which reduce the premium quite a lot) and protecting NCDs which add a lot in my experience in both cases? My daughter suggested that the lower premiums were immediately tangible whereas the claims might never happen so one should go for the former. Hitherto I have avoided voluntary excesses but paid for protected NCD. My last (and only 2nd ever IIRC) claim was in Oct. 2009 and it was not my fault and at one point my present insurer (RI) was showing 9+ NCD but this time shows only 9. I'm afraid I still haven't done Go Compare but will try to do it shortly. The reason I went directly to LV was that the person who recommended it said they weren't on the comparison websites.

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Re: Increase in insurance premiums

#520104

Postby UncleEbenezer » August 5th, 2022, 2:02 pm

Bouleversee wrote: I had only done 500 miles in the previous year.

Bouleversee wrote:My premium quote was for £1042.39


£2 per mile, on top of other costs.

Setting aside other (cheaper) means of getting about, how much is a taxi in your part of the world?

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Re: Increase in insurance premiums

#520114

Postby Bouleversee » August 5th, 2022, 2:45 pm

UncleEbenezer wrote:
Bouleversee wrote: I had only done 500 miles in the previous year.

Bouleversee wrote:My premium quote was for £1042.39


£2 per mile, on top of other costs.

Setting aside other (cheaper) means of getting about, how much is a taxi in your part of the world?


No idea but I don't think they'd like me to fill their taxi with umpteen bags of garden rubbish and it's a long drive to the hospital which is in theory in charge of my case so would be expensive now that petrol costs so much. If I had to pay that sort of premium I probably wouldn't run a car but I don't intend to pay that much. They have already knocked a large chunk off their quote after correcting their mistakes but I am sure I can do a lot better. My main problem is that I am not very good on computers though I am very good at writing complaint letters and getting compensation! Sadly, it is almost a full time job now that most organisations are run by idiots. (Watch out for my post re Haleon when I have sussed out where to post it.)

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Re: Increase in insurance premiums

#520118

Postby DrFfybes » August 5th, 2022, 2:52 pm

Bouleversee wrote:
What site were you on and how old is Mrs F and how many years NCD does she have? Also what car and how old and value?



comparethemarket - I mentioned a week or so ago I'd been playing with our dates of birth to make us in our 80s to see that it did to the premium, so I need to check everything is OK.

We're a mere 56 and 61, but also the car is a high performance BMW. Now you'd think this would load the premium, but our experience is that these cars are often cheaper to insure than more mainstream ones as older people who have them just don't claim on them. Swapping from a Maserati to a Toyota Avensis nearly doubled the premium with everything else the same.

However when I did check a couple of weeks ago, SAGA were not one of the cheaper quotes, so they've obously changed their criteria since then.

Paul

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Re: Increase in insurance premiums

#520122

Postby UncleEbenezer » August 5th, 2022, 3:00 pm

Bouleversee wrote:though I am very good at writing complaint letters and getting compensation! Sadly, it is almost a full time job now that most organisations are run by idiots. (Watch out for my post re Haleon when I have sussed out where to post it.)

I am filled with admiration. Even awe! I shall look forward to you delivering on that teaser ("bitter lemons" perhaps, if nowhere else seems a good fit)?

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Re: Increase in insurance premiums

#520126

Postby Bouleversee » August 5th, 2022, 3:26 pm

UncleEbenezer wrote:
Bouleversee wrote:though I am very good at writing complaint letters and getting compensation! Sadly, it is almost a full time job now that most organisations are run by idiots. (Watch out for my post re Haleon when I have sussed out where to post it.)

I am filled with admiration. Even awe! I shall look forward to you delivering on that teaser ("bitter lemons" perhaps, if nowhere else seems a good fit)?

I posted under HYP practical since that was the only place that came up when I searched under Haleon. The mods. may move it. I don't expect to get any compensation in this case but hopefully I will at least get a phone call apologising for the idiocy but am not holding my breath.

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Re: Increase in insurance premiums

#520146

Postby Maroochydore » August 5th, 2022, 5:13 pm

Bouleversee wrote:What are people's views on voluntary excesses (which reduce the premium quite a lot) and protecting NCDs which add a lot in my experience in both cases? My daughter suggested that the lower premiums were immediately tangible whereas the claims might never happen so one should go for the former. Hitherto I have avoided voluntary excesses but paid for protected NCD.

Don't get hung up on protecting NCD, it means nothing to the insurers. If you have, say, 50% protected NCD and have a smash then all the insurers will do is give you 50% off a vastly inflated premium next time around.

I always increase the voluntary excess, especially valid if the premium is high to start with. What's another £100 or £200 in the (hopefully) unlikely scenario you have a claim. You may save that on the initial premium and certainly the savings would compound year-on-year.

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Re: Increase in insurance premiums

#520176

Postby quelquod » August 5th, 2022, 6:13 pm

Maroochydore wrote:Don't get hung up on protecting NCD, it means nothing to the insurers. If you have, say, 50% protected NCD and have a smash then all the insurers will do is give you 50% off a vastly inflated premium next time around.

Better than not having 50% off the vastly inflated premium next time around though! ;)

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Re: Increase in insurance premiums

#520221

Postby Bouleversee » August 5th, 2022, 9:08 pm

What does anyone know about Flow? I'd never heard of them till Monabri brought them up. Although they were only 2nd cheapest on the Compare the Market quote list (if NCD protection was included), their personal accident cover was better than RAC who only included spouses which is a bit short sighted since many are no longer around when one gets to my age, when sprogs do any necessary chauffeuring, and their limit was £2,500 as opposed to the £10k cover offered by Flow and others to any passenger. LV= only appeared in the short list when I removed the need for protection of the NCD but I still can't get my head round the table which is supposed to show what difference this makes to premiums. I had to go an awful long way down the list before I got to my present insurers. It won't let me copy it to send to anyone else. Having spent ages reading through their endless terms and conditions, I'm not sure I'm really allowed to discuss anything from the GC website on here. However, it would be good to know how safe the cheapest companies are in these straitened times and whether any of them are at risk of going bust as some of those bargain energy companies have done.

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Re: Increase in insurance premiums

#520227

Postby monabri » August 5th, 2022, 9:30 pm

Bouleversee wrote:What does anyone know about Flow? I'd never heard of them till Monabri brought them up. Although they were only 2nd cheapest on the Compare the Market quote list (if NCD protection was included), their personal accident cover was better than RAC who only included spouses which is a bit short sighted since many are no longer around when one gets to my age, when sprogs do any necessary chauffeuring, and their limit was £2,500 as opposed to the £10k cover offered by Flow and others to any passenger. LV= only appeared in the short list when I removed the need for protection of the NCD but I still can't get my head round the table which is supposed to show what difference this makes to premiums. I had to go an awful long way down the list before I got to my present insurers. It won't let me copy it to send to anyone else. Having spent ages reading through their endless terms and conditions, I'm not sure I'm really allowed to discuss anything from the GC website on here. However, it would be good to know how safe the cheapest companies are in these straitened times and whether any of them are at risk of going bust as some of those bargain energy companies have done.


The companies such as FLOW underwrite their risk with others. Flow uses "Covea" (French Company) which is underwritten by the FCA.

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Re: Increase in insurance premiums

#520804

Postby Bouleversee » August 8th, 2022, 6:59 pm

monabri wrote:
Bouleversee wrote:What does anyone know about Flow? I'd never heard of them till Monabri brought them up. Although they were only 2nd cheapest on the Compare the Market quote list (if NCD protection was included), their personal accident cover was better than RAC who only included spouses which is a bit short sighted since many are no longer around when one gets to my age, when sprogs do any necessary chauffeuring, and their limit was £2,500 as opposed to the £10k cover offered by Flow and others to any passenger. LV= only appeared in the short list when I removed the need for protection of the NCD but I still can't get my head round the table which is supposed to show what difference this makes to premiums. I had to go an awful long way down the list before I got to my present insurers. It won't let me copy it to send to anyone else. Having spent ages reading through their endless terms and conditions, I'm not sure I'm really allowed to discuss anything from the GC website on here. However, it would be good to know how safe the cheapest companies are in these straitened times and whether any of them are at risk of going bust as some of those bargain energy companies have done.


The companies such as FLOW underwrite their risk with others. Flow uses "Covea" (French Company) which is underwritten by the FCA.


According to their website or maybe it was that of CTM, I thought it said that they were reinsured with LV= though I get the impression that they are a trading name of LV=. Having made some amendments to the quote and discussed it with my daughter I decided to accept the quote of £368.84 with protected NCD given yesterday and went on to Flow's site as told by CTM . only to have to go through it all again and at the end it came up with a quote of £444.96 and I see that the £368.84 quote has been wiped off CTM's list though I still have the email received yesterday which shows it. I give up. What's the point of going through a comparison site if when you go to take it up immediately afterwards it comes up with a much higher figure. Can one start again with a different comparison site? I hadn't changed anything since the last CTM quote but since I never use my mobile other than when I have to to authorise a bank payment, when I have it to hand and switched on, I had filled in my home number and FLOW spotted this and demanded my mobile whose number I don't carry in my head but it's on the back of the phone and it took me ages to find as I had left it switched off in the car. Perhaps it was my computer and general incompetence that scotched the deal. One thing that puts me off FLOW is that it seems impossible to speak to anyone and I don't like dealing with AI.

My daughter is coming any minute so maybe she will be able to sort out something for me. I feel like jumping off a cliff but I don't have any life insurance. :)

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Re: Increase in insurance premiums

#520833

Postby chas49 » August 8th, 2022, 8:57 pm

Bouleversee wrote:I see that the £368.84 quote has been wiped off CTM's list though I still have the email received yesterday which shows it. I give up. What's the point of going through a comparison site if when you go to take it up immediately afterwards it comes up with a much higher figure. [..................]
My daughter is coming any minute so maybe she will be able to sort out something for me. I feel like jumping off a cliff but I don't have any life insurance. :)


If you are using Chrome, try right-clicking on the link to that quote in your email, and selecting the "Open link in Chrome incognito window" option. It might just enable you to get at that quote - unless it's really expired! Just a possibility.

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Re: Increase in insurance premiums

#520840

Postby Bouleversee » August 8th, 2022, 9:59 pm

chas49 wrote:
Bouleversee wrote:I see that the £368.84 quote has been wiped off CTM's list though I still have the email received yesterday which shows it. I give up. What's the point of going through a comparison site if when you go to take it up immediately afterwards it comes up with a much higher figure. [..................]
My daughter is coming any minute so maybe she will be able to sort out something for me. I feel like jumping off a cliff but I don't have any life insurance. :)


If you are using Chrome, try right-clicking on the link to that quote in your email, and selecting the "Open link in Chrome incognito window" option. It might just enable you to get at that quote - unless it's really expired! Just a possibility.


I have been using whatever comes with Microsoft (Edge) but perhaps I should switch to Chrome. As it happens, my daughter used her own laptop, clicked on my CTM account using my password, and to my surprise the £368.84 quote came up again so I read through it and she clicked the appropriate button, I gave her my bank details, had the authorisation email from Santander to pay the bill and, whoopee!, I seem to be insured.

What I don't understand is that when I clicked on that list in the email showing the cheapest 3 quotes this morning, the one I wanted had disappeared and there were 2 Flow quotes showing the same lower price (without NCD protection) and one from another company. Perhaps it was trying to tell me that protection wasn't worth the extra cost. Or maybe when they realised I was unlikely to bite, they reverted to the original quote with protected NCD.

Now I have to reinsure my house but need a break before I tackle that one.

Thanks to everyone for your comments and info. which helped me to knock off £683 from the quote from my present insurers.

Bouleversee

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Re: Increase in insurance premiums

#520843

Postby chas49 » August 8th, 2022, 10:22 pm

Glad to hear you got the right result - in effect your daughter achieved the thing I was suggesting - to visit the comparison quote page without letting them see the cookies on your machine which indicate you've seen that one before and have left it for a while....

I think you could have right-clicked and selected "Open in new InPrivate window" which would have done the sam thing in Edge as I was suggesting with Chrome. But using a different computer with access to the same starting point has the same result.

At least you can avoid jumping off a cliff now! :)

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Re: Increase in insurance premiums

#520865

Postby pje16 » August 9th, 2022, 6:36 am

Bouleversee wrote:Thanks to everyone for your comments and info. which helped me to knock off £683 from the quote from my present insurers.
Bouleversee

Well done @Bouleversee
It wasn't easy, but you stuck with it
That really is a saving with having :)


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