Wtf is going on with car insurance prices?

1,558 · January 5

Out of curiosity I ran a few quotes and looks like I'll be selling the fleet. Couldn't get anything I own below £1200 which is frankly ridiculous

January 5

The Jag this year went up to over £200 from £156 last year. Went online and got £157. Phone up the company, went through loads of questions, and suddenly they can do it for £157. Result.

25,063 · January 6

I got a base line figure for my 20th Feb renewal by doing a new quote with my current insurer. It's gone up a bit, about £400/£450 a year which is sadly too much, so monthly at sub £40 a month will have to do.

Hopefully the renewal might be nicer, and ill do a meerkat and see. Just a bit too early to do it properly. Although one of the higher monthly quotes from above included breakdown cover...

12,413 · January 8

Renewed with Aviva at £280, up £64 from last year but £135 better than Directline’s renewal price for a valued* customer.

Slightly better coverage than Directline and increased mileage as I hadn’t realised I’d left it at lockdown mileage.

4,251 · January 9

How to upset an Englishman !!! I bought a 2002 Nissan March (Micra to you) recently. I decided to only insure for 3rd Party. If I write off your Lambo and take out the city's power network I am covered for $20,000,000. The cost $nz12.00 per month, But as I also have a full policy on my Cadillac they said you now recieve a multi policy discount on that of $6.00 a month. 3 pounds a month for insurance of any kind sounds like a bargain to me ! It was also a very easy transaction and took only a few minutes by phone, the only detail the ins. co. needed was the reg. plate. The joys of non-compulsory insurance !!!

7,442 · January 9

33 minutes ago, STUNO said:

How to upset an Englishman !!! I bought a 2002 Nissan March (Micra to you) recently. I decided to only insure for 3rd Party. If I write off your Lambo and take out the city's power network I am covered for $20,000,000. The cost $nz12.00 per month, But as I also have a full policy on my Cadillac they said you now recieve a multi policy discount on that of $6.00 a month. 3 pounds a month for insurance of any kind sounds like a bargain to me ! It was also a very easy transaction and took only a few minutes by phone, the only detail the ins. co. needed was the reg. plate. The joys of non-compulsory insurance !!!

Thought I'd have a laugh and get a quote on a 2002 Micra (1.0 litre) - I'm 60+, full licence since ever, no accidents etc etc and live in the middle of nowhere
Fully comp is £123 annual
Third party or TPF&T is £131 annual

Bit of wiggling through cashback sites can knock those down to (probably) just under £100

I think that's exceptionally cheap for the UK due to age and location - if I was 19 again and living in London?

January 9

Absolutely cannot get quoted on any of my fleet. (This doesn’t help that I’m 18 of course.)

I’d be be paying close to £7,000 for a 1.9 BMW and around the same for my Renault Safrane. Shame Classic insurance wants nothing to do with me either.

12,413 · January 9

44 minutes ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

Thought I'd have a laugh and get a quote on a 2002 Micra (1.0 litre) - I'm 60+, full licence since ever, no accidents etc etc and live in the middle of nowhere
Fully comp is £123 annual
Third party or TPF&T is £131 annual

Bit of wiggling through cashback sites can knock those down to (probably) just under £100

I think that's exceptionally cheap for the UK due to age and location - if I was 19 again and living in London?

When my son passed his test at 17, his first insurance on a 107 was £1200 which would have been higher but for a £1000 XS. When I got a quote for me only driving it, it was less than 10% of that.

24,256 · January 9

I got my renewal for the Capri the other day. It’s more than doubled from last years price! I’ve had no claims etc and it’s classic insurance too. FFS the thing sits in a garage doing nothing most of the year!

How can these fuckers justify doubling the price like that!?

Unfortunately now it means I’ve got to sit down and go through the monotony and misery of trying to get better quotes.

The Volvo insurance comes up at the same time too, but that’s gone up by about £2 and it’s bugger all anyway so I just renewed that.

7,442 · January 9

39 minutes ago, Metal Guru said:

When my son passed his test at 17, his first insurance on a 107 was £1200 which would have been higher but for a £1000 XS. When I got a quote for me only driving it, it was less than 10% of that.

My first car cost me £400, cost me £400 to insure it too :-( - aged 19, passed my test aged 17.
The thing I don't get is why third party only is so much - I'd happily have a no-frills TP Only policy on all of our stuff.

24,256 · January 9

1 hour ago, danthecapriman said:

I got my renewal for the Capri the other day. It’s more than doubled from last years price! I’ve had no claims etc and it’s classic insurance too. FFS the thing sits in a garage doing nothing most of the year!

How can these fuckers justify doubling the price like that!?

Unfortunately now it means I’ve got to sit down and go through the monotony and misery of trying to get better quotes.

The Volvo insurance comes up at the same time too, but that’s gone up by about £2 and it’s bugger all anyway so I just renewed that.

Just got a really good quote online, at 1/3 the price of my renewal invitation from the old insurance company!

And yet, if I scroll down the list of quotes there was a price from the current insurance company offering insurance at significantly less than my renewal price! They can of course shove it up their shitter!
How do they do this though!? I’ve been a loyal customer for years and then they try to screw me like that. Then I get a completely different price from a comparison site on the same car. They must surely just pull their prices out of their arses!? Or are they relying on people not bothering to shop around for better prices and simply lumping a load of profit on and auto renewing?

But, name and shame!

Carol Nash insurance, you are a bunch of rip off merchants.

2,008 · January 9

On 05/01/2024 at 13:47, Metal Guru said:

It’s completely non sensical. Phoned Direct Line re premium doubling, ( +92% to be precise ). “It’s inflation at a record high.” That was 13% ffs!

Eventually offered £50 off but told them where to go.
So went on the comparison sites and various offerings from Aviva came out best at around £250-270 ish, so I thought maybe a little cheaper on the Aviva website, not having them pay commission to the sites.
Result ? £511!

DirectLine don't seem to want any business at the moment except for those auto-renewing who don't notice the price hike. They completely refused to quote me back in October, I'm 60+, live in rural N.E Scotland, own my house and have no points on my licence, WTF!

37,430 · January 9

Direct Line won’t even quote me even when you go direct in the past.

10,096 · January 9

I thought Direct Line were good, until they stopped quoting for anything over 20 years old.

January 9

Electric cars pure and simple , the government dictated 20% of new cars sold this year must be EV or risk heavy fines per units , this will rise to 80% in 2030, ah but I hear you say I don't drive an EV , correct but that not how insurance works , same as a RR owner does not pay a premium to reflect of a £300k motor , it's spread amongst the masses , until the government legislates for Tesla & co to open up software & battery info to all the cost of repairs ain't going down.

Sent from my Pixel 8 using Tapatalk

17,492 · January 9

Yet another year of Esure being the cheapest for me by a long chalk, despite their excess being hefty (but I couldn't give a toss about that). Their renewal price was similar to the new quote I generated, as I had to tweak the policy this year to including occasional commuting. £260 for the Xedos. 40 something with an outer London postcode, 8,000 miles pa.

The Volvo 940 is also with them. As usual the classic insurers aren't really interested in 90s stuff. FJ quoted me £245 so I just went with Esure Flex for £250. Better T&Cs.

13,277 · January 9

10 hours ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

My first car cost me £400, cost me £400 to insure it too - aged 19, passed my test aged 17.
The thing I don't get is why third party only is so much - I'd happily have a no-frills TP Only policy on all of our stuff.

TPF&T, shirley?

3,094 · January 9

On 05/12/2023 at 09:01, Datsuncog said:

I'm finding it very difficult to understand why knocking voluntary excesses down to zero can reduce your premium quite considerably. For years I kept a voluntary excess of around £600 in addition to a compulsory excess of say £250, then (through playing with the slider bars on comparison websites) twigged it could be actually cheaper for me to have a smaller excess, or none at all.

I can only assume that there's a similar logic in insurance-land for this as for the whole TPFT Vs Fully Comp thing - their stats must show that customers who seek lower levels of cover or accept higher voluntary excesses are more likely to make a claim, so premiums are loaded accordingly.

I used to do the same as you, not quite as high as £600 but usually would be paying the first £400-500 of any claim once you added the compulsory one.

Then, again through paying attention to the comparison website tools, found it made practically zero difference. So, for the sake of a tenner I’d rather not have to have stick £500 on a Barclaycard as well as get my car fixed - or have £500 taken off the write-off value (I assume the excess applies here as well, not just for repair).

No more voluntary excesses and a maximum of £100 compulsory from now on.

Again I expect it’s a risk thing, people who are looking for the absolute lowest cost for insurance are a higher risk than those who aren’t looking to save the nth pound but just don’t want the piss taken.

25,063 · January 10

I always put 0 excess if I can, mainly because I'm usually skint, and if I had a prang big enough to involve the insurance no amount kf excess would fix the Xsara 😂

I have to put it's value at a grand to get quotes usually, they don't like small figures.

I've had a big influx of dysons, I've made a plan to save most of the money and try to pay whatever my next year's quote is off in one. I've got a month 👌

2,176 · January 10

23 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

And yet, if I scroll down the list of quotes there was a price from the current insurance company offering insurance at significantly less than my renewal price!

Isn't that unlawful now?

Quote from the Financial Conduct Authority website (published Dec 2021):

"From 1 January insurers will be banned from quoting customers a higher price for renewing their home or motor insurance than they would pay if they were a new customer.

24,256 · January 10

8 minutes ago, Justwatching said:

Isn't that unlawful now?

Quote from the Financial Conduct Authority website (published Dec 2021):

"From 1 January insurers will be banned from quoting customers a higher price for renewing their home or motor insurance than they would pay if they were a new customer.

I didn’t know that!

The company I was with sent me a renewal for £265. I went onto Confused and entered all my details then got the usual page load of different companies quotes. The top one was a weird company I’d never heard of for £85, so given the car I wanted to cover I decided against using them. Second quote was from Lancaster who I have my Volvo insurance with at £92 so I went with them.
Scroll down the page and about a quarter of the way down was my previous insurance provider with a quote for £155!
So, how can they offer me as a new customer a price over £100 cheaper than my renewal invitation price!? It’s just profiteering and praying on customers that don’t shop around and just hit ‘renew’.

I don’t know if it matters if the price was on a comparison site?

19,104 · January 10

8 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

I didn’t know that!

The company I was with sent me a renewal for £265. I went onto Confused and entered all my details then got the usual page load of different companies quotes. The top one was a weird company I’d never heard of for £85, so given the car I wanted to cover I decided against using them. Second quote was from Lancaster who I have my Volvo insurance with at £92 so I went with them.
Scroll down the page and about a quarter of the way down was my previous insurance provider with a quote for £155!
So, how can they offer me as a new customer a price over £100 cheaper than my renewal invitation price!? It’s just profiteering and praying on customers that don’t shop around and just hit ‘renew’.

I don’t know if it matters if the price was on a comparison site?

There will be some thing different in the terms and conditions, so they can say its not a like for like quote.

What I like to do is then phone them up and see if they'll match the absolutely cheapest quote I've had. Look I've got a quote for £85, but if you can do it at that price, I'm happy to stay with you....well what is your best price? ....

Obviously ends up me going elsewhere.... but at least they had the chance.

7,442 · January 10

13 hours ago, High Jetter said:

TPF&T, shirley?

Not if you saw what I drive ;-)

In all seriousness - I would be happy with a third party only cover on 3 out of 4 of our vehicles if it was uber-cheap as I'm not that bothered if a sub £1K worth of car* snuffs it but I do want to have £ gazzilions cover for TP if I have a bad day out.

Fully comp is coming up cheaper than TP or TPF&T on all the comparison sites in any case 🤷‍♂️

2,176 · January 10

29 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

I don’t know if it matters if the price was on a comparison site?

Not as such, only if the quote details were different. It would need to compare like for like.

Report to the Financial Ombudsman? You would be expected to raise complaint with the insurance company first, and I know it's effort, but they're robbing cunts so I figure they've got it coming.

Make a complaint - Step 1 of 8 (financial-ombudsman.org.uk)

25,063 · January 10

14 hours ago, High Jetter said:

TPF&T, shirley?

Got to be careful though, you rarely get glass cover, driving other cars etc with tpft.

I remember dropping down to it from fully comp when the ex left and I suddenly had to pay 100% of all the bills. Saved a few quid a month. Until I took a huge rock to the windscreen driving to work one day and realised I no longer had windscreen cover 😢 Cue a mid policy amendment but upwards, for more than it was, then waiting a month and doing the screen.

Never doing that again! Plus (might be my age now) fully comp is always cheaper than third party for me, has been for some time now. Even though the Xsara would fit fine under tpf&t and I've run it before when I was younger and it was significantly cheaper to have

13,277 · January 10

12 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

Got to be careful though, you rarely get glass cover, driving other cars etc with tpft.

For sure, haven't bothered with anything other than fully comp for years. You don't always get driving other cars (TPO) with comp though.

19,104 · January 10

9 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

Got to be careful though, you rarely get glass cover, driving other cars etc with tpft.

I remember dropping down to it from fully comp when the ex left and I suddenly had to pay 100% of all the bills. Saved a few quid a month. Until I took a huge rock to the windscreen driving to work one day and realised I no longer had windscreen cover 😢 Cue a mid policy amendment but upwards, for more than it was, then waiting a month and doing the screen.

Never doing that again! Plus (might be my age now) fully comp is always cheaper than third party for me, has been for some time now. Even though the Xsara would fit fine under tpf&t and I've run it before when I was younger and it was significantly cheaper to have

People who buy TPFT statistically carry more risk. Given the cost of writing off a £1000 car that you own is insignificant compared to potential costs if you hit another vehicle. Hire cars, and whiplash and genuine parts, could run into the ££££££s.

And statistically people who buy it are more likely to crash. I'm sure there's a rational causation to match the correlation.

I've found that if I put a value less than £2k, the price goes up compared to if I say the value is £3.5k

Again, I think there's something in the statistics that shows owners of cheap cars are more likely to crash.

There was a point where the price didn't go down with fewer miles. Maybe if you only do 3000 miles a year you are seen as less competent compared to someone doing 6000. ?

Since the kids grew up, and left home and I can't tick the box of dependent children. The price has gone up. Maybe people with kids are more careful?

13,277 · January 10

9 minutes ago, New POD said:

Maybe people with kids are more careful?

Drive close to any school at drop off or pick up time and you'll see the answer to that one.

7,442 · January 10

20 minutes ago, New POD said:

I've found that if I put a value less than £2k, the price goes up compared to if I say the value is £3.5k

I've just tried that on GoCompare - changed the shed value from £1500 to £5000 and the cheapest quoted premium is 30% less. £10,000 is the same as £5,000 - one to bear in mind. Ta!
It's also from a company that will not quote on the lowest valuation so it looks like they're more risk averse than others (who'd just whack the premium up)?

10,393 · January 10

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before (and CBA to check) but if you set your browser to incognito mode compare the market or whoever you’re getting quotes from think you’re a brand new customer rather than someone trying to get a cheaper quote multiple times a day. They tend to load the quotes if they think you’re getting desperate.

“of course I wasn’t looking at porn dear, I was trying to get car insurance, honest”

Best time to get a quote is 28 days before renewal apparently. The closer you are to renewal the more desperate they assume you must be.

Wtf is going on with car insurance prices?

Recommended Posts

straightSix

2flags

beko1987

Metal Guru

STUNO

EyesWeldedShut

James M

Metal Guru

danthecapriman

EyesWeldedShut

danthecapriman

5speedracer

sierraman

barefoot

georgeinabz

RobT

High Jetter

AnthonyG

beko1987

Justwatching

danthecapriman

New POD

EyesWeldedShut

Justwatching

beko1987

High Jetter

New POD

High Jetter

EyesWeldedShut

Lankytim

Create an account or sign in to comment

Create an account

Sign in

Similar Content

The "WTF is that?" thread 1 2 3 4 49

Car insurance up 61% 😲 1 2

Your current car's/cars' list to purchase price ratio

Halfords spray cans WTF! 1 2 3

The Price is SHITE! 1 2 3 4 10

Browse Forums

Activity