Car insurance - any good companies?

[Disturbedguy]

For years my renewals kept going down, only ever been with Admiral, until last year when it went up instead.

Did the usual quote finding on the internet, found a lower price, phoned Admiral and 'miraculously' they gave me a renewal quote of a little less than the one I found, but a lot less than their first try.

I know they bank on people being lazy, but its like they hate loyal customers.

This.

During an e-mail conversation I was told that if a new customers renewal quote is higher then they will price match it..it literally feels as if they don't care about existing customers and are banking on people not checking their renewal quotes

[oldboy47]

Unfortunately most people renewing leave it until the last minute and then they are sort of over a barrel. Paul Lewis (Radio 4 Moneybox) suggests looking at up to 30 days before your actual renewal time.
Did this last year on two cars previously insured with Admiral (good but not great claim support) and switched to M & S. Premium on two cars reduced by over £300 from the Admiral renewal quote and included breakdown cover (saving another £100+). 6 weeks later made a claim that was managed superbly from beginning to end.

[ik9000]

some companies do 60-day ahead quotes. Definitely get those ready early-doors.

[Spud1]

There isn't really any such thing as a single "good" insurance company. Unfortunately it's not a very competitive market when its a product you are forced into buying as part of car ownership, and their margins are getting squeezed by the huge rise in false claims/unscrupulous legal firms pushing people to claim for injury etc etc.

Personally i've been with Admiral for the past 7 years as they have been cheapest year on year, and they have dealt fairly with me on my claims. Had 2 claims with them for windscreens and they had no issues with me requesting dealer stamped glass rather than generic, no faffing about with extra fees etc. Easy to deal with.

They all seem to do the "up the renewal and then negotiate" thing too - but it helps to know a little about how that process works. A friend of mine works for a big insurer (not admiral) on the renewals line, and they have a budget they can use to get a customer to renew. Typically its a % of the renewal price but its often around £100 or so. They get to keep up to £50 of that budget if it's not used.

So if your renewal is £1000 and the budget is £100, and they can drop your price by £50 and get you to sign up...they get a £50 bonus. They all have targets to hit, so often they will eat into that to get you to renew (thereby making less of a bonus)..but cant go below it.

May not be the same everywhere but it certainly seems that way when you do the negotiation with Admiral & others..

Ultimately though I tend to go with the cheapest who will cover me (usually with a sizeable excess), and then I have GAP + Excess insurance with ALA who are really excellent to deal with, which helps if I need to make a serious claim.

[jimbouk]

Ultimately though I tend to go with the cheapest who will cover me (usually with a sizeable excess), and then I have GAP + Excess insurance with ALA who are really excellent to deal with, which helps if I need to make a serious claim.

Interesting thought on the excess. I got excess insurance for hire cars as I was taking a few this year for holidays, but hadn't thought about it for normal insurance. I tend to just drop it too as low as possible and it only seems to put the quote up a relatively small (few £10s depending on what they start with on the quotes). I guess if you have multiple policies then that could work out cheaper.

For reference I ended up with Admiral again, needed to keep the other half on the policy (learner) and they were the cheapest.