Insurance rip-off?

Hi whenim64,
By adopting such attitude these insurance companies think,that they are superior and without them their previous customers has no other way out. Two months back my car's insurance time was also coming to an end. I received a similar call from my insurance company that this year they are hiking the car's insurance rates and if I want to continue, I can, or otherwise can take services of other insurance company'. I didn't reply them and when 15 days were left for my car's insurance expiry, I called Sheilas' Wheel insurance agent. I had taken their comprehensive insurance plan with multiple benefits:
-Got a handbag cover upto £300.
-Service of courtesy car till your car is being repaired.
-I will get 24 hours of telephone counselling.
-If the child car seat is damaged during an accident, I will get a cover of £100 for each replacement of the seat. www.qwiknumbers.com/sheilas-wheels-contact-number.
When one week of expiry of previous insurance policy left. They called me and saying that they have changed the new plan and will now do insurance at the previous rates. I replied them politely that I have taken the services of other company.

Allianz offered me a new car policy for £401. I went to Go Compare and have accepted a policy with Liverpool Victoria for £257. A slight difference. There are no frills but I do have protected no claims bonus which is what I wanted.

When my father was about 82 a woman drove in to the back of his car.
He was about to call his own insurers and Saga the woman's insurers came on the phone and said it was clearly their clients fault and they could arrange repairs.
Dad said this was fine but he did phone his own insurers and they said if anything went wrong call them back.
About an hour later Saga came back and said their approved Honda repairers were about 20 miles away but they would arrange a loan car from garage about half a mile from the repair garage and our initial reaction was that was ok.
They then asked my fathers age and then said they could not arrange a loan car for him but asked if there was another car he was insured to drive in the family.
He was covered on mine.
They then said I could have the loan car.
Everything was ok for us. I drove his car to the Honda garage on the Sunday afternoon and walked to the car hire place and the car was ready and I drove away about 10 minutes later.
Dad's car was ready the next Saturday and I returned the loan car and collected Dad's car.
What I did find curious however is Saga specialises in insuring older motorists and they could not arrange a loan car which Dad could drive.

Frank

I used to be with Tesco for motor insurance but they kept bumping up the premiums. Comparison sites were misleading because they quoted just the basic premium without the extras I wanted, like no claims discount protection. I finally accepted a quote from the AA, though I suppose they will try it on when I next renew.

I have just had the quote for my breakdown on my car, which I bought last year for £15 with the online comparison site, to renew they wanted £77..... no I didnt renew I went elsewhere. You have to keep moving things around to get the best deal.

That should have been their best quote.

I was with Saga for my car insurance and did a comparison search when they sent my renewal quote. M & S Bank came out way ahead by about £75 and when I phoned Saga to tell them I would not be using them they immediately offered to better the M & S quote by £10. I refused, saying they should have given me there best price in the first instance. The girl I was speaking to agreed!

In fact it would be good to keep a record on here of companies that don't put the cost up each year, regardless. Would be good publicity for them, I think.

Because they like to screw money out of vulnerable people . I'd be interested to know if Age UK do the same once someone is signed up with them [although I very much hope they wouldn't].

That's encouraging, Tegan. I hate these companies with a vengeance. Why can't they do honest-to-goodness quotes and stop playing games?

Saga always put up my premium so I switched to Sheila's Wheels for much less. Told them not to mess around because I wouldn't hesitate to switch to someone else and for the past two years they haven't put the price up. The S.O. always uses Saga; when they put the price up he just gets another quote, phones them up and they match it. It's just a pain having to do it every year. The broker I used to use said I could no longer insure my house with the same company I'd used since we bought it. I was almost I tears thinking I was uninsurable [haven't claimed once in nearly forty years either]. Didn't realise it was all just a silly game.

Just tried Saga - £408.44. Looks like I'll be sticking with Sheila's Wheels!

Perhaps they think we're careful in the home, but reckless drivers!
My cheapest car insurance quote this year was from Saga - £50 down on the quote from the company I was with.

Should have said I got my home and contents insurance from AgeUK.

Blimey! That's ridiculous! I got my home insurance at a much better rate than I'd been paying to Aviva for years. I won't bother with them when I renew the car insurance.

Buoyed up by the savings I made on my home and contents insurance, I responded to an Age UK email and requested a quote for my car insurance this afternoon. For exactly the same policy, no frills, no changes, 9 years plus no claims:

Existing policy with Sheila's Wheels - £255

Quote fom Age UK - £1,100

No, that's not a mistake! What a cheek!!!

Every year I re-negotiate the quoted premiums with my car insurance people,now I am paying less than I did 4 yrs ago through using comparison sites,I do the same with my BT contract,mr.glamma decided he fancied the sports (football & stuff !!) added to our BT Vision service and when I rang to enquire they quoted a good deal but they wanted £60.00 to have an engineer call to install the BT Infinity which is needed for the sports he wanted,I said no way am I paying £60.00 so lets forget it,one week later a chap phoned to ask if I was happy with my service and I mentioned about the charge,away he goes and comes back after speaking to a manager and hey-ho the charge was dropped,so it just goes to show walking away from a deal can pay you dividends in the end.

Oddly indeed.

Charleygirl

The insurance companies can not take gender in to account now.
Oddly enough I have had 2 female drivers hit the back of my car and they both said they did not see me.
In both cases my car was bright red.
I also had 1 female driver come through a red traffic light and she was over the drink drive limit. Again I was driving a bright red car.
The traffic light camera flashed.

Frank

I received my car insurance quote from my broker a couple of days ago. It was so high I thought that I putting down a deposit for a new car. I have never claimed in my life. I am female, do not do enough miles and I am getting old, would appear to be the problems.

I generally call to double check that my insurers are offering their very best quote. And generally they reduce the figure by quite a lot. I've not made a car or house insurance claim ever so it galls that every year I pay more.

FB I agree you should never accept a renewal without investigation.

Only problem is any quote we get for our buildings insurance is more than double what we pay. As we live across the road from the sea wall.
I filled in the on line form last year and was about to save £50 then I admitted I was less than 500yds from water. The quote went through the roof !!
My house is 60yrs old, we can't see over the wall from our upstairs rooms. We have never been flooded

I have my insurance cover with Liverpool Victoria and they have always been within about £20 of the cheapest like for like quote.
When a claim has happened they have always done their part of the job very quick.
I did have somebody come through the back of my new Volvo once and it took 9 weeks to get the parts but the car was driveable.
It was a new model.
The garage would not book it in until the parts arrived in my case and they had it in about 2 weeks later.
Yes this was a bit annoying but I could not blame Liverpool Victoria for this.
I don't know if it was just the individual employee forgetting but when I retired she changed the occupation which took my premium down by £30 but I had to remind her to take the business cover off which took the premium down by another £20.

Frank

I've just had my car insurance quote, too, so will be hunting around for something lower. It's not much higher, but I don't see why they should charge more when I can do something about it.

It's always worth shopping around. I usually get a phone call from my insurers asking me to renew and I tell them I will be shopping around for other quotes and will get back to them. Up until now they have always reduced their original renewal quote. But do be careful in checking that the cover is like for like. A higher quote may be better value if more is covered.