| Product: |
Motor Insurance - Comments & Tips |
| Date: |
28/09/08 (395 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: You know the price of an accident in your excess
Disadvantages: It costs quite a lot to insure nowadays
A few tips I have discovered whilst finding insurance over the years:
Put another person on your insurance
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This is a simple tip for younger drivers, especially under 25's. Find an older person and put them as a second driver on your insurance. This works best if you can find a female in her 40's or 50's.
Why is it cheaper? Simple; you tell them you do 12,000 miles a year and they price the policy at 12,000 miles of high risk.
Put your mother on there as a second driver and they assume she will do 3,000 miles. You now pay for 9,000 miles at high risk (since you are the policy holder) and 3,000 miles at low risk (your mother).
I saved £300 off a £1200 one year using this and my mother never drove the car once.
Up your excess
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Try upping the excess, the amount you have to pay in the event of a claim. Sometimes it brings a lot of money off, sometimes it doesn't, but it doesn't cost anything to ask.
Price comparison but shop around as well
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Price comparison websites are all well and good, but they do not cover every insurance policy or company. Direct Line are not on any of these comparison sites, for example.
Offers
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Insurance companies may give you offers. For example, after 10 months they will give you a 1 year no claim bonus. These can only be transferred to other companies when you have built up 12 months of driving so to transfer 1 years worth of no claim bonus, you need to be with that company for two terms (20 months) as only complete and "real" years can be transferred.
Confused? Avoid them, it is that simple.
Mileage forms
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When filling in forms on the internet for insurance quotes, don't put in 15,000 miles per year, put in 14,999 if possible. This may not make much different but since companies band mileages, this one mile may drop you down a price band.
Specialists
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Some insurance companies claim to be specialists. Most are not, they specialise by targetting certain categories of people. Get a price from them, but get prices for standard insurance companies as well. I have never found a specialist cheapest. Not once.
Third party cover
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Third party fire and theft is not worth the money saved when you are over about 21ish. You may save £30 or £40 a year on your insurance, but you lose plenty of cover.
Two examples of third party against fully comp:
1) You crash your car into someone elses car, it's your fault. You lose your car or have to pay for repairs. On top of this you have to pay the excess as well. The excess paid goes toward the other person's car.
2) You get a chip in your windscreen from a stonechip. Third party does not cover this, fully comprehensive insurance will either cover this or perhaps only a small excess for windscreen cover. This happened to another friend of mine and he had to pay £250 for a windscreen. It wasn't a flash car, a Renault Clio.
Legal cover
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Don't skimp on legal cover. One accident or liar and you may have to pay solicitors bills to defend yourself. For £20ish, this is worth having, just in case. They are also much better than the 'no win, no fee' solicitors and lawyers.
Free courtesy car
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If you have a specialist car and know where you want the car to go for repairs, go to the garage and ask which insurance companies they deal with.
If you take your car to a 'non-authorised' repairer by the insurance company, they do not get the discounts from the garage and you lose your right to a courtesy car (even if you have paid for it). Read the terms. It's in there.
It is price that is important, not discount
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Forget no-claims bonuses being worth 30%, 40% or whatever. Only get the final price since the percentages mean nothing when all the starting prices are different.
Modifications
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Declare all modifications. I had a friend who bought a new car, a diesel. She decided to take the diesel badges off and stick on the Cupra R badges (top of the range, sportswise).
Someone crashed into her and she wasn't insured. That badge change means you have made your car appear to be more upmarket to theives and therefore you are uninsured for everything. She did get them to pay a percentage of the cost in the end (they wouldn't pay the full amount). She didn't get a courtesy car and the car was in for about a month whilst the disagreement was sorted out, before the garage could start the work.
Don't upgrade without telling them. Don't want people to know it's a 1.2 petrol? Take the badges off. Don't put any replacements on.
Don't pay their interest
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The interest on monthly payments are very expensive. Get a 0% credit card to buy your insurance (but make sure you pay it off!). Another choice may be a bank loan, again these are much cheaper.
Remember what you are insuring
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How many times have you heard that the price of insurance is ridiculous, that his car is only worth £1000 but his insurance is £2000? I have heard this many times and some people think this is disgusting.
Just imagine though, the very next day, this lad drives way to quick around a corner and crashes into a run of supercars and writes them off. He writes off his own car, a Bugatti, a McLaren SLR and a Lamborghini Gallardo. That's pushing for £1,500,000 worth of cars, but no worry, you just have to pay your excess. Not bad for just £2,000, if it happened!
Remember your insurance is to cover everyone else as well as yourself.
Summary: Get the right cover and then find the right price.
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Last comments:
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- 30/09/08 You can't invalidate your insurance by who is on as a second driver. If you put someone who never drives the car as the *main* driver, this will invalidate the insurance. I put my mother on for three years as a second driver. She ended up with a job in the third year and then used to drive it regularly since she was already on the insurance. At times she almost had to drive the car in the first year, but in the end never had to since my fathers car became available.
I was on my fathers insurance for many years even when I had my own car. I would drive it once every two years or so. We didn't know in advance if I would need to drive it. This cannot be classed as fraud.
The mileage estimates, adjusting by one, again , this cannot invalidate your insurance - as long as you don't go over your estimate. Most websites now have drop down lists so there are only a few places where this trick can be used. |
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- 30/09/08 You've got some good points here (upping XS, price comparision and so on) but you've also got some points that could cause folks to invalidate their insurances (like your friend with the badge!).
Putting someone on the insurance just to lower the cost if they won't drive the car could be seen by the insurers as fraud, at best causing them to average any claim and at worst invalidating your cover altogether.
Si milarly, mileage estimates need to be accurate - that one mile can make a real difference to whether they think you've been honest with them.
In today's climate it's even more important to be as accurate as possible - insurance companies don't have the cash to just pay without question. |
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- 28/09/08 gr8 review nominated xxx |
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