Cheap car insurance (Motor Insurance - Comments & Tips)

Member Name: ahenry

Product:	Motor Insurance - Comments & Tips
Date:	26/11/01 (503 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Shopping around saves money

Disadvantages: Shopping around takes time

When it comes to buying car insurance, there are a few different strategies.

1. Take the easy way out. Sign the renewal forms for your existing insurer, or if you haven't had a car before, sign up with the first company that you contact. Positives for this approach are that its easy. Unfortunately, the insurance companies know this and its very likely that you will be able to get a better quote from somewhere else. After fifteen years insuring cars, I've found the renewal quote to be cheapest once.

2. Get quotes from every insurance company and broker that you can find. You might get a great price like this. Unfortunately, the cost in terms of your time and possibly telephone bill might make it more expensive.

3. Find a company or broker targetted to your specific needs. Some insurers choose to specialise in niche markets, aiming to be able to offer cheaper deals by knowing their particular bit of the market better than anyone else.

Most insurance companies run a mile from a seventeen year old with a 1.0L Vauxhall Nova that has £600 of alloy wheels and an exhaust system the size of a drainpipe. However, if you look in the classified adverts of Max Power, you'll find insurers who won't crack up laughing halfway through the quote. Similarly, if you want to insure an MGB, then the MG owners' club is worth trying, the NFU can be cheap for Land Rover insurance etc.

Personally, I've never found internet-based car insurers to be that good. The best WWW interfaces can get you a quote reasonably quickly, but the worst ones are awful, and the majority are still slower than getting a quote by telephone. A few places (eg the AA) give a discount to WWW quotes. For these, I would be tempted to ring for a quote first, and then go for the WWW site if the first quote is competitive.

I usually try a selection of direct sales insurance companies from adverts in the yellow pages as well as one or two broke
rs. Having tried half a dozen places, I'll get back to the best quotes and see if they can drop their price a little more.

If you are comparing several quotes, then you need to make sure that you are getting a quote for exactly the same level of cover. Check details like the voluntary excess, the compulsory excess, the level of no claims bonus, has uninsured loss recovery been included, are you covered for business use or for travel to work,

You then need to make sure that the quote that you get is right for you. You may find that you are already covered for legal expenses with existing insurance policies. The traditional advice has been that comprehensive insurance isn't worthwhile if your car is worth less than £1000-£1500 or so. However, sometimes you can get comprehensive cover for very little more than for TPF&T (I've had it quote as £2 more), and this could then be worthwhile even for a banger. For instance, you often get better windscreen cover with a comprehensive policy, and you might also get a hire car whilst your car is off the road for repairs (even if it ends up being written off).

If you are a single young man looking to insure a car, then it often reduces your quote if you get a woman named driver added to the policy. In theory this would be your girlfriend, who will nag you and stop you from having lots of accidents. However, it could be any woman.

If you make a claim on your insurance, then you will lose your no claims bonus unless you can get your claim paid by someone else's insurance company. To do this, the claim has to be caused fully by someone else, they need to be insured and you need to get their insurance details. If you pay for a protected no claims bonus, then some companies will not honour the NCB protection from another company. Even if you don't lose your no claims bonus, you will have had an accident, that you will need to mention to insurers, and this is quite likely to bump
up your premiums.

A no claims bonus can make a huge difference to the cost of your insurance. Think carefully before you claim as to whether it really is worth your while to make a claim damage that will be cheap to repair.

Don't be tempted to be economical with the truth when getting an insurance quote. If you are and you happen to run down a bus queue, then you can be sure that the insurer will hold any deception against you.

Insurance that costs 10% less than the rest of your quotes might turn out to be less of a bargain if the company goes bust before you need to claim. In this situation, it helps to have paid with a credit card. Remember that with insurance you pay them money - this is only worthwhile if they will agree to pay you money when something nasty goes wrong.

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