Insurance Renewal

The mysteries and inexplicable anomalies of insurance are frequently discussed in the forum and we are all aware that there seems to no rhyme nor reason where quotations are concerned. Has anyone come across this one before though? Apologies if it  has already been discussed.

The no-frills comprehensive cover for 2000 miles on my Mk3.5 being due on 1/6 I was expecting a good renewal quote from our friends at A Flux. After all another years no-claims bonus so it should go down shouldn’t it. Anyway I was unpleasantly surprised to receive a renewal quote of £367 some £81 more than last year. Of course they invited me to talk to them if I received a better quote but what this conveys to me is that we haven’t given you our best price but we hope you might pay it nevertheless. I know this is prevalent in the insurance world but I don’t like it and an automatic resistance mode immediately clicks in.

So I had a look at a comparison site well-known for being advertised on TV by Russian meerkats. The best quote was for £231 from Performance Direct who I had never heard of but felt quite comfortable with as the underwriters were Allianz. The cover was similar apart from an extra £50 excess which didn’t bother me and which was compensated by the annual mileage going up to 3000.

Having pretty much decided that this was acceptable I thought I would just have a look at another comparison site also well-known for being advertised on TV by an annoying operatic tenor. Their best quote was also by Performance Direct and was identical in every way, shape and form apart from the price which was £182.89! No prizes for guessing which one I went for but can anyone explain it?

Sod’s Law!

I’ve become very sceptical about car insurance companies, including the one providing this club’s “preferred” scheme. My own quote (for two separate cars, one of them not an MX-5, with an extra year of no claims) both increased by a similar 23% the last time renewal time came around.

There was no explanation given when I phoned to query it except that “car insurance prices have increased massively”. I got similar cover for 55% of the renewal quote!

Gone are the days when you could expect a decent initial quote and expect sensible subsequent renewal prices. I’m afraid the whole lot of them are only out to make as much from the “punter” as possible after gaining our business. Beware anyone who doesn’t shop around at renewal time - prepare to get fleeced.

It does nark me that at every renewal i have to phone to get the price down. This time around the renewal with LV for our other car was £253.  Looked online and on a comparison site, LV for exactly the same cover with same excess, protected no claims, legal, and courtesy car came out at £212. Phoned them up and best over the phone was £240 but they said just take out the online quote for the best price.

 

It’s been the same with energy companies, they are all at it.

Ring up my energy company as my fix is about to expire, they said we can offer you XYZ per month fixed for 12 months, I said but it was cheaper when I did a comparison online yesterday, your company? Their reply was, go back and do the online quote I can only do what’s in front of me, no less.
I explained I am here right now talking to you and ready to sign up, do the online quote or I’ll be off elsewhere, still the reply was no can do.

I ended up moving to a company even cheaper than their best price, the switch is in progress. I’ll do the same next year if as with insurance if they start messing with prices. Again why don’t we get offered their best prices to stay, taken for mugs who they think will pay up and say nowt.

And the best bit, I get an email stating my switch is in progress, it’s not too late to stay with us please ring for our best quote.

I too am flummoxed by their methods.

After having my work car and the MX5 with the same company I have changed the MX5 from yesterday. Old company didn’t like roll bars.

The old company made NCD allowances for the mx5 last year based on the 9 years on my work car but when the new company asked I told the truth

and said that I’d had the MX5 for one year so one years NCD. They added on the mods I’ve done and it still came out the same so I went for it.

Then came an email saying I had ten years transferable NCB and to forward this email to the new insurers, so I did.

Phoned up the new lot to ask if now I had proof of ten years would the premium reduce?

Would it hell.

They said NCB didn’t apply to such policies so no reduced premium. I bet if the glove was on the other foot and I’d had a prang the price would go up.

 

I’m talking £200 for 5k miles as a classic BTW.

Paul G

One other thing that you have to remember with some insurances is, if you don’t contact them to tell them that you are not taking insurance out with them again, they will automatically charge you as per your renewal. After I contacted my insurance provider I still got letters from them about renewal, even tho’ I had told them I wasn’t renewing unless they could match Hastings insurance.  

they certainly don’t all do that, in fact of all the cars I’ve insured with various companies over about the last 10+ years that I can recall none have done that, it depends on what sort of deal you set up with them when you first take out the policy I assume and you’re renewal letter will clearly state the terms, you just have to read it… 

 

A standard requirement (usually) is they offer a 14 day cooling off period, if you change your mind they’ll refund the full amount and cancel the policy.

Tyr again for that NCB to be considered, bearing in mind the above.

 

 

 

It just seems that however they arrive at a figure that figure will be more or less the same.

 

i.e. £300 with 33% off; or a classic policy with no NCB is £200  

 

Be careful if you cancel a policy within the 14 days as you don’t get a full refund. They will charge you an inflated rate for the number of days they insured you and an “admin” fee. My lad who cancelled a policy recieved only £240 back from a £320 policy he took out. They messed him around as wouldn’t accept his 10 years NCD from 18 months ago before he had his company car when they said they would. They then tried to add over £200 to the price saying he had zero NCD. Another company accepted it no problem for around the same £320 price 

 

Well, maybe you’re right.

However, this automatic renewal thing has quietly crept in…

 

Tell you a little story from a couple or three years ago. I’d never heard of automatic renewal at that point. 

I insured my now ex-daily runabout  with 1st Central, a new to me outfit.

A few weeks prior to the expiry of my year’s insurance, I received the renewal quote/email. 

I then went off to a comparison site, and found a more favourable quote from a different insurer, and decided

to go with them. I then tootled off to my bank account, and deleted the direct debit instruction for 1st Central.

Sat back, job done so to speak. 

2 or 3 days after my insurance had ‘expired’ I started receiving rather heavy emails from 1st Central that my direct

debit had failed, I owed them money etc. I phoned them up, at which point the mystic world of automatic renewal revealed 

itself. I said that it must have been some secret clause hidden deep in the terms and conditions, and felt that something

so important as that should be very clearly stated , and in bold type, and that I no longer needed or wanted their insurance.

Conversation closed. 

 

A further few days later, a little cloud passed across my mind, I checked my bank account, and the sundry direct debit instructions.

Well **ck, the 1st Central direct debit instruction had been set up again, though no money had been taken. I photographed it, and deleted it. 

This prompted a terse letter to 1st Central. I stated that my contract with them started on date and ended on date, and was fully paid up. If they

even attempted to remove further monies from my bank account, this would generate immediate recourse to legal measures.  

Silence.

3 or 4 days later I did a routine check of my bank account. An amount equivalent to the full previous years’s premium had been credited

to the account. I never heard from 1st Central again, nor they from me.  

 

Moral of the story…?

At some point, I’d got to thinking, and something about contract law had occurred to me.

Along the lines of … that when a contract has an explicit start and end date, with the sundry terms and conditions

stated within it… anything which is in those terms and conditions that seeks to extend the contract beyond the stated end date, or has the intent

to create a new contract, … is not actually legally enforceable. 

I think that what happened was that when I sent my letter, and noted that 1st Central had re-set the direct debit instruction, it may have gone

to their legal people, someone panicked, and they took the most immediate action they could think of to haul themselves out of the s*it. 

 

The implication being that automatic renewal is all a big bluff, a try on. 

And so are those demands after the fact for ‘admin fees’ , or trying to make you pay for the days of insurance

which you hadn’t asked for, after the end of your contract.

 

After years of being disappointed with high renewal quotes and chopping and changing we now have both our cars with ‘Quote me happy’. It’s the online arm of Aviva with all the admin done online. The good part is that you can make changes yourself without any charge. They do still have a call centre to deal with any claims though.

Recently I change from a Mk3 to a Mk4 MX5 and here’s what I did-

Took private plate off the Mk3. No charge.

Changed the policy from the Mk3 to the Mk4. No charge. No increase in premium.

Put private plate on the Mk4. No charge.

A short while later our other car came up for renewal. New premium had gone up a bit but didn’t look too bad. Just to be sure I asked Aleksandre the meerkat what he could come up with and he couldn’t come anywhere close.

Call me a cynic but when a company chooses a name like ‘Quote me happy’ my immediate reaction is to think they are taking the p*ss. Nice to be proved wrong.

The reason companies automatically renew your insurance is because of the
’ Continuous Insurance Regulations 2011’ ( Google it)
The companies are doing it for your protection, unless you advise them to the contrary, they will renew your policy. If they did not and you were prosecuted for No Insurance, you could then sue them for failing to renew your policy in order to comply with the regulations! They could also possibly be prosecuted for aiding an offence, by failing to ensure you were insured.
They also have to record details of your insurance with the MID within 6 days, or face fines.

The responsibility for ensuring that their car is insured rests, at all times, with the owner/driver.  

The expiry date of the insurance is also recorded, and is flagged up on the MID database when that date is reached. There is nothing in the regulation you mention that empowers, or compels, an insurance company to automatically renew a policy. And certainly absolutely zero that in any way supercedes, or is superior to, law of contract.

As said, automatic renewal is basically a try on, and the responsibility for making sure that their car is insured rests with the owner.

As it always has. 

I gave Lancaster a try seeing as they are in the OC mag.£297 and they where on the phone as soon as i put the quote in I mean as i was reading it.Told them they where too OTT and hung up.Since then ‘yesterday i have had tbree calls off the vultures’.Last guy said he could match AXA £175.Lol if you hadnt tried to rip me off in the 1st place with £297,should be  wearing a mask mate.

It seems that renewing anything, insurance, utilities, phone etc. is just like buying other dodgy goods and so renewal quotes should have “Buyer beware!” printed on them in LARGE LETTERS!