If so someone should tell them to pull their fingers out.
Premium went up 25% despite a claim and accident free year.
It takes 4 days for the policy to turn up, when it does it includes a mysterious “garage clause” which has appeared out of the blue in the endorsements section.
Love to tell you what it is but I spent an hour on Friday on hold waiting to find out, tried to email them instead but have yet to receive any form of acknowledgement or reply.
So to sum up:
Paid 25% more for insurance for a car that I haven’t been able to drive for a week of the policy.
As I understand it , car insurance premiums have generally risen over the last year or so. Our Golf TDI is insured with Privilege and the renewal premium for this is 12.5% more than last year despite no changes to the policy or risk, I’m struggling to find a cheaper quote though.
OTOH, the renewal for my Roadster is exactly the same as last year. RH Classic must have thought that £200 was a nice round number and quoted me that again …
Well, I’ve just got off the phone with FJ, who for a 1990 MK1, two drivers, one 31 year old female clean licence for 10 years+, other 27 year old male 3 points licence for 9 years, in a good area with no car crime to speak of, they wanted £461.40 per year for comprehensive cover, £250 excess.
The car is fitted with a Cat 2 immobiliser, car valued at £1500, no other mods.
Bonkers. Won’t be going with them. That included the club “discount”. We’ve been Footman James customers in one form or another for many years, including 4 other classic cars. We will be looking around for the other cars come renewal date, because that is ridiculous. A bit silly of them not to look at the bigger picture, they are getting £1K+ a year from us for other cars which are hardly ever on the road, but now risk all that because they have pushed their prices up.
Suggestions on good places to try for a policy that will allow approx 10K miles per year, including very limited business use for the above?
Direct Line were significantly cheaper than that, and they don’t even do Classic Policies or have club discounts.
Also my Capri insurance with Footman James earlier this year was cheaper - and that’s a 2.8 with no security system fitted, a couple of modifications, worth more money, and definitely a higher risk vehicle to drive.
Try Heritage insurance. I thought my insurance on three Fives and a Polo was cheap with LV but Heritage knocked over £175 off, gave agreed value cover, with limited mileage, an individual name and phone number for the ‘manager’ of my account and provided excellent customer service. They got my money anyway.
Of course you only know how good your insurer is when you make a claim.
I had no complaints about LV. They were excellent - but I felt a bit of a mug as the insurance kept creeping up for the incumbents, although they were offering discounts to new customers. They did offer to try to match whatever quote I got - but admitted they couldn’t when I gave them the opportunity.
Heritage’s explanation for their good prices was that they treat the four cars as a group driven by two people and that ‘sort of halved the risk’. Well we can’t drive all four at once - and often three are sat at home, whereas LV treated each car seperately, as if each was the only car being used and therefore a full risk to them.
Well, current best price is coming from Direct Line of all people, including business mileage for both policy holder and named drivers, 10K miles per year but very little difference to up that to 15K, and significantly cheaper than most of the specialist or classic policies.
Curious, as Footman James had previously been half the price of mainstream insurers for my cars.
We just bought a 1990 MK1 1.6 unmodified, spent around 3.5 hours and over £50 talking to all the classic insurers i could find advertised in classic cars weekly, we are retired couple have an SP 30 each (may be old but we have our days) no claims ever, and a second car, most offered fully comp for around £350 p/a with milage restricted to 3500 per year, In a softtop MX5 ? touring Scotland would use up two thirds of that crap allowance. We got fully comp via SAGA minus milage restrictions european cover for 90 days 65% NCB for £214 plus free monthly payments I.E. interest free. FJ were the most expensive and least heplfull and most disinterested. no chance of our business!!! If the club has enough members why not approach a Lloyd syndacate who will design a policy specifically for the club at reasonable rates Porsch club GB do this and it works quite well
Hi …Just found the entries related to FJ insurance and thought that it might be of value to share our experience with anyone interested.
We used FJ for our first MX-5 enthusiastic, experience last year — seemed a good buy — one alternative company quote offered to us was £1500! — In the process of transferring to a different car, unable to make contact by email or telephone — that dreadful on-hold music! — car deal fell through ---- still unable to make contact — Finally, when we decided to cancel the original policy, as our first car had been sold, we ended up with charges for every change, related to the attempt to transfer to another car and then the cancelling because of the deal failure, that they had not acknowledged receiving from us and a final charge — net result no refund! — On a positive note, at least we did not end up owing them! — Surprisingly, during the on-hold process for the aborted replacement car transaction, we tried Aviva our main car and house insurer — Quote online was over £50 cheaper! — Oh the joy of technology and remote shopping!
Next car now in the pipeline and Aviva online quote for us two OAPs (60+ and 70) on a 2002 1.6 with 4K annual mileage is £260 fully comp. (£6 more for 6K!) which is less than for our first 1.8 2000 car with FJ.
Our lesson learnt >>> go straight to the horse’s mouth, rather than use brokers, bypassing the middleman. We forgot (it’s an age thing!) about a previous inefficient broker encounter some years back. The price, whilst being important is not the most important thing but rather the quality of service, especialy when there are problems that need to be resolved quickly. However, we fully understand that if you just want to get economically on the road regardless, take a chance and have happy, careful, topless motoring… but don’t forget to read the small print just in case…!!!
Ralf
We had a similar experience with PETER BEST INSURANCE. ( see PBI best or worst) These people are capitalising on the small print which you dont and cannot see untill after you have bought the policy. Be aware that both the FSA & Trading standards have laid down enforcable rules and reccomendations for cancellations effected during the “cooling off” period, this calls for FULL refund with no deductions for admin (?) fees which are in my opinion are largely invented calculations by dubious brokers. We got fully comp for a 91 MK1 MX5 1.6 via SAGA for £214 which includes 90 days in Europe unlimited milage, we both have SP30s and full NCB only thing we dont get is the agreed valuation which i am uncertain about anyway because in the event of a total loss I am sure they would contest it and try to wriggle out of it using more small print.
I am 42 years old and live in the part of Hampshire that has the lowest crime figure in the UK and have one sp30. I have been driving on a full licence since I was 17 and have had a company car for the last 12 years too with no claims - but I was told I cannot use that NCD unless I give up my company car. (Why this is I do not know - surely the main risk is with me, not the car.)
When I got my MX-5 Mk 3 2.0i Soft Top, Footman James quote me £750 (with 2 years NCD). Admiral were £480 - guess who got the business?
I think its about time the club had words with FJ. They quoted me £561 for my 2000 1.8 I have full no claims and one SP30 5years ago and that included my club discount. Their answer to my query was “We are not so competative on none classic vehicles” Swintons insured me for £230 And offered me intrest free payments with the same excess
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