Just had an insurance quote from Admiral multi car insurance for my daily driver (BMW with business use) and the 5.
If I had had false teeth I think I would have smashed my computer screen- £1232.18 for the year
Quote from Co-op for the BMW - £271.13 and for the 5 from Lancaster - £132.36.
Still in two minds where to spend my money. Does anyone have experience from Admiral? Would the extra cost be offset by their quality of service?
Let me know your thoughts.
Cost on Admiral for 2 cars and home insurance so a multi policy last year £436. I’m retired so no commute or business use.
We all have different circumstances, postcode, age and of course car and use of.
As for Admiral they seem ok to me. Around 4 years ago my daughter was looking for car insurance as a new driver, Admiral came up with the best price. She’s been with them through two prangs, on ea 50/50 claim and the other a hit and run car park damage, so no fault type of claim. In both cases they have dealt with the claims and repair of the car really well, no complaints from her. Her renewals as expected have took a hit in price but not too severe, still happy.
As for your quoted price, I wouldn’t bother but if you have only done a comparison site thing for the quote I’d advise actually speaking to them armed with the other quotes you have, you may be surprised what you can get them to agree to. I spoke with them after receiving my renewal, they reduced the price, I know we shouldn’t have to but that’s how it goes with these companies.
£800 extra? That would have to be one hell of a service!
So no, it would not be worth it. Go with whatever works out the cheapest. Level of service is nice and all but how often do you use that service? Paying over the odds year in and year out for the one time in 10 years you need them makes no sense to me.
My thoughts exactly!
The £1232 price was on line. Had to call them to check and see if I had entered something wrong.
They reduced it to just over £800 for 10 months which would coincide with my home insurance renewal.
Oh, and the original post was meant to be tongue in cheek, I’ve no intention of paying for something that’s 300% more expensive than another provider.
Just for comparison, I’m 47 years old. Been driving for 27 years. 1 non-fault claim in the last 5 years at the end of 2017 for £1350 (that’s another story entirely). Live just south of Birmingham, B60 post code. Self-employed martial arts instructor, full time. Daily parked on drive and 5 in garage.
Most of the time, NO, multi-car is not worthwhile.
I changed from Admiral on my old Vextra when the renewal quadrupled (180 -> 710) simply because the car became fifteen years old. John Lewis quoted me the same as the previous year on Admiral, and were OK for the next few years, but when I replaced it with the Mazda3 they quoted a silly price, as did Admiral, and I went to Direct Line, back to a normal price. I had previously insured the old Astra mostly with DL, after NU and Guardian and a few others. Having good history helps.
In the meantime a couple of years after moving to JL I bought the MX5 and JL were silly on their renewal quote for the MX5, however Admiral came up with a very reasonable offer and I’m still with them on that car.
For the last thirty-odd years on eight different cars I’ve been paying about £200 p/a for car insurance +/- about £30. If it rises I ring around, and always get it down again.
Insurance is a game, and one needs to be on top of it. I’m prepared to pay a little bit more for some aspects, but always haggle down for our recent limited usage. I also have a very good local solicitor so don’t need the rip-off legal cover.
I also make sure we are each listed as equal main drivers on both cars, so we each have full NCD history.
I never have multi-car. In the one year both cars were with JL it was cheaper to have them separate, and subsequently this made swapping out so much easier when they jacked the price up on renewal for each Mazda.
Beware Admiral - and Elephant insurance!
Got done for speeding - just a few mph above the thirty limit. Usual silly story. Went on the speed awareness course (basically a £90 fine - sorry cost - without the court administration and avoided points. BUT - ex police officer running the course when asked said you did not need to declare in your insurance application whether you had been on a speed awareness course UNLESS you insured with Admiral or Elephant. They will almost certainly use it to increase your premium since you have been nicked for speeding - official sanction or not. Read the small print and apparently they say clearly they expect you to declare it AND update them if it happens before next renewal.
This of course defeats the object of a speed awareness course, which, partially at least, is to give a warning without affecting your driving record. Admiral and Elephant do not take that view, according to the ex copper. To the best of my knowledge all other insurers do.
Cheers and happy policy hunting.
My experience with Elephant and Admiral insurers has been positive although many years ago . Youngest daughter wrote off her Clio by running into the rear of another car . She was alone in the car and they kept in touch at the scene to make sure she was OK [ she was 18 years old at the time I believe] . The car had been fitted with new alloy wheels and tyres and an upgraded stereo which they allowed me to remove and replace with standard items whilst it was at the recovery yard . The cheque in settlement was for more than I had paid for the car and it was received within about 2 - 3 weeks of the accident .That was with Elephant . Eldest daughter had her house in Sheffield broken into and keys to her Citroen C3 taken and used to steal her car . The car was recovered with some damage and bits missing . Repairs were carried out promptly and to a good standard . That claim was with Admiral so from a claims perspective I have nothing but praise for the Admiral group . I suspect with regards to car insurance the idea is to ‘cherry pick’ safe drivers hence the number of questions relating to previous breaches of the law , who will be main driver , where will the car be kept etc. when filling in an application form . If it keeps my premiums low then I’m all in favour.
Admiral no longer take notice of speed awareness courses ( not sure about Elephant)
Several years ago I was doing what many people do, searching around for insurance that included class 1 business use. After I had had to explain this to countless people at different companies or call centres, I can across someone who just knew it. “How did you know that?” I exclaimed! “Because I have been doing this 20 years and not just sat in front of a computers reading what it says” was the answer.
Don’t under estimate the value of a broker.
Everyone’s insurance circumstances are different, but I have been with REIS ever since I started my business. I have 7 vehicles insured, all with two drivers, a new trailer, vehicles in transit, my business insurance including PLI for tyre fitting etc, plus many thousands of pounds worth of stock, tools and so fourth, for less than double what the OP is saying they were quoted for 2 cars. I am with REIS because there has never been an issue that they have not sorted quickly and efficiently with a phone call. The princely sum REIS charge per year for these services, as shown as brokerage fee on the renewal policies is less than £50 per year.
Considering all these vehicles, which including 3 MX-5’s and a commercial vehicle with £12k of fixed equipment inside are business use, are not garaged and have no mileage limit I think I would probably be hard pushed to insure the vehicles alone on individual policies for what I pay, let alone the trailer and vehicles that go on it as well as the other stuff.
Most people get quotes these days from a very defined set of parameters on a computer program that is not set up to ask the right questions, in fact the number of questions that are asked is very limited meaning a lot of stuff is going to be assumed. Going outside of these parameters is likely to result in a refusal or high quote by the computer. Much better to talk to someone who actually knows what they are doing and that does not even mean a specific company, but a knowledgeable, experienced person within that company.
Also, as for “get the cheapest, don’t worry about the service.” The internet, even this forum, is littered with people “bitter” about not getting a goal plated car when they need to claim.
And again, the “we are ripped off every year!” If you happen to decide to pull out in front of a car with a family and children, if you decide to run into the back of the same car, knock a cyclist of their bike and break their arm and leg, then the claim you make every 10 years is going look like decidedly excellent value even if you have been paying £500 for driving 1,000 miles a year.
I here what you are saying Nick, it’s best to talk rather than compute. Your circumstances it makes sense and they’ll want to keep sweet to keep your business, it doesn’t quite work that way with one maybe two cars. I’ve been around them all even brokers, infact my very first cars were done through brokers. The latest broker experience ended with, “we can’t offer you insurance sir as we won’t be making enough profit on the deal”
We were with Admiral for years and they tried this trick every year. We would then go onto the website and enter all our details and the quote would come up at normally half what the renewal was. So we’d ring and negotiate eventually they would give us the online price. Now I wouldn’t touch Admiral with a barge pole. I think they are cheap for a reason. Because they are useless. My wifes MX5 was run into in a traffic jam, the nice bloke was very apologetic and gave her all his details. we rang Admiral when we got home, as it happened about 5 minutes from home, to tell them what happened. They put us through to their No Fault handlers Albany Assistance. They took loads of details but I didn’t like some of the questions they were asking so did some research. Albany Assistance had some really dodgy practices which included extremely inflated hire car prices (£180 a day for a Corsa) and failed to pick up said hire car for days after required. The other sides insurance refused to pay this so they would then send you a bill for it, which you had agreed to in that initial phone call. So we said we weren’t interested and that we would go through the other partys insurance (AIG). Our car went to the bodyshop for assessment while Albany were still dealing with it. 2 years later Admiral sent us a bill for the Insurance Assessment of our car and threatened to take us to court for the £60. We spoke to AIG who said they had never been sent a bill but they would pay it straight away and we heard nothing more. Admiral also increased our insurance because my wife had had an accident. Probably the same as if she had caused it as it was a substantial rise. Now with LV multicar for my daily lease car (A4), my Porsche 996 and my wifes A3. Very competitive due to theb A4 having no no claims. My MX5 is with Footman James on a Classic Policy.