Is it just me, or has car insurance got reeeeeally expensive recently?

[maniac]

Last years premium = £280

This years renewal = £480

 

Even when ringing them, the best they could do was £420, and when shopping around the best I can find is £340 for the same level of cover. That's over a 20% increase from last year, and if I continued with the same insurer that's about a 50% increase!

 

Never mind such is life I suppose, prices will rise, but over 20% in a year!! I suppose it's a knock on effect of the banks screwing everything up.

 

Mike.

[Gatt]

It's probably due to an increase in Volcanic Ash from Iceland

 

[BatchFile]

Time to compare meerkats. Simples

 

Edit:

Seriously, Direct Line doubled my OH's premium after she had an accident - CTM got it back to pre-accident levels. Also try Go Compaaaaaare, Go Compaaaare

Edited April 20, 2010 by BatchFile
include useful info

[maniac]

Question, which is the higher risk car:

 

A 1995 Vauxhall cavalier 1.6i

A 1983 VW Golf Cabriolet 1.8 GTi

 

Amazingly the golf is a full £40 a year CHEAPER to insure with the same company than the Cavalier, madness! Shame the Golf isn't actually on the road at the moment, although it's given me some motivation to do so now!

[CHR1S]

Ive just changed my car, to one which is almost 3 full groups less than the old one and yet its £150 more to insure! Go figure

[Sarconia]

You definitely have to shop around. I wasn't particularly impressed when my renewal which was £20 more than the previous year came through... despite having gained another years worth of no claims. I shopped around on various price comparison websites and managed to chop £50 off the price of the renewal, down £30 from the previous year, nice

[witch]

It has definitely got much more expensive wherever you go. We have had to do a lot of searching around lately for my sons, who are 21 with 4 years clean and 19 with 2, and the costs have ROCKETED from last year. We tried all the comparison websites as well as Admiral (who mrwITch and I are with) and Direct Line. For the 21 year old the price has gone up by over a third, and for the 19 year old, almost twice as much as last year

[srochford]

Weirdly, I've paid marginally less every year for the past few years. Admittedly, I spend ages trying every web site I can find to get quotes and I drive an old and cheap car (51 reg Daewoo Matiz). I'd guess I get my cheap insurance because everyone else is paying more so I suppose I should just say "Thank you Edugeekers for making my insurance so cheap :-)"

[tech_guy]

I've just had to put my 17 year old daughter on the policy as she's just passed her test (first time as well, bless her) - imagine the premium I'm now facing!

[leco]

Could be worse - you could have a 17 year son on your insurance - imagine the cost of that:D

[witch]

Could be worse - you could have a 17 year son on your insurance - imagine the cost of that:D

Yes, been there, done that....it WAS about £600 per son, goodness knows what it would be now!

[fafster]

My brother got his first car at 17, and went on his own insurance. Cost £1500.

When I got my first car at 21, it cost me £825. It would have been £826, but adding my mother as a second driver chopped a pound off...

[alan-d]

One excuse I often hear from the Insurance company is 'It's down to the postcode you live in' I tried telling them it is the same one as last year but they didn't want to know

 

£600 to add your son - Bah!! Peanuts! £4K to add our son and he's been driving for 3 years! The ridiculous thing is that he can get fully comp for less than a grand to drive his Seat Leon FR which is more sporty than our other cars. Still trying to work that one out

[crc-ict]

£600 to add your son - Bah!! Peanuts! £4K to add our son and he's been driving for 3 years! The ridiculous thing is that he can get fully comp for less than a grand to drive his Seat Leon FR which is more sporty than our other cars. Still trying to work that one out

 

It's all down to the insurer - presumably the less than £1k for his own insurance is with a company that is less worried about insuring young male drivers. I'd guess your own insurance company is one that is highly against insuring young males.

[sidewinder]

Renewals are ALWAYS more, they always have been for me anyway, often double. Apart from last year when it did amazingly come out slightly cheaper, I've had to change insurers every single year - it seems they arent bothered about keeping custokmers unless those customers are lazy and cant be bothered to change

[alan-d]

It was the same for all companies - we only enquired out of curiosity thankfully

[Ric_]

I had the same problem... last year it was £590-ish and this year the cheapest I could get was £640-ish (and that was the renewal quote).

 

Anything underwritten by eSure refused to insure me (ironic considering my renewal was with eSure) because of my 'age and model of car'. Admittedly I do drive a 4.3l V8 Merc However, I was insurable last year and now the car is a year older and I have another year's no claims discount!

[PeteM]

My car premiums with Direct Line were going up every year despite not making any claims so I swapped to Morethan and saved about 60%. The last 2 renewals haven't increased by more than a couple of %. Pet Insurance with Direct Line has gone up drastically but due to the age of one of my dogs I can't change it now. For a company that says they pass the savings of NOT being on price comparison sites I think their advert is a bit misleading.

[timzim]

£4K to add our son and he's been driving for 3 years!

 

You need to swap the Ferrari for a Mondeo

[ChrisH]

Car insurance is ridiculous. My comparison was between bike and car insurance and it was a lot cheaper eg over £100 for me to get insured on a Honda Fireblade than it was my diesel car!

[jamesb]

I'm not sure I'll ever really understand insurance. I keep getting handles on aspects of it, and then it's all blown away.

 

For example - I used to drive a van, which meant I had to have business insurance as it's a commercial vehicle. This gave me all sorts of extra protections you normally don't get and cost about £100 more than personal. The van was low-value, small engine, and a highly secure vehicle (immobilizer, security grilles over the windows into the back, security grille between the driver and the back, alarm).

 

Recently I switched to driving a car which is more than twice the value of the van, and has none of the security. When I was talking to the insurance company about changing over the vehicle on my policy the price went down by £100. I asked them what it would be if I switched to personal insurance (less coverage for certain things, lower payouts for certain things, no loss-of-earnings compensation for damage or loss of the vehicle, etc). It immeadiately jumped up again.

 

They couldn't explain why. I'm guessing that it's similar to the classic car issue, that people who drive them tend to take care of them as they value them more than normal drivers. So if you've got business insurance, it's assumed that you'll take better care of the vehicle as your livelihood might depend on it.

[SC-UK]

Car insurance is ridiculous. My comparison was between bike and car insurance and it was a lot cheaper eg over £100 for me to get insured on a Honda Fireblade than it was my diesel car!

 

That's because of the risk to passengers - the same reason teenage boys insurance is always a lot higher than girls. The fact that boys will race about only contributes a tiny amount more to their insurance than to an equivalent aged girl. The first thing any young lad does when passing his test is fill his car up full of mates and go driving around all day just for the sake of it - girls tend not to do this.

 

Interestingly enough, when I put my partner on my policy (despite the fact that she is only 20 and been driving for only a year, AND never actually drives my car - no way!), my premium dropped by nearly £100. Result!

[SC-UK]

To add to my car insurance post above, another oddity:

 

When I first got my car (Volvo V70 D5), I enquired about putting my partner on the insurance policy, and was basically told no way because she was only 20 and had been driving for less than a year (as above). However, she had to go away for a couple of days with work, and volunteered to drive. Her car wasn't big enough for her, her colleagues and all of their stuff, so I phoned my insurers to ask about putting her on the policy for a week as temporary cover. This was only a month into my policy. The woman I spoke to then proceeded to tell me that if I were to put her on the policy for a weeks temporary cover, it would cost me £100ish, but I could add her permanently for the remainder of the year and it would lower my premium by the same about.

 

Never did work this one out!

[HarryMonkey]

Apparently, one of the main factors behind the big increases in premiums is the large increase in claims. the "where there's a blame there's a claim" mentality that now prevades our society means that more people are being drawn into making claims in order to make a bob or two where before they wouldn't have bothered. The huge increase in tv ads for accident chasing solicitors has led to increased payouts and therefore the insurance companies are having to recoup those costs.

 

Simples.

[broc]

I have found in recent years that when you get a renewal quote from Direct Line & More Than you can quite often save money & get new customer discount by applying online to the same company as if you were a new customer (with exactly the same details). I have saved hundreds of pounds on home insurance doing the same. Don't assume the renewal quote from your existing company will be their best price.......

 

Also, for you single males...... try adding your Mum (if she is a driver) to your policy. My son found he could save money by adding my wife as a named driver to his insurance policy even though she would never drive his car & they don't even live at the same address!