Competitive Car Insurance

[Joe1]

I have been sat on this computer today trying to wade my way through the insurance companies that do online quotes. Budget have been the best so far, anybody use any other competitive insurance companies?

[SueDonim]

Direct Line have usually come up trumps for us. Sometimes Kwik Fit, too, but they tend to vastly increase (100% and more!) the next year's premium, presumably in the hopes you won't notice how much it's gone up and just sign on the dotted line.

[jodee]

We always went with direct line, but this year found we got a better deal with zurich.

[Joe1]

Ill try both, cheers.

[MotherofOne]

Best quote I could find in Sept last year was with www.esure.com (0845 603 6066)
They are a newish company, but are part of the Halifax and headed up by the bloke who launched Direct Line in the first place.
Their quote was £100 cheaper than anything else I found.

[SueDonim]

Thanks for that info. Will come back to it when car insurance is due.

[leese]

Dear Joe, i found insure.co.uk and elephant.co.uk were both very competitive - no other companies i tried (and they were many!) came close. Good luck

[alison222]

Did mine on the phone and found that Admiral were the cheapest for us. also if the car is yours ie you are the main driver and not your partner try Diamond who do insurance for women. they are often cheaper.

[Faith]

A couple of years ago I discovered the Co-op, each year I ring around and noone else's quote comes near. We now insure house & contents through them for the same reason. I wish I had known about them years ago. Dh has a bigger car in a higher insurance class and has found NFU offer unbeatable quotes. We are not farmers, anyone can use them.

[debster]

We actually found Norwich Union direct the cheapest every time. Even when renewing.

[keziah]

There is a really helpful site I found that lists all the online car insurance companies and you can visit any you want quotes from - its www.ukcarinsurancedirectory.co.uk

[Joe1]

Thanks Keziah, I will go there over the weekend when I have more time.
Thanks to everyone else too. I have visited most of the sites you have mentioned and am wading through the quotes.

[Selja]

We found Tesco is the cheapest by a long chalk.

[Joe1]

Thanks for all your replies. Due to one thing and another and time was ticking away (still no insurance the before it ran out) my current insurance company, Churchill, telephone to see if I had decided on the renewal or not. I told them I had cheaper quotes and suddenly they were able to reduce my quote by £40.00 making it the cheapest. This saved me all the hassle of changing and giving all my details again. It just goes to show what they can do if they think they will lose your business.

[QD]

I am trying to cut our monthly outgoings due to dh having to take a reduction in his salary. Food is something I can cut back on. I am going to try and see if I can get a better deal with our insurance. We currently pay £550 per year for our h reg golf and that includes breakdown. It went up when we moved, even tho we've moved to a much nicer area in London. Also our home insurance for our 2 bed flat is nearly £40 pcm. Does that sound alot or not? I am going to ring around. It's just finding time with the children. Also I find looking on the internet so time consuming. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. thank you.

[SueW]

I tend to get my insurance through the AA, just because they will broker it. I realise that I can probably get a better deal on the net but TBH I haven't got time to input my details into dozens of different websites.

They've also been good when I've wanted to change things e.g. my mum looked after my car when I went to Australia and she was added as a named driver. I took a women's only policy last year as DH had already left the country when it came up for renewal but he was able to be added to that when we returned in August. When someone hit me in the back it was all sorted out, including reclaiming my excess, with only one or two phone calls and little formfilling.

There are times when they have got it wrong - they sent me a letter telling me I had to arrange payment of the premium when in fact I had agreed they could do it by direct debit and they had diarised it wrongly (not sure what would have happened if I'd crashed).

[Twink]

QD,

Direct Line have always given me good cover & price on car insurance, every time I get a renewal I ring a few others but they've always been best. Other people I know have found Admiral to be good too.
I used to have home insurance with Direct Line too but discovered by taking out a combined buildings & home policy with my mortgage lender (First Direct) I could get a worthwhile discount. I'm paying about £36 a month combined for a 4 bed detatched in SE England.
Making sure you've got all the approved security locks, alarms etc can make quite a big difference for both cars and houses so might be worth an initial outlay if you've not already got them - depends whether your cost cutting is short or medium term I guess.

[Bugsy]

QD, have you got an insurance broker? I have been using one for the past 12 years & have been really impressed by the service they provide. Every year they search for the cheapest car, house, holiday insurance for me and I have never been able to better them on my own. It doesn't cost me a penny & saves me a whole lot of work every year. Although I live in London, the firm I use is based in Portsmouth. If you want to give them a try, they are called CB Hughes & Co on 023 92697421.

[Tinker]

QD - hope I'm not stating the obvious but check what's covered with your building and contents insurance. I was paying for £30,000 contents, jewellery etc. My entire contents are only worth a few thousand - and that would be new! Don't know if you or your husband are civil servants - their insurance is dead cheap. Mind you, they did do my travel insurance with Independent - who promptly went bust!

[QD]

Thanks everyone for replying. I'd never thought of an insurance broker and I ought to work out what our contents are worth instead of plumping for a figure out of my head as we usually do when arranging our mortgage. Also,I'll ring directline tomorrow as so many people recommend it. Thanks again...no.3 needs feeding....

[Daffy]

Just remember when looking for cheaper insurance that if you pay a cheaper premium, you may not be getting the same amount of cover. One way to reduce your car insurance premium is to increase the amount of excess that you pay if you have to claim. I hate it when it comes round to renewal time. I went with Diamond this year as they were the cheapest, but get this. I had to ring them to query something as I was trying to do it on the net, supposedly cheaper. They knocked £20 off straight away over the phone by putting the other driver as my spouse, not just as a named driver. There wasn't the facility for me to do this on their site! How unfair was that and that wasn't even my query!!!!