Car insurance - is it going up?

[zcacogp]

Chaps,

My insurance renewal premium has arrived. Up from £500 to over £650. From the same people (who happen to be a broker who advertise heavily on PH.)

Called them up. Got the quote down to £650. Waffle about "Oh yes, sir, insurance is going up a lot. Around 10% this year. UK market very competitive. Some insurance companies have pulled out altogether. Blah blah blah."

Shopping around has this down to £580. Still a hefty increase (15% or so over last year.)

Have I suddenly become higher risk* or is the marker getting more expensive?


Oli.

- * - For reference, nothing about my circumstances has changed. Same car, same house, same occupation, same wife, no accidents or run-ins with the BiB.

[uuf361]

Yep, my renewal doubled (again no change in circumstances)....called broker who finally got it down to within £50 of previous year.......

[Defcon5]

I bet the insurance companies got a bit of a pasting over the last couple of winters with the snow etc and are recouping their cash

[Dog Star]

My premium with Flux via PH went up about 40 quid or so (group 50 5 litre V8) to 560 - I figure that it's good value as it's still very competetive but a far better policy than with, say, Tesco. I'm happy enough - especially hearing other people's tales of woe.

[richardxjr]

A-plan.

Car up from 300 to 400, went to LV for just under 240.

House up from 240 to 300, went to LV for just under 180.

LV were cheapest on price comparison sites, then I went direct to their site and tweaked the premiums down another 15-20%.

You just have to shop around every year now it seems.

[SpeedBash]

zcacogp said:

Chaps,

My insurance renewal premium has arrived. Up from £500 to over £650. From the same people (who happen to be a broker who advertise heavily on PH.)

Called them up. Got the quote down to £650. Waffle about "Oh yes, sir, insurance is going up a lot. Around 10% this year. UK market very competitive. Some insurance companies have pulled out altogether. Blah blah blah."

Shopping around has this down to £580. Still a hefty increase (15% or so over last year.)

Have I suddenly become higher risk* or is the marker getting more expensive?


Oli.

- * - For reference, nothing about my circumstances has changed. Same car, same house, same occupation, same wife, no accidents or run-ins with the BiB.

uuf361 said:

Yep, my renewal doubled (again no change in circumstances)....called broker who finally got it down to within £50 of previous year.......

Same here - doubled for no reason.

Broker only willing to shave off their admin fee which was about £40.

Their excuse was that Highway, the underwriter, had raised premiums - I suspect this has happened since they were bought by LV.

Had no choice to renew as was still marginally cheaper than anyone else.

[grumbas]

Most insurers have been losing money on underwriting the last few years, and seem to have finally managed to agree they all need to bring rates up to viable levels again - they used to get by investing premiums before they were paid out as claims, obviously that was before the recession!

Don't forget the rises are also largely caused by 'my neck hurts', un-insured drivers, fraudulent claims and demanding like-for-like hire cars from accident management companies at silly rental rates. All these seem to be creeping up, especially the 'my neck hurts' brigade.

We're seeing monthly hikes at the moment in our panel, so I think it'll be a while still before rates level off again let alone go back down.