Opinion on insurance renewal
Discussion
Just wanted people's opinion on this as it feels a bit deceitful to me, and I'm not sure it was accidental...
My insurance renewal came through last week from the insurer with a dog. Clicking on the view my renewal link states my new premium will be £398.45, and last year I paid £391.11. Sounds good so far, with just an £8 increase or about 2%. Except my premium last year was actually £274.20, so it was a £124 / 45% increase.
Doing a price comparison generated a quote with the same company for £262, but that's to be expected, I just feel it was deceitful to quote last year's premium incorrectly in order to make the renewal look good.
Am I over reacting?
My insurance renewal came through last week from the insurer with a dog. Clicking on the view my renewal link states my new premium will be £398.45, and last year I paid £391.11. Sounds good so far, with just an £8 increase or about 2%. Except my premium last year was actually £274.20, so it was a £124 / 45% increase.
Doing a price comparison generated a quote with the same company for £262, but that's to be expected, I just feel it was deceitful to quote last year's premium incorrectly in order to make the renewal look good.
Am I over reacting?
Yes.
Move on and accept the quote from the Meercats.
Same thing happened to me with Tesco. Renewal came through, small increase, not too bad. Did a check with Alexandr an Co and the cheapest was....Tesco over £80 less.
So I 'renewed' with Tesco via the Meercats.
I was under the impression they couldn't offer new customers/comparison sites less than existing customers though?
Move on and accept the quote from the Meercats.
Same thing happened to me with Tesco. Renewal came through, small increase, not too bad. Did a check with Alexandr an Co and the cheapest was....Tesco over £80 less.
So I 'renewed' with Tesco via the Meercats.
I was under the impression they couldn't offer new customers/comparison sites less than existing customers though?
tomsugden said:
It's not the fact that I found a better price by shopping around that I'm upset about, it's that they incorrectly quoted last year's premium in order to make the renewal look attractive...
I agree.I'm sure they'll have some kind of excuse, but it's I think it's pretty outrageous.
The lower price thing is also not supposed to happen but I think they're getting around it by introducung new policies every year, so they can say it's not directly comparable. That happened to us with LV last year.
tomsugden said:
Just wanted people's opinion on this as it feels a bit deceitful to me, and I'm not sure it was accidental...
My insurance renewal came through last week from the insurer with a dog. Clicking on the view my renewal link states my new premium will be £398.45, and last year I paid £391.11. Sounds good so far, with just an £8 increase or about 2%. Except my premium last year was actually £274.20, so it was a £124 / 45% increase.
Doing a price comparison generated a quote with the same company for £262, but that's to be expected, I just feel it was deceitful to quote last year's premium incorrectly in order to make the renewal look good.
Am I over reacting?
If the price was indeed correct on the expiring policy as you say then no you are not overreacting and should definitely talk with them. My insurance renewal came through last week from the insurer with a dog. Clicking on the view my renewal link states my new premium will be £398.45, and last year I paid £391.11. Sounds good so far, with just an £8 increase or about 2%. Except my premium last year was actually £274.20, so it was a £124 / 45% increase.
Doing a price comparison generated a quote with the same company for £262, but that's to be expected, I just feel it was deceitful to quote last year's premium incorrectly in order to make the renewal look good.
Am I over reacting?
Last years premium figure is supposed to represent the as if number ie if you made any changes during the term then the annualised figure will be ( correctly ) given.
If it was identical to how you took it out then that call is worth making.
They do this all the time. Insurance companies hope that people either forget or just don't shop around. This is why it is vital that you do the leg work or you just get stung paying more.
You can always tell your insurance company the prices you got and see if they can match it. Some cases they can and sometime they get close by £20 or so. It is then up to you if you want to mess around changing. There's no loyalty these days so the insurance companies don't care, they'll get their money from another person.
For me, I told my previous company a new price, they couldn't match and were £50 more. I left. Simple as that.
You can always tell your insurance company the prices you got and see if they can match it. Some cases they can and sometime they get close by £20 or so. It is then up to you if you want to mess around changing. There's no loyalty these days so the insurance companies don't care, they'll get their money from another person.
For me, I told my previous company a new price, they couldn't match and were £50 more. I left. Simple as that.
For the past 2 years my renewal has shown the previous year's premium as over £2000 when it was actually around £350.
When I pointed out the error, "That must be a mistake". I had realised that. My new premium was only a few pounds more each year after a bit of negotiation.
Comparision sites showed costs of £100 less, but with companies I've never heard of.
When I pointed out the error, "That must be a mistake". I had realised that. My new premium was only a few pounds more each year after a bit of negotiation.
Comparision sites showed costs of £100 less, but with companies I've never heard of.
Just going off at a slight tangent with car insurance costs.
I changed my car a week ago with 2 weeks of my existing policy left to run, the additional cost they quoted for those 2 weeks was £80 (including admin fee...!), their quote for the 12 months insurance on my new car was £265!
They couldn't understand why I didn't go ahead with the changes and just left my existing policy to expire...
Quote with new insurer via our meerkat friend was £220
I changed my car a week ago with 2 weeks of my existing policy left to run, the additional cost they quoted for those 2 weeks was £80 (including admin fee...!), their quote for the 12 months insurance on my new car was £265!
They couldn't understand why I didn't go ahead with the changes and just left my existing policy to expire...
Quote with new insurer via our meerkat friend was £220
Dohnut said:
Mistakes happen.
Don't be so bloody sensible, it's clear that one of two things have happened here:1. The insurer has decided to systematically alter the 'last years quote' number on all the customers that it administers on a given system in order to chisel a few quid, therefore pretty much guaranteeing an absolute kicking from the FCA, or
2. The insurer is the last one in the western world that generates renewal quotes manually, and has told its employees to fiddle the figures now and again, thereby pretty much guaranteeing an absolute kicking from the FCA.
The idea that somebody somewhere might have ballsed something up is crazy - it's definitely a conspiracy.
66HFM said:
Just going off at a slight tangent with car insurance costs.
I changed my car a week ago with 2 weeks of my existing policy left to run, the additional cost they quoted for those 2 weeks was £80 (including admin fee...!), their quote for the 12 months insurance on my new car was £265!
They couldn't understand why I didn't go ahead with the changes and just left my existing policy to expire...
Quote with new insurer via our meerkat friend was £220
I've done that a couple of times, especially on a classic policy where the cancellation fee exceeds any remaining premium, so I'd have to pay them to cancel cover. I changed my car a week ago with 2 weeks of my existing policy left to run, the additional cost they quoted for those 2 weeks was £80 (including admin fee...!), their quote for the 12 months insurance on my new car was £265!
They couldn't understand why I didn't go ahead with the changes and just left my existing policy to expire...
Quote with new insurer via our meerkat friend was £220
So I let them expire and don't renew. I mentioned it on here and it got some people frothing about it possibly coming back to bite me if the buyer doesn't insure it, has a smack, and they find your policy still extant on the MID.... One car I sold to a collector who was going to store it so I knew that wouldn't happen but the 1996 Honda Prelude I sold last November had a policy in my name that ran until March this year. Phew.....
Roger Irrelevant said:
Don't be so bloody sensible, it's clear that one of two things have happened here:
1. The insurer has decided to systematically alter the 'last years quote' number on all the customers that it administers on a given system in order to chisel a few quid, therefore pretty much guaranteeing an absolute kicking from the FCA, or
Only if multiple people report it. What are the chances of that?1. The insurer has decided to systematically alter the 'last years quote' number on all the customers that it administers on a given system in order to chisel a few quid, therefore pretty much guaranteeing an absolute kicking from the FCA, or
tomsugden said:
My insurance renewal came through last week from the insurer with a dog. Clicking on the view my renewal link states my new premium will be £398.45, and last year I paid £391.11. Sounds good so far, with just an £8 increase or about 2%. Except my premium last year was actually £274.20, so it was a £124 / 45% increase.
Doing a price comparison generated a quote with the same company for £262, but that's to be expected, I just feel it was deceitful to quote last year's premium incorrectly in order to make the renewal look good.
Are you sure? Have you made any changes to the policy throughout the cover period, or had any change in circumstances? It's very unlikely they would have simply made up a figure so the renewal looks acceptable. Doing a price comparison generated a quote with the same company for £262, but that's to be expected, I just feel it was deceitful to quote last year's premium incorrectly in order to make the renewal look good.
Also, it's illegal to offer better quotes to new customers than they offer to renewals, so are you sure the quote is like for like with the existing cover - excess, valuation, milage etc?
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