Car Insurance: Which options do you take?

[Stoofa]

It's car insurance time for me again. I paid £345 last year and my renewal this year is exactly the same - which I'll be honest makes a nice change.
Basically: 2011 Octavia vRS. 38yrs, 9+yrs NCB, 2 claims in past 5 years (both windscreen), PE16 postcode.

Anyway, I started playing around with the renewal, taking bits and pieces off, increasing excess etc. And without too much messing I've got a quote down to £245 - but many of the options ticked in previous years are now not on the policy. But will I miss them?
The option/s that I feel should stay:

Protected NCB. Just seems sensible to protect that 9+ yrs of no claims bonus and for a pretty nominal fee. As to the items removed from the policy:

Accident Plus:
So apparently should I lose limb or eyes etc. then this gives me guaranteed pay-out's. But I'm not convinced that I'd actually need this. Seems like an extra personal insurance product and not necessarily one that needs to be part of my motor insurance.

Legal Cover:
So they aim to recover costs if an accident isn't my fault. Surely this is something they should be doing anyway? As for the extra cover legal protection gives me, well I have legal protection through my house insurance. Aren't I just doubling up on cover here?

Finally - what do people tend to do with regards excess?
Last year I was on £200 compulsory and £0 voluntary. For the sake of the current quote I went for £200 compulsory and £200 voluntary that that made a fair difference to the quote.

So I can reduce my premium to around £250 if I'm willing to double my excess and forego personal injury and legal cover. A good plan or might I regret having those features removed?

[xRIEx]

Stoofa said:

Legal Cover:
So they aim to recover costs if an accident isn't my fault. Surely this is something they should be doing anyway? As for the extra cover legal protection gives me, well I have legal protection through my house insurance. Aren't I just doubling up on cover here?

An insurer will recover their own costs, but they won't recover yours for you (depending on insurer and level of service). You may still have to pay your damage excess, lose earnings if taking time off work, etc. etc. - these are referred to as uninsured losses. This cover will get these things back for you, as well as being much cheaper than an 'after the event' legal expenses policy if you're suing for injury compensation. They also arrange a like for like hire car if required, rather than the cheapest nastiest little thing the repairer might give you.

In terms of household legal cover, I would imagine it excludes events relating to motor vehicles.

[SteBrown91]

Protected ncb is just for your pride. Once you are older ncb or not the claim itself is the overiding factor. The rest you get with a good accident management company anyway so don't bother. And for all the people who whinge accident management companies are the scum of the earth most insurance companies use them instead of managing in house anyway nowadays.

[alpha channel]

As far the options go I have in the past generally just taken the legal protection down to the fact I never really felt threaten with being hit by other drivers. This year I added the NCB protection considering the amount of nutters my Merc seems to attract (my old Rover 200 Coupe never seemed to attract the kind of drivers that I've been seeing, and nearly colliding with, since getting the Merc in May).

[TooMany2cvs]

Stoofa said:

So I can reduce my premium to around £250 if I'm willing to double my excess

Saving £150 by increasing excess to £200 seems a decent rate of return.

[quote]and forego personal injury and legal cover. A good plan or might I regret having those features removed?

If you want legal, but think that they're asking too much, have a quick google - there's separate policies out there for less than a tenner.

[Stoofa]

TooMany2cvs said:

If you want legal, but think that they're asking too much, have a quick google - there's separate policies out there for less than a tenner.

Well that's about a third of what most insurance companies want to charge. Cheers, I'll have a search.

[miniman]

Also check out where else you might be getting legal cover for instance. I'm a CSMA member which gives free legal cover amongst other things.

[Stoofa]

Well done some more playing around with quotes and I think I'm about happy now
Thanks for all the input on options etc. I had different opinions on the legal cover side of things, but I can now see how it would be useful in the "worst case" situation.
I was with Swiftcover last year. Have just got a quote from AXA (Swift's parent company) and that is cheaper as are each of the options
I'll give Swift the chance to match of course.
So:

Fully comp SD&C
Legal Cover
Enhanced Courtesy Car (Gives 28 days hire, even in case of stolen & not-recovered or total loss)
Protected NCD
£200 Compulsory Excess + £50 Voluntary (Difference in quote between £50 voluntary and £200 was £9!)

For a total of £278.

[miniman]

Not sure what online services AXA offer, but I've found the Swiftcover system excellent for adding drivers, changing vehicles, adding EU cover etc. Would certainly pay a few quid more to have that as opposed to the mediocrity that a lot of other insurers offer.

[eybic]

I managed to reduce the insurance on my £200 stbox puma by going fully comp and having a £750 excess, I guess the theory in the fully comp vs 3rd party thing is that if you're only 3rd party you might not take as much care???

[Stoofa]

miniman said:

Not sure what online services AXA offer, but I've found the Swiftcover system excellent for adding drivers, changing vehicles, adding EU cover etc. Would certainly pay a few quid more to have that as opposed to the mediocrity that a lot of other insurers offer.

I think it's very similar as Swift are a subsidiary of AXA. If I click on the "Cancel" button on my Swift renewal page I'm told all the reasons I should reconsider leaving them....offering up to 20yrs NCD and the last one "We're a member of the AXA group".
Saying all that, I'm 99% sure that as this is an AXA quote Swift will match it, which just saves any actual moving around.