Insurance - cost of a phonecall..

[M@H]

..for just the cost of a phonecall you can reduce your renewal.. oh yes


I sorted out Louise's Saxo insurance over the weekend, she's been with Churchill for 4 years and they always used to be competetive.... Anyway, the renewal pops through the post as usual and its just under £550. I phone them up and tell them how remarkably crap their quote is as I know I can get it insured cheaper elsewhere.. (Admiral £440)

...please hold the line..

...how about £440..

..thankyouverymuch

so they knocked over £100 off the policy because I challenged the renewal, yet apparently theres no profit in insurance any more..! I don't believe they decided to take a further £100 loss on her policy just for the sake of it.? I trust the rest of you take a similar approach with your insurance renewals

Cheers,
Matt.

[Cotty]

You shoud try www.esure.com/ they just saved me £170 on the touring

[Psychobert]

When I swapped from an MG Maestro to a 900 Turbo a good few years ago, existing insurance company wanted about £700 TPF&T. Got it for about £220 through the Saab club and got quite a lot of hassle from the existing company to use them for a quote. Reluctantly, I gave them the details and they finally got back to me; with various freebies, (breakdown cover and so on), I thnk it was of the order of £350 - actually not a bad deal.

I don't know how they can get away with it. Anyone that didn't challenge them would have ended up paying twice what I could have got it for, (still over £100 more than I actually paid..)

[JonRB]

Quite a few years ago I worked on the development of a new back-end software product for a major insurer to allow their telephone people to offer quotes over the phone (not rocket science by today's standards, but a big thing then).

In the course of the development I, of course, spent many an hour talking to people with business knowledge and I'm sorry to have to say that this is all too common. The existing customer, far from being seen as someone who you should retain at all costs and who should be rewarded for loyalty, is actually seen as a soft touch who can boost profits considerably. New business, on the other hand, was seen as something to be sought aggresively with discounts and sweeteners. The advice at the time, therefore, was always to get an insurance quote for new business and not let on that it was a renewal!

Obviously things may have changed now - this was early-to-mid '90s.

[chrisx666]

It's the same now Jon, a friend of mine recently got her GTV renewal through (from Norwich Union Direct) for £750. A quick quote on the same website came back with £550. Same company same cover. Rang up with the quote number and she got the cover with no problems.

[Podie]

M@H - actually Matt, there may be profit in that. If Louise has a good record (of not hitting things / claiming) then the insurers will see her as a good risk... hence that £440 will most likely end up in their pockets, rather than repairing the car...

[M@H]

Louise has a perfect record 8yrs ncb..!

[icamm]

I always phone round (and use the web now). I managed to reduce this years total car insurance bill by over £400 by phoning round. This is 30% off the cost of the renewals.

I have found he internet sites to be pretty good (and you can get a quote 24x7) for normal cars. Not usually so good for the TVR although they were for first time I renewed it.

>> Edited by icamm on Tuesday 7th January 12:24