car insurance

[vr6man]

in the past, i've always gone with a bigger name insurance company i.e Direct Line, Elephant, Bell etc and have always got pretty good prices from them so have stuck with that type of company. I am looking into this year going with a policy through someone like A- Plan (as advertised on this forum)

is there anything i should be aware of when using a company like this who obviously are a broker who ring round various companys to get best price as opposed to selling it to me directly (correct me if i'm wrong here!)

am i getting the same level of cover as i get when going with direct line for example ? i know direct line aren't going to go tits up over the next 12 months but what's to say whoever i end up going with won't ? and if they do what happens to my insurance / money ?

can i have your thoughts on this please ?

thanks

[anonymous-user]

I'm with A-Plan as they are the only people that will cover the supercharger and most of the high street companies won't cover serious mods. Your circumstances will be unique so get a copy of "Evo" magazine or similar and dedicate an afternoon to phoning around to get the best quote, remembering to compare excesses.

[v2rac]

Try Quotezone on line. I was quoted £340 by the existing brokers, who were the cheapest last year, (Norwich Union) for the wifes Astra VXR. Quotezone came up with £215. (Fortis) Big difference !!!!!

[ads_green]

At the end of the day even the big names use the same underwriters.

So the difference between the broker and the big names are quite small. For car that don't fit the norm (mods, track day cover etc) small specialist brokers can get you a much better deal for the same cover.

It's very very rare for a broker to go bust as they have zero risk as the insurance is provided by the underwriter.

As with all insurances you need to check they are really like for like. For example, one year my insurance changed the wording to say track day or windscreen cover. Many people failed to notice this and were quite upset as they'd signed the deal.

Oh, brokers tend to have more penalities with regard to the cancellation details.

I'm with A-Plan and have no complaints - as an owner of bespoke cars for many years it's refreshing to talk to an insurance bod that knows (and appears to be enthusiastic) about the car you are trying to insure.

Remember that it's your responsibility to ensure the details are correct - I had a 200bhp+ motorsport Elise that nearly got insured as a normal 120bhp std elise as thats what came up on their computer. If I hadn't queried this after receiving the policy schedule and had an accident it would have been my fault that the details were wrong and insurance would have been void.