Insurance

[Claws]

Hi All

I know this has been discussed many times, but I cant remember the name of the insurance company some use, which was a lot cheaper than I had last year! I'm getting quotes now from existing insurer of £590 one off, or £688 10 monthly payments (which is my preferred option, instalments that is, not the value!)

I have a name in my mind 'A line' or something like that?  any ideas please?

Regards

Steve

[Raistlin]

Direct line maybe?

Personally I get excellent deals, year after year with Sainsburys.

[Claws]

thanks Paul

its not direct line, i'm going to have to search all posts ive commented on I think

I just done compare the market, and i'm getting better quotes already, but I know from last year, some members of JOC, are using another company (based up north iirc) that blew last years quote out of the water! but I think my postcode will also have a bearing on things

Steve

[Russ68]

Hey Steve,

A-Plan in Bletchley for me, and they're pretty relaxed about any mods, like those Adamesh pipes you have. Premium is rising, this is 2nd renewal, and it's crept up from under £300, to close to £400. This is with 4 named drivers, fully comp and only £200 excess, underwritten by Markerstudy I believe.

Hope this helps, Russ 

[DAN@ADRIAN FLUX]

Hi Steve, have you tried us for insurance yet? If you wanted to drop me a PM I'd be happy to arrange a quotation for you.

Kind Regards

Dan

[Lazlo Woodbine]

I'm with Hastings. 35 years old, no tickets/convictions etc. no named drivers, 8k miles, standard car, 7 years NCB. It would have been £280 but paying by instalments cost me an extra £20ish.

The cheapest car insurance I've ever had is a classic policy. The caveats are that you earn no NCB on them (hence me only having 7 years despite no claims against me ever), and that you must own or have another vehicle to use other than the classic you're insuring. Ah, but no-one said the "other car" couldn't be a classic car, and so I was insuring a V8 Land Rover and a modified VW Corrado for far less than I'm paying for just the Jaguar now. Unfortunately nowadays some companies say the other car has to be "modern" but I don't know what that means technically.

I suspect an early STR could be put on a classic policy if you can convince the underwriter that it is indeed a cherished investment and not a hooligans toy. If you're trying to justify buying one to the boss then a saving of several hundred pounds a year, every year could be good ammo.. 

[Lazlo Woodbine]

Personally I wouldn't touch Adrian Flux with someone else's bargepole.

A good couple of years ago I called them and after disclosing my best quote so far was offered a policy at a slightly lower price. I asked for a reference number but was told that this special price was only available whilst I was on the phone. I calmly asked for the girls name and said that I wanted to speak to her manager. When she asked me why I told her that she had broken the law and I wanted to know why her manager taught/encouraged such behaviour, she hung up on me. When I phoned back every operator told me their was no record that I had even had a quote. No wonder I record all business phone calls now..

October 2015; I got a quote on Google Compare with Adrian Flux as the provider. It was a good quote and so I accepted it. I then got a phone call the day before the cover was due to start to tell me that the policy had been cancelled as I had not disclosed a County Court Judgement against me. I did not know I had ever had one and there is no evidence that I do (another story). I had paid for the policy outright which had nearly emptied my bank account so I couldn't afford another policy with someone else. It took Adrian Flux over four days to return my money during which time I was uninsured and so couldn't get to work 20 miles away. This cost me approximately £350. I went back through the "Google Compare" system and at no point was I asked if I had a CCJ. So even if I had known that I (allegedly) had one I wasn't asked about it so Adrian Flux assumed that I didn't and therefore based my quote on false information. I tried to get compensation for my loss of earnings but was given such a load of contradictory BS by the legal department that I would have needed a law degree to decipher it, shamefully I gave up and moved on like a good prole should.

The company and their practice ethos is absolutely disgusting. I doubt they are significantly worse than any other but I've been burned twice by a company that drapes semi-naked slags across cars to sell their services, that's enough for me to take time out to bad-mouth them.

They have a website which to be fair is not as cheap looking as the Max Power type ads from before but still has nothing to do with something as boring and bureaucratic as insuring your car;  http://www.fluxbabes.co.uk/  That just screams professionalism doesn't it? I'll be sure to choose my next phone and broadband supplier by how much skin they show dancing on a telegraph pole..

[Russ68]

Don't hold back Laz, tell us what you really feel about them 

[DAN@ADRIAN FLUX]

8 minutes ago, Lazlo Woodbine said:

Personally I wouldn't touch Adrian Flux with someone else's bargepole.

A good couple of years ago I called them and after disclosing my best quote so far was offered a policy at a slightly lower price. I asked for a reference number but was told that this special price was only available whilst I was on the phone. I calmly asked for the girls name and said that I wanted to speak to her manager. When she asked me why I told her that she had broken the law and I wanted to know why her manager taught/encouraged such behaviour, she hung up on me. When I phoned back every operator told me their was no record that I had even had a quote. No wonder I record all business phone calls now..

October 2015; I got a quote on Google Compare with Adrian Flux as the provider. It was a good quote and so I accepted it. I then got a phone call the day before the cover was due to start to tell me that the policy had been cancelled as I had not disclosed a County Court Judgement against me. I did not know I had ever had one and there is no evidence that I do (another story). I had paid for the policy outright which had nearly emptied my bank account so I couldn't afford another policy with someone else. It took Adrian Flux over four days to return my money during which time I was uninsured and so couldn't get to work 20 miles away. This cost me approximately £350. I went back through the "Google Compare" system and at no point was I asked if I had a CCJ. So even if I had known that I (allegedly) had one I wasn't asked about it so Adrian Flux assumed that I didn't and therefore based my quote on false information. I tried to get compensation for my loss of earnings but was given such a load of contradictory BS by the legal department that I would have needed a law degree to decipher it, shamefully I gave up and moved on like a good prole should.

The company and their practice ethos is absolutely disgusting. I doubt they are significantly worse than any other but I've been burned twice by a company that drapes semi-naked slags across cars to sell their services, that's enough for me to take time out to bad-mouth them.

They have a website which to be fair is not as cheap looking as the Max Power type ads from before but still has nothing to do with something as boring and bureaucratic as insuring your car;  http://www.fluxbabes.co.uk/  That just screams professionalism doesn't it? I'll be sure to choose my next phone and broadband supplier by how much skin they show dancing on a telegraph pole..

 

Sorry you feel this way, I can only apologise if you have previously had a bad experience with ourselves. 

We are a broker that works on a live server, so it is the insurers we work with that set the prices, not us. Therefore the member of staff was correct in saying that we can only guarantee a price until the end of the phone call.

Whilst we appreciate that the Fluxbabes may not be to everyone's taste, we find them to still be an effective marketing tool. They are also all girls that work in our office who volunteer for the role - we do not outsource to modelling agencies - so if you ever see them at a show they will be able to answer any insurance queries you may have. We have also made efforts to tone it down from the 'Max Power' days.

If you wanted to PM me some details I'd be happy to look into any issues you may have.

Kind Regards

Dan

[Claws]

The words Worms, Can, opened springs to mind.... but many thanks Laz for your input, all taken on board. However not having had such an experience myself with AdrianFlux (I used them last year for my insurance) I will ask them to quote, if I can get a better quote, then so be it.

Russ

BINGO! I'm pretty sure it was A Plan, many thanks, that has saved me an awful lot of searching, I now believe the random conversation about insurance (last year) came up in a completely different Topic , so would have taken some finding. do I really need to disclose the rear boxes? they don't improve performance or anything

I will get in touch with A Plan

Many thanks again chaps for your input

Regards

Steve

[Lazlo Woodbine]

6 hours ago, DAN@ADRIAN FLUX said:

We are a broker that works on a live server, so it is the insurers we work with that set the prices, not us. Therefore the member of staff was correct in saying that we can only guarantee a price until the end of the phone call.

Let me elaborate; I had been given a quote, I said that it just wasn't competitive. The operator said she would speak to her supervisor to see what could be done. Ten seconds later she comes back offering a quote some £60 cheaper which undercut my previous best by £10. It was at this point I asked for a reference number and was told that unless I took the "offer" during the call it would be null and void, if I called back later the price of the policy would go back up to the original quote. So it would seem that at least one of the quotes was good for longer than the call... Regardless of the legality that is dirty and smacks of high pressure selling scare tactics.

I do not have my reference books to hand immediately but will double check on the legal aspect as soon as I can. If I'm wrong about the law being broken then I will of course apologise.

6 hours ago, DAN@ADRIAN FLUX said:

Whilst we appreciate that the Fluxbabes may not be to everyone's taste, we find them to still be an effective marketing tool. They are also all girls that work in our office who volunteer for the role - we do not outsource to modelling agencies - so if you ever see them at a show they will be able to answer any insurance queries you may have. We have also made efforts to tone it down from the 'Max Power' days.

My taste is women, even if they do work in a call centre. But this is car insurance, a financial product, it's about as stimulating as Nora Batty. I just can't see how the two can be associated by anyone with even half as much going on upstairs as downstairs.

 

[Andy X400 3.0]

Every year i shop around and end up changing insurers . Last year RAC were cheapest , but on renewal they more than DOUBLED what they wanted the year before . How can this happen when nothing has changed , no accidents , points etc ? Back with 1st Central now at £335 fully comp for 3.0 L X-type who were cheapest the year before RAC and then did the same thing by nearly doubling the renewal price . Why don't these company's just look after their existing customers instead of the new ones ? Probably just hoping people auto renew and not shop around . Personally i think people are a bit more wiser these days and fifteen minutes on the net can save you a fortune . 

[Claws]

Totally agree Andrew

the insurers, just take a punt that the customer cant be bothered to look around for a better price, and I bet there are a few out there that don't!

Regards

Steve

[Claws]

just thought I would try esure, good job I was sitting down, nearly tripled cost of my other quote! waiting on a quote from A Plan

[Lazlo Woodbine]

16 hours ago, Andy X400 3.0 said:

Every year i shop around and end up changing insurers . Last year RAC were cheapest , but on renewal they more than DOUBLED what they wanted the year before . How can this happen when nothing has changed , no accidents , points etc ? Back with 1st Central now at £335 fully comp for 3.0 L X-type who were cheapest the year before RAC and then did the same thing by nearly doubling the renewal price . Why don't these company's just look after their existing customers instead of the new ones ? Probably just hoping people auto renew and not shop around . Personally i think people are a bit more wiser these days and fifteen minutes on the net can save you a fortune . 

Yes. My father got his renewal notice through one year and the premium had gone up by £30. He spoke to the company and after some pushing the operator admitted that if he let the policy lapse and then called them back to start a new one it may well be cheaper. So that's what he did, his "new" policy premium was £20 less than the year before, a difference of £50, or about 30% from the renewal.. It sounds to me like a pricing structure designed to take advantage of commonplace auto-policy-renewals, automatic Direct Debit payments and the fact that many people don't have the time to shop around for new cover and above all value convenience.

Did you get a quote from Dan then Steve?

[Mr Lawrence]

I'm with A-Plan, have been for the last 5 years insuring an mgf, T reg s type and now my current S type.

last year I paid £299 comp with a £250 excess and with full ncb and an sp30.

this year my renewal was for £330. 

Rang them explaining that I'd had a quote for £252 with a £100 excess and protected ncb and legal cover. 

They said the best they could do was £266 with a £150 excess and protected ncb.

 

not worth the hassle of changing for a few quid. 

[Claws]

19 hours ago, Lazlo Woodbine said:

Did you get a quote from Dan then Steve?

Hi Laz

I have gone direct to AdrianFlux just waiting now for a quote to come back, have received a quote from A Plan (over the phone) so not sure whether that will still be available if I go back to them. their quote is cheaper than the ones I have currently had, and offer me all the bits I need, NCB protection (9 years) / uninsured driver cover / windscreen / courtesy car / legal cover / excess is £300 and a couple of other smaller excess charges.

Will post the outcome once I've received the AdrianFlux quote

Regards

Steve

[Claws]

Hi All

got the quote from AdrianFlux £678 I presume that is a single payment option, they did state you could possibly get a better deal if you call, but didn't want to get into the same situation Laz did 

A Plan gave me a quote £494 single payment or £546 if paying in instalments, so if the quote still stands, I will be going with A Plan for the single payment option, my memory is rubbish, but if I recall, that is less than last years costs.

A big thanks to all for your help

Russ, cheers mate 

regards

Steve

[david moore]

with a 4yr no claim discount, " ESURE"  with who I'm with on a fully comprehensive cover, came out at £170.63 with an excess of £350. so no complaints here for me  that's on a 2.0d x type (54 plate)

[Claws]

Hi David

that seems very, very good 

You better sit down, Here is what Esure quoted me, madness!! maybe they think I have 4 'S' types sitting on the drive

£ 141.67 per month

With 10 instalments of £ 141.67 with an initial payment of £ 269.37. Charge for credit with a fixed interest rate of 11.6%: £147.26. Total amount payable £1686.07. Includes 27.4% APR.   OR a... single payment of £ 1538.81

[Old Peter]

I went with Esure, as their offer last year was the cheapest at £540.

Their renewal price was £404, so I'm there again.

A lot depends on where you live, and Sutton Coldfield is only a bit less than London.

Peter.

[Lazlo Woodbine]

A disparity of well over 200% between two quotes is just ridiculous. I can appreciate that some companies specialise in certain cover but Steve's two quotes there demonstrate that one or the other company have made a massive miscalculation on the financial risk he poses to them. But variations of this magnitude are not uncommon and I say that that is a sign that something is rotten in Denmark, market manipulation springs to mind, but that's just my personal opinion.

I would love to be able to get a good working knowledge of how these brokers and underwriters assess the risk you and I pose to them. Not for the sake of saving money but to see if there is anything resembling logic going on in there. Really the process should be open and transparent, after all we as drivers are legally bound by the law of the land to enter a contract with one these firms. We are not customers, or clients, any more than we are a customer or a client of the DVLA. Just because there is an apparent choice of who we give our money to does not mean that we choose whether or not to insure our cars. We are part of a society built on the motor vehicle and although this is contentious I think if you want to get anywhere (socially, not geographically) driving facilitates it hugely, especially if you're outside of London or other big cities. Certainly if you don't drive here in Cornwall your employment options and opportunities are massively limited.  

I'm not arguing against the concept of insurance but criticising the structure of the sector. I'm not sure I'd call myself a socialist as such but I do think that this business should be government controlled rather than the ABI trying to control the governments financial policies.

 

 

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/abi-data-shows-insurers-saving-billions-in-claims-costs/5058366.article

[Old Peter]

That is actually not a bad idea, Ralph.  You pay your road fund licence every year, which confirms that you have a car on the road.  You could also pay your car insurance at the same time:-

1]  Basic Cost

2] Deduct no claims bonus.

3] Deduct excess.

4]  PAY.

Peter.

[Lazlo Woodbine]

It certainly sounds simple. I don't know how far the governments control would or should reach in to the business but I suspect it would have to be an all-or-nothing approach, which means a complete and total reform. Considering the power that the insurance sector wields it's the sort of idea that could end a ministers career pdq if they even so much as suggested it.

But for the sake of optimism I will mull it over. Assuming the government not just calculated and collected premiums but kept all operations in house there could be massive difficulties with keeping legal representation fair and even. I think this would be possibly the biggest hurdle to one big happy insurance "company" not turning into a game of who can afford the best representation, as it arguably is currently. If you had to personally claim against this entity in lieu of having an insurance company doing it on your behalf (or arguing why they shouldn't pay out) then a structure would have to be put in place to ensure that one claim was dealt with as fairly as the next regardless of the means of the claimant. There would be many, many other issues to address and procedures to restructure but my mind's already boggling.

As to who would run this huge abomination of a department, well who else than the people who know best? Those already running and working for existing insurance and underwriting companies. This is the problem with a reform, as I see it, it could realistically be little more than a change of ownership with a new sign and a lick of paint here and there to show that the management has changed. A wholesale "replacement" of the exiting infrastructure sounds good to me but the practicalities of it are overwhelming. I like to dream though because I can't see how a transparent, open and publicly accountable compensation service (what else would you call it?) could make any worse the hell that those who simply want their losses reimbursed by those accountable go through. I do appreciate that a capitalist economy does breed competition and that then encourages improvements in service, affordability etc. However it also incites the amoral pursuit of profit over the proper and humane treatment of victims of others negligence whether it be the result of a car crash or a building fire.

Please note that I'm not an economist, legally trained or even further educated. I'm a manual labourer with a couple of GCSEs, a few bottles of beer and a partner who I will have to support for the rest our lives as the result of a non-fault RTA, an incompetent solicitor and two corrupt expert witnesses (allegedly, we're still working on that). You can write me off as bitter or biased I don't really care because I know that poor people get a rubbish deal when they try to take on big business.

[Old Peter]

It would be difficult, Ralph, but if there were fewer insurance companies it would be easier.  If the Government put a cap on profits, say no more than 5%, there would be fewer companies.  They are really not in the business of insuring cars, but in the business of making money,

Peter.