Car Insurance

[CheGuevara]

Direct Line for 2 years running as they have by far been the best price in my circumstances - having swapped a foreign licence for a UK one they gave me their max NCB (with a letter from my Canadian insurer), a decent rate on a Japanese import 4x4, and again a good rate for my wife (under 25) driving a reasonably quick car.

I'm on Swinton for the bike though.

Liverpool victoria, or LV. Been consistantly cheapest for 3 years on a trot for me, and I do serious shopping around!

[embee]

All I can suggest is if you use the comparison sites to short list some, do phone them rather than click online. Every time I've done it I ended up paying less than the online quote.

I've got one car with MoreThan and while the call centre is far far away (Easter Island??) you can register for a "personal account manager" who is at least in this country and understands the relevance of detail issues. They give (or did at least) NCD on a second policy based on an existing NCD, useful if you ever want 2 cars insured.

My other car is with RAC, I've been with them before, moved away, and ended up back again, always had very efficient customer service dealings (though not had to claim).

[Dave20046]

Originally Posted by embee

All I can suggest is if you use the comparison sites to short list some, do phone them rather than click online. Every time I've done it I ended up paying less than the online quote.

Glad someone else has had similar experiences - the majority of mine when I ring up to pull up the quote will be a lot more cash or will not insure me rarely do I find one that's cheaper - although admiral was a grand cheaper than the quote on the comparison site.

[fizzwheel]

Originally Posted by Dave20046

Elephant are the same company as admiral - not great to hear as I'm with admiral.

They were fine till I made a claim and thats when the fun and games started.

They undervalued my car by £800 and then got p*ssy with me on the phone and started rabbting on about parkers and book prices. Basically I felt like he tried to bully me into accepting their sh*tty first offer.

They didnt give me any notice that they wanted to collect it, despite it being 60 miles away and me not having a car to go and get all my personal effects out of it.

They got p*ssy with me on the phone when they asked if they could get a transporter to where the car was and I told them no as access was limited. Then they told me I would have to drive it somewhere where they could get at it with a transporter, when I politely informed them that the radiator was broken, it had no coolant in it and all the headlights were smashed and that I wasnt driving it anywhere, they got even more cross with me, the woman I spoke to on the phone was down right rude at this point and put the phone down on me.

Then it just seemed to take bl**dy ages for them to sort out the fact that they were going to write the car off.

Dunno whether it was just I had bad luck with the claim, but they left me with a feel that they were bl**dy useless. The only good thing about it was the company that they sub contracted their courtesy car work out to were fantastic.

[Dave20046]

It doesn't really surprise me I had to be on my toes with their sales team.
Very forceful (but polite & horrible salesman friendly)and quick, at one point I actually said to the bloke 'look be quiet for a second while I work that one out.... ... ....no!' .

[peterco]

Originally Posted by fizzwheel

gah I wouldnt use them again, they right royally f*cked me about over making a claim when my Golf got written off.

I do my bike and car insurance with Ecar / ebike. I like the fact that I can do it all on line and never ever have to ring a call centre.

Their prices seem pretty good to...

+1

I also use Ecar/Ebike for insurance.

dont you get an extra discount cos of your job shell??

or does that make it higher maybe in case of reprisals??

[Sir Trev]

Originally Posted by embee

All I can suggest is if you use the comparison sites to short list some, do phone them rather than click online. Every time I've done it I ended up paying less than the online quote.

Also useful for seeing what price your EXISTING insurer is offering, rather than just accepting their renewal. Two cars with Admiral on a mulitcar policy were cheaper separately on the comparison site compared to the renewal - called them up, they pulled up the comparison quotes, added the multicar discount, and I saved two hundred on the renewal price.

Of course us, er, more experienced drivers are a bit easier to insure than you young teraways...

If they gave me a good price I would probably have stayed with More Than as they were very helpful when my car was written off a few years ago. Their tame legal mob were not very helpful though in taking the uninsured scrote to court to get my excess and other losses back...

Originally Posted by fizzwheel

gah I wouldnt use them again, they right royally f*cked me about over making a claim when my Golf got written off.

I do my bike and car insurance with Ecar / ebike. I like the fact that I can do it all on line and never ever have to ring a call centre.

Their prices seem pretty good to...

The problem with insurance companies is that you don't know how good they are till you have to claim and then a lot of that is to do with the handler dealing with it.

Jenn was with Elephant when she had the bump in the freelander and although they tried to say that they needed the V5 and MOT before they could make a valuation of the car, one call from me telling them that I know its rubbish and that there was nothing on either of those forms that would point to the value of the car sorted it out.

People have told me how good Bennetts are on bike insurance...

After my personal experience with them, I'd never uses them.

You pay your money, you take your chances.

All you can hope for is that it doesnt cost too much for something you may not even use.