car insurance

In terms of cover, see who they're underwritten by compared to names you have heard of, probably what varies is the customer service you'll get and the price ...

Following on from this, I recently joined the RAC, and they quote considerably less for my car than I currently pay with Aviva. Are there any comments on this? I know that it is usually worth changing insurance company every now and then, as the only effect of company loyalty to customers seems to be to keep premiums high.

At renewal time, contact Aviva and tell them about the better quotes you've got. You'll then magically get a revised renewal from them. Happens every time without fail here.

Obviously, insurance companies rely on many simply renewing without querying the figure.

However, if I could find a company which didn't use this trick to inflate their premiums, I'd put all my business with them.

On 11/09/2015 11:32, Davey wrote: ...

My experience this year was that staying with Aviva they offered me an alternative policy that gave me everything I wanted, but without cover that I didn't which had been in the previous policy, at half the price of the previous year.

If they offered me one at half price I could put another £200 to the saving and buy a 1TB SSD, but as they haven't I will have to wait another ~3 months for them to drop by that amount.

Dave Plowman (News) put finger to keyboard:

No you wouldn't - the initial premium would be double what you would expect.

Yes I have heard of go skippy they are a legit company, I used them for a few yesrs , do commercial insurance to

That's what I expect to happen. So far, I have stayed to build up a NCB, but now it's a free-for-all.

You don't have to build up a NCB with one company - they are transferable. When getting a quote from a new company one of the first questions they ask is how many years have you had insurance (with any company) without having an accident.

Yes, I know. But I wanted to stay with Aviva for simplicity, as I was starting from scratch (with a 3-litre car) having returned after many years in the US, where they don't have NCB premium reductions, only add-ons. Aviva was the only company that would accept a statement from my US insurer that I was accident-free, so charged me a premium based on that, but required that I build up an NCB with them. That period is now almost satisfied, so in November, the comparisons start in earnest.

Do I need to get an NCB statement from my old company if I change? The RAC site gave that impression. I would have thought that any company could check electronically.

Me too. Last time it went from £42 to £28 a month.

Thieving b*stards.

Me too.

These days you have to change insurance company every single year to get any value for money. They all offer big discounts for year one and then try to steal it back.

Insurance has become a scumbag industry like everything else.

tim w

I have changed many times and the new insurance company have never asked me for proof of NCB so I assume that they all share some information and check electronically.

Not always...

LV have just sent me a renewal and it was similar to last year (I am maxed out on the NCB). So I rang them up and took it. Every other company to date has jacked 50-100 quid on the premium and forced me to go to comparison sites.

I congratulated them on not trying to bone me and they sounded quite pleased, though the woman did warn me they couldn't promise to not do something random as a lot of it was down to the underwriters.

When I moved up to Scotland from Bucks in 2012 I went with Saga for car insurance and my fully comp premium on the Focus dropped from £300 to £93. It's stayed exactly the same every year since bar the odd penny. Obviously living in a cheap rural postcode area in the middle of nowhere helps but they've never tried to stiff me on the premiums.

Hmm, my directline went up by £2.50 this year, maybe I need to switch? Maybe not as they are still cheaper than most of the ones on the comparison types.

The latter, the insurers share information via a central database, probably the same one that the ANPR system uses to flag up uninsured vehicles and the one the "Tax Disc" system uses to check when you pay up etc.

Don't know how much information that central database holds about individuals but I'd expect at least a basic accident records (date, at fault or not) and convictions. Wouldn't be surprised if the information started with your inside leg measurement though...

They seem to dislike using it though ... last two times I've swapped, I've been asked to provide paper evidence of NCB (even though previous insurer is a different brand of the same company) when I've phoned they've suddenly become able to do it through the database, last time they allowed emailing a pdf of a photo of the paper, which is less hassle than having to phone, but I still wish they'd do it proactively using the database.

They also won't send you (for fee) a paper copy of you current NCD when your policy expires so sending it to the next company can be a bit fraught

tim