Insurance companies - your thoughts?

Because a lot of people pay up the full price without haggling.

 

Often give them a bit of agro regarding trying to rip me off when they can do it at a lower price.
But you are usually talking to some poor s** at a call centre who is just doing as they are told.

I suppose if we all "walked" when given the first renewal price, and didn't ask for them to come up with something new, they would be a bit more inclined to be honest with us.

 

We generally change insurance company/ies every year to get the best deal, including checking out going via cashback sites.

The same with recovery services (AA/RAC/etc.) and we generally take out our joint membership in our alternate names each year so we can take advantage of new member/cashback discounts. We re-joined tonight @ almost 50% discount which was cheaper than our renewal cost with approx. 30% existing member discount. We would have normally used Clubcard vouchers (worth approx. 2x value for RAC membership), but we want to 'treble them up' to approx. £1,200 to get yet another week's canal boat holiday next year (greenhouse last year, week in August boating holiday year before that).

 

Don't forget that (up to £50 per 12 month period) cashback from TopCashBack (TCB) http://www.topcashback.co.uk/home can be claimed as Tesco Clubcard Points (with a 5% bonus) which can then be exchanged for 'Rewards' (AKA Clubcard Boost) for up to four times their face value, further increasing the saving. This is why we have multiple Clubcard accounts and multiple TCB accounts (where we 'introduced' our multiple identities to one another and got £10 cashback referral bonuses for each of the subsequent accounts.

Example: Mr A joins TCB and selects a TCB car insurance deal with £50 or less cashback (as you can't convert anything over £50 into points, so £51 cashback and this option is unavailable when selecting method of payout) then introduces his wife Mrs A to TCB and when she gets her TCB cashback on her car insurance he gets a £10 bonus for referring her. They both convert their cashbacks into Clubcard Points (need separate accounts) and use them for either 'Double Up' promotions or converting to Rewards at up to 4x face value for Memberships, Subscriptions, Holidays, Days Out, Restaurants, etc.

So if that £76 cashback was for 2 policies you could of had say £76 £80 pounds (5% bonus) in double up vouchers to spend instore/online PLUS £159 in Rewards Vouchers for something with a 4x conversation rate. Then there would still be that £10 referral bonus that could have been taken as cash, or maybe as £10.50 in Amazon vouchers (with 5% bonus). NB claim your Clubcard Points quickly before any referral bonuses take you over the £50 limit. £80 in double up + £159 in Rewards/Boost + £10.50 in Amazon vouchers totalling £249.50 would have gone a long way to mitigating the impact of paying £275 for both car insurance policies.




P.S. £17 in Clubcard vouchers for 1 years RHS membership http://www.tesco.com/clubcard/deals/product.aspx?R=2358& bci=4294964686|Memberships so £16.19 TCB would cover that.

Or £15 in vouchers would buy a year's digital subs to 'The Telegraph', no newspaper for mulching but a massive saving on buying paper copies, even compared to paper copy subscription rates of over £300 p.a. http://www.tesco.com/clubcard/deals/product.aspx?R=3694& bci=4294964686|Memberships but you still get subscriber benefits like a Robert Dyas discount card for 15% off on Thursdays and help further increase the saving and get you great deals like this http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/good-tree-loppers.38505/#post-489400

(I always try and make my small income go as far as possible and this is just one of the ways I can afford all sorts of stuff despite being on a pittance of an early retirement pension)

 

I was with Admiral
As I had just retired from employment, I advised them that I would no longer be commuting 18k miles a year the new mileage would be 3k a year leisure
I looked forward to the renewal in a couple of weeks,
They put it UP £115 as leisure driving, at busy periods would be dangerous and a bigger insurance risk ?

I took my insurance with the RAC :-)

Jack McHammocklashing

 

I've previously heard an insurance company use that as an excuse to increase their premium. Apparently they preferred to insure working drivers who had their cars parked in office car parks all day, rather than pensioners who were free to gallivant around all day.

 

True
I thought the reduction of 15k miles per year, a car a year older, and of a years less value would have reduced the premium
But apparently, if you commute daily, then you are a more experienced driver, unlike a doddery old fool taking a once a week outing

Mind you RAC were not a lot cheaper, even though I have driven in excess of 2.5 million miles in my company cars, accident free

I really hate insurance companies with a vengeance

Jack McHammocklashing