Insurance

[BennyD]

I have nothing but good things to say about Classicline (brokers) and GB (underwriters). They have been brilliant for me. £499 for 5000 miles. They have been very understanding about our family problems and the reasons why we have been putting so many miles on and have doubled the miles for no extra cost. Very good.

 

[Parisien]

Thats a good effort on their behalf Ian.......not often you hear anything good about insurance types


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[hodroyd]

I have used Priveledge in the past and on some renewals they have been way off the mark.
Benny that company you have sounds to be in tune with you mate, well done. That's a few good reasons to stick with one that you know and looks after you, very rare these days.

 

[TridentTested]

I have nothing but good things to say about Classicline (brokers) and GB (underwriters).

Thanks for the lead.

My insurance journey:-

Several years ago I was with Less Th>n and after many frustrating conversations with India, the inconvenience of having to extend my policy every time I wanted to take the car out of the country, and their inability to simply post documents to me I decided I had had enough of the 'Ryanair' model of insurance and would find a good broker again.

I switched to http://www.stuartcollins.com and was very happy with them for several years. I have nothing but praise for them: they answer the phone promptly, you speak to a knowledgable helpful human being and their prices were no worse than the internet cut-price providers. I thought I had found my broker and wouldn't be changing again. Unfortunately they were frightened by the name Maserati and although were willing to insure it, openly admitted they wouldn't be competitive.

With my policy up for renewal this week I decided to put some serious work into it. The criteria are QP, worth about £20k, limited mileage 5,000, myself and partner insured, Central London, garaged, fully comp, full NCB, no claims nor convictions, no other cars in the household but both of us have motorbikes (some brokers take this into consideration, some don't).

Gocompare.com returned the cheapest, £600 with Privilege.com but with a staggering £850 Excess, protected NCB but NO foreign use.

Stuart Collins wanted £1,100 but I got them down to £936, however the Excess was also a mountainous £850.

Comparethemarket.com couldn't get near gocompare's prices. All were coming in with ±£850 Excesses.

From Googling around on the subject I came to the conclusion Protected NCB is a scam. On some of the quotes I ran it was making as much as £100 difference to the premium and all the examples I found on the Net showed people's premiums still shot up after a claim regardless of having protection or not. When I think of all those £100s I've spent on it over the years.......argh.

Wanting to check what the Privilege quote would be without the Protected NCB I discovered something interesting about the quoting game. I went back into my £600 quote with gocompare and removed Protected NCB but the premium surprisingly went UP (to £660), I then added it back in and it went up again (to £722). I went back to the £600 quote and pretended to buy it which took me to Privilege's web site, I followed the screens through and before clicking "buy" I removed the Protection and the premium went down to £540.

What I learnt here is the comparison web sites are using the time remaining to renewal to evaluate their offer. They know as you have fewer days remaining you are more likely to be pushed into accepting a higher premium. The original £600 quote (£540 without NCB Protection) was done almost a month before renewal. The change I made was with a week remaining. The lesson is: start you comparisons as EARLY AS POSSIBLE.

I was really tempted by £540 - and the bragging rights that would go with it. "Expensive to insure, you ask? Not at all, I have fully comp on it, Central London, for five hundred quid" Would have been a pleasure to say but in the end I went for:-

http://www.classiclineinsurance.co.uk £800, but a much better Excess of only £250, full foreign use, UK breakdown, Legal cover, and in the few phone calls I've had with them they seem to be easy to deal with and are UK based. Being a classic policy removes my question about whether to protect my NCB or not, now it is simply "parked" until I have a 'normal' motor policy in the future.

 

[2b1ask1]

Useful information Michael thanks. I ended up with Hiscox as they undercut everyone else amazingly but it is the most comprehensive cover I've ever had, the 'free' bolt ons were endless. The only snag for me is limited to 6,000 miles (last year I did almost 11,000).

The big problem I have is that we are in the RM1 postcode that contains the entire Romford town centre and ring road (Romfordring as the chavs have named it) so the Accident stats, TWOC's and DD's are stupidly high leaving RM1 as a blacklisted post code!

Oh yes, last year's policy was through a broker but was an Aviva (Norwich Union) policy that was supposed to mirror my NCB from the van (10 years but 40% for a commercial) and at the end of the year they were supposed to issue a full NCB; well that turned out to be total b0llocks and all I got was a 1 years NCB to transfer

 

[fcz360]

Insurance is a difficult area as it is so subjective...

I think the cover is more important but price is critical as well. Ive always used Locktons (Ferrari Owners) but this year they were very very expensive, but in one call they reduced the price by £300, but LV have been very good cover wise and price. I still went elseware as i felt a bit ripped off.

The C63 was only £286 which i was amazed at given im driving it sideways all the time.

However on Aplan, ive used these as well for my everyday cars but I had a big problem last year, they quoted me 400 for a company car, when i called to confirm the quote it had risen to 1100. Same as someone else on this thread. They said the quote has risen as the car is insured at the work address not my home, even though it was stored at home. When i phoned Chaucer (who the quote was with) they said they had not heard of this and called aplan, funnily enough aplan called back and said it was an error. But i have later been told they have tried that before. Only my experience of course.

Just be careful with cheapo cover like Tesco, the cover is very weak unless you tick options.

 

[TridentTested]

The big problem I have is that we are in the RM1 postcode that contains the entire Romford town centre and ring road (Romfordring as the chavs have named it) so the Accident stats, TWOC's and DD's are stupidly high leaving RM1 as a blacklisted post code!

Ditto. I'm in NW1 - lots of council estates around here and we get tarred with the same brush. Classic Line were very apologetic they couldn't get the premium down further and they said the postcode was the stumbling block. It's frustrating because the car is securely garaged and in the nearly twenty years I've lived at this address we have not had a single incident in the garage because it is secure. You would hope that would negate the postcode weighting but it doesn't. C'est la vie.

 

[2b1ask1]

Our house insurers tried the postcode trick to tell us we were a flood risk last year... I invited them around to verify that claim but they didn't pursue it = we are 275 ft above sea level and almost at the top of a 50 ft hill and risk sliding down the hill far more than we are ever going to flood!

 

[hodroyd]

Insurance is a battle at the moment. The insurance companies have taken a hammering on claims for personal injury and storm damage, so they are looking at every possible way of getting that money back. Motorists are an easy target, you have to have insurance. We are in West Yorkshire, but because we have a South Yorkshire postcode, being close to the so called boundary, we are priced on the postcode and SY is more expensive. It's a rat race but we are stuck with it until rules change.