I'm just off the phone from having an interesting discussion with NFU - they are open until 8 o' clock in the evenings. Although their quote was a tad more than the winning lowest quote from Go Girl going with NFU would mean a reduction of my annual insurance bill as they give cover at no additional cost for some of the more 'out of the way' places that we visit. They include Turkey, MonteNegro, Albania, Moldova, Belarus,Ukraine and even Israel and Tunisia which is a big surprise.. But for us the important thing is they cover Bosnia i Hercegovina in their list - at no extra cost. Currently we have to shell out for what is called 'Border Insurance' at least twice a year - which costs us over £50 for 17 days cover every time we cross their border. So finding a company that gives us a certificate/green card for BiH is a big saving. The windscreen excess is also low at only £50 with chip repairs free. They are a funny lot the NFU - they also include carrying up to 2,000 shotgun cartridges - but no explosives. They are not on any of the search engine sites such as Compare a Confused Meerkat and the like and their website has no quote applying facility - but they may well be worth a phone-call - as I found out.
thanks @Singvogel will bear them in mind when I get nearer the time, I was just surprised its gone up consider my car is probably only worth 17k now, i was hoping for nearer to 600 as i paid i think approx £650 - 700 last year if memory serves me correctly and i thought was steep then but thought ok car is worth more so ok lets go with it and it will come down later.. but nope.... Going to compare some different makes/models just out of curiosity... Kev
I did get a quote from the local branch of NFU, because of good feedback from other forum members. Far from being good value, they were one of the highest quotes. As others have said, there's no point in trying to apply any logic to insurance companies - they can be totally illogical. :confused:
Well i've just had a very quick look at different models of cars, Soka suberb, Ford Mondeo, Ford Focus - all are coming in between £630 - £680, still proves i'm paying more for the BMW from anywhere from £50 - 100 quid more. I'll do some more tomorrow. I kept these all with 2 litre diesel, autos and with voluntary £250 excess + the compulsory so will trysome with 1.5/1.6 diesels and see what happens to the price - It would appear that largely the car is irrelevant, its the post code that almost sets a starting figure lol. Its weird that ever since i've been driving (since 17) my insurance has never gone down... never seen the £300 insurance.. its always been over £400 initially on a 10 year old car, to be expecting at 17 but even after few years, still over £500 on a Fiesta..... Kev
Few points with the nfu 1--Premium -They have a Mutual Bonus system that increases the longer you have been with them, this years mine was 18.5% I do find the system they use different , Price for each item , then discount for the Mutual Bonus , then add on IPT. 2--They never charge for amending policies or cover notes. 3-- The QQ had a minor bump last year ,premium for that and X1 went up by same percentage Z3 went down. 4--You can walk into the office to resolve matters. 5--I have found them very good if you have to make a claim. 6--They do not quote or are not competitive in certain post code areas 7--No trouble putting the Ivor Williams trailer on policy. 8--No extra cost if paying monthly. I have been looking at putting the Z3 on a classic policy , but leaving it with nfu. I surmise the reason for the restriction on carrying shells and explosive is due to the fact most of the policy holders are in the countryside. As a check I tried a quote from LV as others speak highly of them, they were around £100 cheaper over the 3 cars but ,the following would have all been extras Motor Legal Cover Car Hire Personal Accident Cover Breakdown Cover.
For decades, finding the best all-round deal for insurance [even with the help of on-line searching] has been a bit like.....
Just to update, had my insurance renewal though.... hope your all sitting down....... £801.92 Needless to say a ridiculous price.... i thought insurance was coming down i heard but this is way more than last year.... So looked online cheapest off a comparison site is £638 but with a higher excess. So phoned them up, told them about a couple of minor changes to policy, telephone number and job title change for additional driver to Retired. So insurance came out to £731.81 by increasing excess to £250 voluntary (was £150 before, thought was £250), then noticed my online quote was £250 voluntary + £150 compulsory excess as opposed to my compulsory being £100 so they changed the excess accordingly to make it £400 total excess and then they came in at £709.46 and that's best they can do - albeit at the beginning of the conversation she said i'd been with them for 4 years which was a long time and they wouldn't want to loose me over price lol So I've left it that i'll think about it, having reviewed the policy more closely to the comparison site one, it seems there is no legal cover included with the comparison quote, available for an additional cost and only covers up to 50k, whereas my renewal is up to 100k and included. So this means the difference between the 2 quotes now is £51.44 plus an additional £50k legal cover should I need it. Now to decide if it's worth renewing or switching.. I have some time as not due until June so will most likely relook at this next weekend and see if prices go change. Kev
It never hurts to have a look around. Time was when the savings available were not worth the hassle of switching. Then it went into a period where switching seemed mandatory, at least for me. Could be we're going back into a period of everything being much of a muchness. I expect it varies for a lot of reasons. My understanding is that legislation is coming through to prevent insurance company pumping loyal customers to subsidise special offers to new customers.
In the past I have phoned up to ask if my renewal was the best they could do and got a better quote but left it at that for now. Phoned again in the middle of the week and got a lot better quote. Looking on comparison sites for my son and his best price was on a Wednesday believe it or not lol.
Thanks - i'll see what I can do on Wednesday Might give them another call and see what they say.. Kev
@Kev2005 have a look at co-op insurance, i had my 520D insured with them for £240.00 and they sent me £50.00 worth of co-op beer vouchers so after spending my £50.00 the insurance cost the equivalent of £190.00 a year I know age and location are on my side but a friend of mine living in Cambridge has insurance with the co-op at a very reasonable price so worth 10 minutes doing a quote
I have recently changed insurance company after many years with Esure. While they tried to put my premium up each year when I called them they always reduced, not this year. I changed from the 530i E61 to the F06 640d mid policy and paid a sizeable increase but then it is group 50 for the 6 series. Any way Esure quoted a renewal of £640 with £600 excess. Tried comparison sites and Hastings were coming out best at around £480 with £500 excess. Finally thought I would try Direct line after never having had a competitive quote before and got a price of £405 with total excess of £300. While I fully expect to have to move again next year I am very happy with the saving. May be worth 5 mins of your time on direct lines website..
One thing that I have found with doing insurance quotes over the years - there is absolutely no consistency to results. One year, a company will be the cheapest. The following year, they will be more expensive than the rest. All you can do is use the comparison sites, and then get quotes of others such as Direct Line, etc. that aren't on such sites. Insurance companies are a law unto themselves, and are beyond normal reason.
@Merc? No. BM! they did say it was £50.00 of grocery vouchers but i had a choice give them to he missus to waste on groceries, or I could spend them on beer, so no prizes for guessing what my grocery vouchers got used for,
Contacted Insurance again today, nothing further they can do so I've had to increase my excess to bring the price down to nearer what competitor is asking. Might phone them again nearer the renewal date but at the moment the difference is price is approx £20 and the excess difference is £100 as well as the legal cover is upto 100k as opposed to 50k so i'm thinking of staying put at the moment and hope no accidents/claims *touch wood* over next year. Due to these renewal prices, I think realistically i'm probably going to need to change to a cheaper car sometime over the near year as I just cannot sustain paying out £700 a year on insurance. Will contemplate over the coming months. Kev
Think about it tho...any car you buy is going to cost say £200 to insure. Plus you will lose out on your trade in and lose out when you drive the replacement car of the forecourt. £700 year, is just about £2 a day....how much do people spend on Coffees,cigs, booze, snacks etc every day
^This. Insurance and road tax are generally almost irrelevant compared to the depreciation costs of a car and especially the costs involved to change.
