Insurance Price Ranges

[Demonic Angel]

I'm currently shopping round online for insurance for the Aygo, been to loads of places so far, including a few comparison sites to get the best quote.

I have one of the cheapest cars to insure and also am probably classed as fairly low risk.... 6 years no claims, 27 year old woman so a lot of the quotes I am getting are very competitive and reasonable.

But the price ranges on the comparison sites are extraordinary!

Cheapest quote so far has been £175 with Sheilas Wheels and going up to £960 with Quinn Direct. £960 a year to insure a Group 1 1 litre 3-cylinder Aygo!

How can Quinn Direct warrant charging so much for insurance? I thought all insurance companies ran with the same sort of criteria? What would make it so much more expensive?

Obviously I'm not going to buy my insurance from them, I'm just curious if anyone knows why this is?

[JappyBeast]

I have asked this question a million times, I just dont get where they get their figures from, my insurance ranged from £330 (what I have now) to a staggering £2300 with the same information!!!

I managed to half my insurance with More Than, I rang Norwich Union up to tell them I was swapping over, they asked me why, I told them that More Than have halved my insurance and the man said on the end of the phone "there is no way we can beat that quote". Quality!

I have always said that shopping around is the best thing to do.

[Phoenix999]

I advocate changing insurance companies every 12 or 24 months.... new business customers invariably get the best deals :ffs:

It stuns me how different companies can quote such differing prices. My best experience with this was with Admiral and Elephant, both quotes were quite different but the stupid thing is that they are the same company both based in the same building in Cardiff :o How stupid is that I spoke to one of their customer service guys and he said the difference was caused by the fact that they each chase differing sectors of the insurance market. I suggested this was incorrect as they are both chasing the same sector.... it is called 'motor insurance'! The guy had no reply to my comment

[hertsnminds]

Insurance is run by financial institutions and works like this...

We have a big pot of money and want to make loads more money from it.

If we allocate some of that pot to insure a particular group of motorists (e.g. 27 year old females driving group 1 cars) the risk (or chances we will lose) are x amount.

We can therefore afford to insure 10,000 people in this risk group if we make the premium x amount and still make a profit.

If we then give this risk a snappy name e.g. Sheilas Wheels and target our advertising at the intended market we will sell as many policies as we need.

Have a look at who owns the insurer you are with, Sheilas Wheels is run by Esure as are Halifax (HBOS) and Sainsbury's insurance products.

Companies that have allocated the pot of money they have to a different risk than you fall into will charge silly premiums as they do not want your business (they are betting on a different horse).

Insurance (as with most financial products) is not about the best product for the consumer, but the best profit for the insurer.

[Karma Supra]

Blimey Em, your Quinn Direct quote is more than I pay for the (group 20) M3... and your older :P (In the nicest possible way!

[Johndcfc]

Mine varied last year from 400 to 3000!

It's just how the different firms calculate the premiums, for example elephant used to be the best by a country mile when I started driving - now they are average at best.

Here's a tip, before you buy your insurance check if they are listed on www.quidco.com as you may be able to get some cashback (I got 40 from swiftcover last year which was like a 10% discount)

[Norfolk n Chance]

I recently changed my insurance and my quotes ranged from £400 to £2000

I also ran some quotes on a TT & N/A Supra.... and the TT was cheaper to insure!

[Demonic Angel]

Blimey Em, your Quinn Direct quote is more than I pay for the (group 20) M3... and your older :P (In the nicest possible way!

Cheers mate! :( :lol:

Thanks for the explanation hertsnminds!

[Karma Supra]

Sorry Em!!!

I missed out a bracket :P :P :P

[Demonic Angel]

I had to check on Facebook as to how much older I actually am - a fleeting moment of "Charlies not that much younger than me surely". And then I saw that its only 7 months.....

Respect your elders young man! :lol:

On a by note I remember paying about £800 for the insurance on my Matiz.... nowadays I shudder at the thought of spending more than £200!

[JappyBeast]

Is a 'by' note like 'by the by'?

[Rolla_SR]

I got a quick question, i didnt want to start a new thread as this is already about insurance, but here goes...

... why is it when you insure your car you give it a value ie £10k... if you have an accident in this car 8 months down the line why is it they take the current market value of the car when you crash it? Surely your agreement or cover was for the original £10k and not whatever the value they say your car is at the time of an accident, if this is the case should insurance companies be paying us back some money as the cars value decreases?

My insurance quotes varried from £650 (admiral) and £1300 (RBS)

I was with the rbs before and after i cancelled my insurance with them they called me up after i took my new insurance with admiral and said they could match it?!?! I just told them where to go!

This is all at the tender age of twenty :) with 3 years ncb!!! :D

[Boro Sera]

... why is it when you insure your car you give it a value ie £10k... if you have an accident in this car 8 months down the line why is it they take the current market value of the car when you crash it? Surely your agreement or cover was for the original £10k

The current market value of a car is basically what you've got covered. Some policies ( classic especially ) have agreed valuation clauses whereby you can agree with the insurance company via a third party inspector/expert exactly how much the car is valued at. As I said, this tends to apply to classic cars, not current production cars where parts/spares/similar cars are readily available.

You do raise an interesting question though..........If you valued your car at 10k and a claim resulted in you only getting 8k back ( market value ) - how much would you get back if you had originally valued the car policy at 5k ??

[Rolla_SR]

... why is it when you insure your car you give it a value ie £10k... if you have an accident in this car 8 months down the line why is it they take the current market value of the car when you crash it? Surely your agreement or cover was for the original £10k

The current market value of a car is basically what you've got covered. Some policies ( classic especially ) have agreed valuation clauses whereby you can agree with the insurance company via a third party inspector/expert exactly how much the car is valued at. As I said, this tends to apply to classic cars, not current production cars where parts/spares/similar cars are readily available.

You do raise an interesting question though..........If you valued your car at 10k and a claim resulted in you only getting 8k back ( market value ) - how much would you get back if you had originally valued the car policy at 5k ??

The reason i say this is cause my mate wrote his VXR off over a year ago, when it was insured it cost 24k, when it crashed the value of the VXR was 20k give or take, but by time the insurance company got round to paying up they on offered him 16k... surely they cant do this can they? i mean yes the current market for buying cars is cheap, but why should the insurance companies benefit from this and not the consumer...

...life just isnt fair is it :(

[Boro Sera]

...life just isnt fair is it :(

Nope - and that's a good thing.

If life was fair then bad stuff would still happen to you - but it'd be because you deserved it.

Easier to sleep at night if life isn't fair tbh !

:(

[Cyker]

... why is it when you insure your car you give it a value ie £10k... if you have an accident in this car 8 months down the line why is it they take the current market value of the car when you crash it? Surely your agreement or cover was for the original £10k

The current market value of a car is basically what you've got covered. Some policies ( classic especially ) have agreed valuation clauses whereby you can agree with the insurance company via a third party inspector/expert exactly how much the car is valued at. As I said, this tends to apply to classic cars, not current production cars where parts/spares/similar cars are readily available.

You do raise an interesting question though..........If you valued your car at 10k and a claim resulted in you only getting 8k back ( market value ) - how much would you get back if you had originally valued the car policy at 5k ??

More or less the same; Most companies don't even bother checking the 'valued' field, but assign a value based on the car.

However, if you undervalue it, they can use that to screw you out of money your car would be worth, and if you overvalue it, your premium might be higher. But as I said, they don't bother to check it usually.

I did an mild experiment to that effect last time I renewed my insurance, but !Removed! with the Value field (+/- 2000) made sod-all difference to the premium in the ones I tried...

[hertsnminds]

why is it when you insure your car you give it a value ie £10k... if you have an accident in this car 8 months down the line why is it they take the current market value of the car when you crash it?

The insurer wants to know the potential maximum risk, what you paid for the car. However, they will only pay what they can recover.

This also gives them the chance to sell you more insurance, (GAP cover) if you have taken out finance against the car.

You used to be able to buy two types of insurance for house contents, current value or new for old but the premiums varied accordingly. You could probably get a car insurer to quote you on a like for like or new for old basis but the premiums would be much higher.

[Demonic Angel]

Well needless to say I didn't go for Quinn Directs quote and instead paid £208 fully comp, protected 6 years no claims with Sheilas Wheels.

Happy, but a little on the poor side!

[JustJJ]

Insurers have a range of different criteria which they mark you against, and different insurance companies are willing to cover different criteria (just like was mentioned before)

You will be assessed on strangely enough not entirely your actual ability to drive, but your stereotypical ability.

You will be bracketed into one of the following categories (and there are many more than just this)

Young Female Driver

Young Male Driver

Age (I know I sorta mentioned it above, but insurance companies will target different brackets of people.. some wont touch below age 25... others are better for 30-40 year olds etc)

Person Living in NW (or NE, Midlands, SE or SW - infact your postcode can make an insurance premium shoot between £600 and £2000 simply based on where you live)

What Car You Drive (naturally higher performance stuff will warrant more ££ - on the flipside a senior citizen in an old banger may also have a slightly higher premium in places cause they cause a number of acciedents too!)

Your Job (yup... certain jobs they wont cover and some will be higher than others... and I dont simply mean cause you put 'commuting' on there.)

Then you get down to your driving license and how many points you have... fair enough...

For the MR2 I have had quotes ranging from £590 to £2000 and those were with specialist insurance companies whos 'pot of money' is dedicated to performance / sports cars and/or imports... (Chris Knott, Noel Dazely, Sky Insurance and A-Plan).

Naturally I go for the best deal (fully comp of course).

As far as agreed valuations... if you have an agreed valuation for the car on the policy then they have to pay this out should anything happen... you have paid for it specifically... this is not to be confused with the box marked 'value of car' which I believe is merely an indicator and the insurance company will choose market value instead.