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Weird Insurance renewal!!


mrsmelly

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So Its renewal time again and my bumff has come through the post as always. Having read the front page it says quote " You have been with us for a number of years. You may be able to get insurance cover you want at a better price if you shop around " :huh: I havnt noticed this before though have never looked for it. Is it some stupid law that's appeared making insurance companies do it? I cant see why anyone should or indeed would print something like that otherwise? I wont be shopping around as its cheap anyway and better the devil you know but just thought it strange.

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14 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

So Its renewal time again and my bumff has come through the post as always. Having read the front page it says quote " You have been with us for a number of years. You may be able to get insurance cover you want at a better price if you shop around " :huh: I havnt noticed this before though have never looked for it. Is it some stupid law that's appeared making insurance companies do it? I cant see why anyone should or indeed would print something like that otherwise? I wont be shopping around as its cheap anyway and better the devil you know but just thought it strange.

Don't know about any laws etc, but insurance companies only want your custom for one year. I move my house/car/boat insurance yearly as I get stupid quotes for the second year. One geezer at Direct Line admitted this to me when they wanted a grand to insure my Shogun for twelve months (I had been with them for 22 years house and car, got the Shogun covered for less than half with Churchill.) If you can believe this, I dropped my house insurance from 450 quid to 150 quid, with better cover, under what I believe to be a better company.

Edited by Guest
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Sounds identical to what I saw on my renewal from Collidge & Partners, whom I'd been with for 9 years.

I thought the same as you ...... until I checked and found they were charging me double what anybody else wanted.  I phoned them to see if they wanted to negotiate (Like The AA etc.) but no, they were quite uninterested in discussing it.

I moved.

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2 minutes ago, zenataomm said:

Sounds identical to what I saw on my renewal from Collidge & Partners, whom I'd been with for 9 years.

I thought the same as you ...... until I checked and found they were charging me double what anybody else wanted.  I phoned them to see if they wanted to negotiate (Like The AA etc.) but no, they were quite uninterested in discussing it.

I moved.

My experience too. They just said "sorry to see you go" (or words to that effect.) No interest whatsoever.

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2 hours ago, catweasel said:

Don't know about any laws etc, but insurance companies only want your custom for one year. I move my house/car/boat insurance yearly as I get stupid quotes for the second year. One geezer at Direct Line admitted this to me when they wanted a grand to insure my Shogun for twelve months (I had been with them for 22 years house and car, got the Shogun covered for less than half with Churchill.) If you can believe this, I dropped my house insurance from 450 quid to 150 quid, with better cover, under what I believe to be a better company.

New regulations came in last March.  https://www.fca.org.uk/firms/transparency-insurance-renewals

Sorry, quoted wrong post.  I was replying to Tim's OP.

Edited by Mac of Cygnet
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2 hours ago, catweasel said:

Don't know about any laws etc, but insurance companies only want your custom for one year. I move my house/car/boat insurance yearly as I get stupid quotes for the second year. One geezer at Direct Line admitted this to me when they wanted a grand to insure my Shogun for twelve months (I had been with them for 22 years house and car, got the Shogun covered for less than half with Churchill.) If you can believe this, I dropped my house insurance from 450 quid to 150 quid, with better cover, under what I believe to be a better company.

My house insurance renewal this year was £390. Went onto Gocompare and the cheapest comparable quote was £114!!. To add insult one of the Gocompare quotes was from my then insurer at £100 less than they had quoted me for my renewal.

Tim

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Knowing a thing or two about how insurance underwriters work out premiums, some of the above surprises me.

It makes no sense for them to become less interested in insuring anything as time goes on, because the longer their experience of a particular customer and boat (or whatever type of risk) the more information they have to go on. The premium will change according to the claims history of the individual and the general market, but they'd only refuse to quote where either they're not operating in that market or the risk is too great to bear and/or difficult to evaluate.

So for example if larryjc didn't make a claim in his first year, Craftinsure will see him as a better risk now than what they saw a year ago, hence his reduced premium. He's the same boater (except one year older and wiser) but now they have a reason to raise their opinion of him; he hasn't crashed Jacaranda into anything. All very sensible of them.

Some insurers will try it on, bunging up premiums for no real reason as Direct Line appear to have done with Catweasel, but that's unwise because the greedier they get the more likely they are to lose a good risk.

Every insurer's underwriters work out their own formulae for calculating premiums, based upon the factors they think affect the risk, e.g. for car insurance they know young drivers are more likely as a group to crash, but they go on their own experience so another company may well take a different view and it will pay to shop around. If you're seeking cover for something unusual, or have a bad claims history, there may not be much choice of course.

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2 hours ago, catweasel said:

Don't know about any laws etc, but insurance companies only want your custom for one year. I move my house/car/boat insurance yearly as I get stupid quotes for the second year. One geezer at Direct Line admitted this to me when they wanted a grand to insure my Shogun for twelve months (I had been with them for 22 years house and car, got the Shogun covered for less than half with Churchill.) If you can believe this, I dropped my house insurance from 450 quid to 150 quid, with better cover, under what I believe to be a better company.

We've been with Craftinsure for 9 years. I get quotes from several companies every couple of years and they still come out the lowest cost. 

2 hours ago, larryjc said:

Second year with Craftinsure and they knocked £15 off the price.

Just checked ours and 2017 was £7 less than 2016 for the same cover. Too soon to see what 2018 will cost. 

Of course, we've never had to make a claim, especially as we elected for a higher excess, but you don't know how good an insurer is until you claim. 

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I’ve given up trying to understand how underwriters think. Last year when renewing our car insurance Saga was one of the most expensive silly quotes at well over a grand. This year they were the cheapest. 

Same drivers, same vehicles... it makes no sense whatsoever to me. 

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27 minutes ago, pearley said:

We've been with Craftinsure for 9 years. I get quotes from several companies every couple of years and they still come out the lowest cost. 

Just checked ours and 2017 was £7 less than 2016 for the same cover. Too soon to see what 2018 will cost. 

Of course, we've never had to make a claim, especially as we elected for a higher excess, but you don't know how good an insurer is until you claim. 

I had quotes from lots of them inc craft insure but insure4boats came out cheaper by a fair bit for like for like quote for the last 2 years.

Neil

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1 hour ago, Mac of Cygnet said:

New regulations came in last March.  https://www.fca.org.uk/firms/transparency-insurance-renewals

Sorry, quoted wrong post.  I was replying to Tim's OP.

Thanks for that and well spotted Mac. As from april last year they do indeed now need to do what my company has done. I hadn't missed it last year as my insurance is due on march 6th. :cheers: My premium has gone up 68 pence this year.

Edited by mrsmelly
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5 minutes ago, b0atman said:

car ins AA sent me a direct quote for £201 .Compare the Market AA quote £135 ?

 

Insurance, especialy car insurance is a minefield. first thing I look for is the compulsory excess. If you have an excess then you are not in reality insured anyway and sometimes they stick an eyewatering excess on and you need to ask how much it is. For instance my car insurance has zero excess which costs me a few pence more than the 300 quid they tried to spring on me last year so I am in fact " Insured " my present boat insurance carries an excess of £ 100 pounds now how much is the excess on all the other policies that people have? Excess is a bloomin con.

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3 hours ago, larryjc said:

Second year with Craftinsure and they knocked £15 off the price.

I've been with Craftinsure for about 12 years now. I think after about 8 or 9 years they get to a base price (or maximum no claims discount) and then the premium doesn't seem to reduce any further - or if it does it's by incrementally and insignificantly smaller amounts. Fair enough I suppose. if they keep reducing it in big chunks they'll end up with nothing.

50 minutes ago, pearley said:

We've been with Craftinsure for 9 years. I get quotes from several companies every couple of years and they still come out the lowest cost. 

Just checked ours and 2017 was £7 less than 2016 for the same cover. Too soon to see what 2018 will cost. 

Of course, we've never had to make a claim, especially as we elected for a higher excess, but you don't know how good an insurer is until you claim. 

Yes, but over the years I've seen no evidence (either on this site or from talking to people) that any other insurer is better than Craftinsure when it comes to paying out, so I'll continue with them.  

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3 hours ago, larryjc said:

Second year with Craftinsure and they knocked £15 off the price.

My premium fell this year with Craftinsure too. I've insured with them for about 15 years and, as far as I recall, this is the first time it has fallen (although it has never increased much).

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1 hour ago, Neil Smith said:

I had quotes from lots of them inc craft insure but insure4boats came out cheaper by a fair bit for like for like quote for the last 2 years.

Neil

But, unless I'm in the past, insure 4 boats only do 3rd party

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I'm surprised that people are saying their premiums have gone down as insurance premium tax went up by 2% in the last budget!

Just got our renewal through and it has gone up £9. Not surprising as we had an £1800 claim last year. The Allianz policy is even with the slight increase in premium still by far the most competitive for us.

We switch car insurers every year to get the best price. Same with home insurance but for boat insurance we seem to have the best deal with our current insurers and have for 5 years now.

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Not boat but house.  I had used my building society for contents & building insurance for the duration of my mortgage.

This year, mortgage payed of, I questioned the renewal price.  No move.

Went to another broker who got me the same policy with the same underwriters for half the price.

How much have I been knocked for over the years?

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6 minutes ago, MartynG said:

My boat insurance renewal premium has gone up too. Half of the increase is the increase in insurance premium tax.  I am not particularly tempted to change insurers .

The thing is its a pain in the aress and nearly impossible to do a true comparison of the many policies available out there. Some quote for this that and the other and others don't. How much excess is a policy from Gjw or craftinsure likely to be against the one I already have? more? less? questions would have to be asked umpteen times to do a comparison and at very best I may save one pound a weekish. Car insurance is different I move most years and this year saved about two hundred quid on renewal but my boat insurance is only just over 200 quid in the first place.

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20 minutes ago, Taslim said:

Not boat but house.  I had used my building society for contents & building insurance for the duration of my mortgage.

This year, mortgage payed of, I questioned the renewal price.  No move.

Went to another broker who got me the same policy with the same underwriters for half the price.

How much have I been knocked for over the years?

Likewise.

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5 minutes ago, Neil Smith said:

I don't know where you got that from mine is fully inclusive.

Neil

I just tried insure 4 boats and they were a little more expensive than my present insurer.  As you say they do all risks or third party only.

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