car insurance

In terms of cover, see who they're underwritten by compared to names you have heard of, probably what varies is the customer service you'll get and the price ...

There are only something like 5 actual companies offering motor insurance in the UK. All the rest of the names you see are just brands of the same company.

I wouldn't worry about having lost your no claims bonus, they take into account whether your bonus was protected or not last year when calculating your premium and your accident record anyway.

Following on from this, I recently joined the RAC, and they quote considerably less for my car than I currently pay with Aviva. Are there any comments on this? I know that it is usually worth changing insurance company every now and then, as the only effect of company loyalty to customers seems to be to keep premiums high.

At renewal time, contact Aviva and tell them about the better quotes you've got. You'll then magically get a revised renewal from them. Happens every time without fail here.

Obviously, insurance companies rely on many simply renewing without querying the figure.

However, if I could find a company which didn't use this trick to inflate their premiums, I'd put all my business with them.

On 11/09/2015 11:32, Davey wrote: ...

My experience this year was that staying with Aviva they offered me an alternative policy that gave me everything I wanted, but without cover that I didn't which had been in the previous policy, at half the price of the previous year.

If they offered me one at half price I could put another £200 to the saving and buy a 1TB SSD, but as they haven't I will have to wait another ~3 months for them to drop by that amount.

Dave Plowman (News) put finger to keyboard:

No you wouldn't - the initial premium would be double what you would expect.

Yes I have heard of go skippy they are a legit company, I used them for a few yesrs , do commercial insurance to

That's what I expect to happen. So far, I have stayed to build up a NCB, but now it's a free-for-all.

That many ...

Aye, you don't need to stay with a Co. to "build up" a NCB, you have n years no matter who the insurer was. They might knock it back a year but how what does that mean in terms of your wallet? I haven't seen a NCB described as a percentage of "the premium" for years and certainly not as a pounds figure "saving".

I have a suspicision that the Insurance Co.s will start using modern vehicles semi-covert "black box"(*) data more and more along with the overt GPS/Smartphone/driving manner apps/boxes to determine individual premium levels.

Whichs lead on to the Aviva Drive app, that may get you up to a 20% discount at next renewal. Anyone used it?

Had a quick look on the Playstore to see if there were any similar "driving analysis" apps that were stand alone, ie not linked to an insurance company. I only found one and that doesn't use GPS just the inertial sensor and its reporting is not wonderful. I'd like some indication of my driving style before using the Avia Drive app. As your first score is, quite wisely, the only one they use for calculating the discount percentage.

(*) Hidden away in my cars User Manual are couple of statements that indicate there are at least two boxen logging vehicle performance/status and driver input. Law enforcement agencies can ask to access that data to use in evidence. Other data is "open" in that garage mechanics can see it for fault/servicing etc.

You don't have to build up a NCB with one company - they are transferable. When getting a quote from a new company one of the first questions they ask is how many years have you had insurance (with any company) without having an accident.

Yes, I know. But I wanted to stay with Aviva for simplicity, as I was starting from scratch (with a 3-litre car) having returned after many years in the US, where they don't have NCB premium reductions, only add-ons. Aviva was the only company that would accept a statement from my US insurer that I was accident-free, so charged me a premium based on that, but required that I build up an NCB with them. That period is now almost satisfied, so in November, the comparisons start in earnest.

Do I need to get an NCB statement from my old company if I change? The RAC site gave that impression. I would have thought that any company could check electronically.

Me too. Last time it went from £42 to £28 a month.

Thieving b*stards.

Me too.

These days you have to change insurance company every single year to get any value for money. They all offer big discounts for year one and then try to steal it back.

Insurance has become a scumbag industry like everything else.

tim w

I have changed many times and the new insurance company have never asked me for proof of NCB so I assume that they all share some information and check electronically.

Not always...

LV have just sent me a renewal and it was similar to last year (I am maxed out on the NCB). So I rang them up and took it. Every other company to date has jacked 50-100 quid on the premium and forced me to go to comparison sites.

I congratulated them on not trying to bone me and they sounded quite pleased, though the woman did warn me they couldn't promise to not do something random as a lot of it was down to the underwriters.

Its common knowledge that the ECU logs the state of the controls, etc. its used for diagnostics but it does usually record the state at the moment of an accident which could be used by the police.

It was used in the case of a law suit in USA a few years ago where owners of a car were claiming they weren't responsible for a series of crashes and it proved the drivers were accelerating and not braking as they were claiming. It wasn't common knowledge then.

When I moved up to Scotland from Bucks in 2012 I went with Saga for car insurance and my fully comp premium on the Focus dropped from £300 to £93. It's stayed exactly the same every year since bar the odd penny. Obviously living in a cheap rural postcode area in the middle of nowhere helps but they've never tried to stiff me on the premiums.

Hmm, my directline went up by £2.50 this year, maybe I need to switch? Maybe not as they are still cheaper than most of the ones on the comparison types.