Insurance

[Howden Insurance - Specialist Vehicle]

On 07/08/2020 at 19:48, Stuart said:

 

 

I'm been with them for 6 years now.  But the renewal notice says this "....if you have been with us for a number of years you may be able to get the insurance cover you want want at a better price if you shop around".  The underwriters are Highway Insurance and I'm reading that as a nod that I might be being caned for loyalty  by Highway.    

 

It's an FCA requirement to include that sentence in the documentation now - all insurers/brokers will have it stated somewhere  

[Howden Insurance - Specialist Vehicle]

It's always worth checking your details at renewal too as a small change could make a difference. Things like mileage/useage - occupation. These can change over a year and many people who've got married, retired and now do less miles just automatically go "no changes, same as last year" then we check the details and they go oh no she's my wife now (changes from insured and named, to insured and spouse), I'm retired (no longer need the option to commute) etc etc... Just do a quick run through of the main details and we can check if it effects your premium  a lot can happen in a year  

 

Also - don't forget how lovely we are at A-Plan 😋

 

Carlie

[djm]

On 07/08/2020 at 12:42, Stuart said:

having not been able to use the car for 3 months. 

As an aside my daughter and her husband who lives in the States both had a $50 refund come out of the blue for their car insurance during lockdown. Anyone aware of any UK insurance companies doing that?

[DonPeffers]

1 hour ago, djm said:

As an aside my daughter and her husband who lives in the States both had a $50 refund come out of the blue for their car insurance during lockdown. Anyone aware of any UK insurance companies doing that?

Only Admiral in UK AFAIAA.    https://www.admiral.com/stayathome

 

"We were delighted to give back £110 million to our car and van insurance customers in recognition of them staying at home and driving less during the UK-wide Coronavirus lockdown.

A £25 premium refund was automatically given to all customers for each car and van that was covered by us on 20 April 2020 - a total of 4.4m vehicles.

We gave customers the refund to reflect that there were fewer cars on the road during the lockdown, and our customers drove less, which resulted in fewer insurance claims."

 

IIRC payment was made in May 2020 but I'm not with Admiral.

 

I reckon it's pretty shocking that no other insurers have followed suit.

[djm]

54 minutes ago, DonPeffers said:

I reckon it's pretty shocking that no other insurers have followed suit.

 

I agree I will be having the conversation with my insurers when renewal time comes around!

[Mighty Mart]

Always to sides to look at something.....

If they can afford to give back £25 to all policy holders, perhaps they were overcharging to start with....

Mart.

[Howden Insurance - Specialist Vehicle]

One other insurer I've seen (can't remember which one) did £25 back also I believe but didn't advertise it like Admiral have - majority of insurers didn't because it depends on how their claims were effected really. Admiral may have seen a decrease but there have been increased car thefts in particular models of vehicles so depends on the insurers risk profile of what they cover. (For example Land Rovers/Range Rovers thefts have been very high so if an insurer has a lot of these on their books they will have had an increase in claims)

 

Specialist policies are unlikely to have seen a change as often these vehicles don't get driven very much anyway, plus in the grand scheme of things... £25 would look great on say a £200 premium but if you've got a higher premium say paying £500/600 then £25 isn't much in way of premium percentage.

 

 

Also note, some insurers who have returned premium amounts may have made staff redundancies etc so will have saved elsewhere. None of our staff in A-Plan Specialist have been furloughed, there's also been no change in service where we were quick to get set up working from home for you - other insurers were not so ready and ended up with 2/3hour call wait times, our average wait time even through lockdown has been 20 seconds. So the £25 issued back could also be a way of compensation for the drop in service level.

 

Food for thought  

[Dommo]

Is KGM a new underwriter A-Plan are using? Just got off the phone with Kerry and switching from Highway to them has saved me about £50 (granted, some of that was ditching legal cover, so just over £20 really). That's still quite a saving percentage-wise and has saved me the bother or shopping around again 😄

[Steve (sdh2903)]

Having just sorted my insurance again this morning. The prices between FJ, flux and A-plan were all very close. However i just find flux very very pushy on the phone.

 

A plan (jack) just a pleasure to deal with and a club sponsor so went with them.

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

8 minutes ago, Steve (sdh2903) said:

However i just find flux very very pushy on the phone.

 

I got a (comparative) quote from them a few years ago, same thing. Very, very pushy on the phone, with all the usual tricks to try and close the sale. Then kept emailing and phoning up for weeks afterwards. Will never contact them again.

[MR.C]

My renewal came a week ago,so I phoned 2 more company's and saved £30

Aplan have a new customer 😁

[tolf]

Tried Footman James, received the message Unable to quote. Have two cars to insure. 
Fine, forget them, their loss, will go to Flux

[Ian Kinder (Bagpuss) - Joint Peak District AO]

6 hours ago, Ian Tolfree (tolf) - WSCC AO Rep said:

Tried Footman James, received the message Unable to quote. Have two cars to insure. 
Fine, forget them, their loss, will go to Flux

Any reason you're not going to try A-Plan?

[tolf]

1 hour ago, Ian Kinder (Bagpuss) - Joint Peak District AO said:

Any reason you're not going to try A-Plan?

And them!

 

[djm]

On 19/08/2020 at 12:41, djm said:

 

I agree I will be having the conversation with my insurers when renewal time comes around!

Update:

My tintop insurance renewal came this week from LV and it hadn't gone up as much as usual but I gave them a call and said that I had only done a fraction of my normal mileage due to Covid 19 and I didn't actually expect it to go up at all! They immediately reduced it by 5% which brought it down below last years premium. They then said that as I had mentioned Covid as a "gesture of good will" they were crediting my CC with £20. It appears that you only get the gesture of good will payment if you mention Covid! 

Anyone else had a similar experience?