Car Insurance - the auto-renewal rip-off

[Ian Morgan]

I just had my renewal letter from a well know insurance company, wanting £343.54 (£9 lower than last year).

 

I went to a well known comparison website and gave the meercat all the details, and the second lowest quote was for £261.15 for the same cover, and from the same insurer.

 

So I called the company, and after a long wait listening to their on-hold music, they instantly agreed to match the offer from the website.

 

So, never, ever, accept auto-renewal of insurance. It is likely that all insurance companies will try to rip off existing customers.

 

 

[Titan]

They are changing the law on this, not sure when it comes into force but when it does it will be illegal for the auto renewal quote to be any higher than for the same cover as a new customer.

[andyman7]

For the renewal quote full stop - not just auto renewal, and the law came in on 1 Jan, so it would be interesting to note when the letter was posted....

[spamcan61]

I just had my renewal notice through for my car insurance, premium quoted as 201 quid compared with 206 quid last year, so for once I'm spared the tedious rigmarole of getting an online quote and haggling. Did take a quick look online and lowest like for like quote was 186 quid, can't be bothered to change for a less than 20 quid saving. 

[Derekl]

47 minutes ago, Titan said:

They are changing the law on this, not sure when it comes into force but when it does it will be illegal for the auto renewal quote to be any higher than for the same cover as a new customer.

 

Yes, the law has changed, but the OP's quote complied - it was lower than the price he paid last year.

 

Was it LV? I had something similar - renewal quote for £x - checked on-line and LV offered to insure me for £x - £50, which I sorted out with a phone call. The impression I had was that this is not exactly unknown - the call handler expressed no surprise.

[ejstubbs]

I've always religiously shopped around come renewal time but for the last five years at least I've never managed to find a conspicuously better deal than the renewal quote once all factors (details of cover, excess etc) are taken into account. It's probably helped that we've had a multi-car policy for some time now, and most of the alternative quotes have been to cover both cars separately.

 

Hopefully the new rules will go some way to obviating the annual faff, given that it's turned out to be largely a waste of time for us in the recent past.

[Titan]

21 minutes ago, Derekl said:

 

Yes, the law has changed, but the OP's quote complied - it was lower than the price he paid last year.

 

 

No, the law requires that the quote matches the price for new customers, not that it is lower than last year, so even if it is lower than last years quote, it is still illegal if it is not as low as the quote for new customers.

[Reorte]

Not quite the same since it was from a different company (and of course they're under no obligation to match competitor's prices), but a few years ago I found a significantly cheaper quote so phoned up to cancel the automatic renewal.

"You should've called us first, we might've been able to do something."

"If so you should've offered me that when you posted me your automatic renewal quote, bye!"

[Legend]

Never auto renew . I did that with Direct Line and was massively over quoted . Fortunately the previous year I had compared with comparethemarket.com who automatically sent me an email coming up for renewal showing all the options , most of which were less than Direct Line !  I was able to go onto Direct Line and they almost matched the quote . I wasnt going to change for a fiver so elected to stay with them . However auto renew seems to make them think they have a captive market that wont be bothered checking !

[Ron Ron Ron]

We have this same song and dance every year.

Renewal notice comes in,  check the online quotes with the Meerkat, fat welsh bloke, etc,  phone our insurer up,  get them to match their own online quote or we b***er off somewhere else.

 

The usual excuse is that we're on an older policy that they're not marketing now.

So they put us on the new policy at a much lower premium.

Exactly the same cover, excess's, discounts, multi-car, etc, etc.

 

 

British Gas HomeCare is another one.

Renewal creeps up each year.

After a couple of years of small and not so small increases, I start to think the premium is now way too high.

Do an online quote for the same cover and low and behold, it comes in under half price.

Last year we did this for ourselves, our son's place and both widowed mothers. 4 policies on 4 properties.

Saved literally hundreds of pound just over one year.

 

 

 

.

 

[Nearholmer]

Isn’t this rip-off illegal after February this year?

 

very much hope so, because when I was working full time and seriously busy I got ripped by not giving it enough attention.

[Ian Morgan]

4 hours ago, Derekl said:

Was it LV?

 

Naming no names, but 'Woof!".

 

[njee20]

26 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Isn’t this rip-off illegal after February this year?

 

From 1st January, but all they have to do is not charge more for renewals than they do new customers. Doesn’t mean there needs to be parity across suppliers, so it’ll still make sense to shop around, although I expect prices will now just rise.  

[Derekl]

4 hours ago, Titan said:

 

No, the law requires that the quote matches the price for new customers, not that it is lower than last year, so even if it is lower than last years quote, it is still illegal if it is not as low as the quote for new customers.

 

Not quite, as usual there are complexities - it requires that the insurer not charge more than the charge to new customers coming from the same "channel" - so if you bought through a price comparison site then the renewal premium should not be greater than the charge to new customers on the site at the time of renewal. But if you bought through a different comparison site, or, as happens, checked the policy price on the comparison site and then went to the insurer direct, they do not have to match the proposals to new customers on the comparison site, but proposals to new customers that come to them direct.

 

So if, like me, you have received a renewal proposal, found the police cheaper on a comparison web-site, then  reverted to the insurer direct to secure the lower premium, the insurer is not bound to offer you a price at the same or lower level than the comparison site, only at the same or lower level than a new customer in your position approaching them direct.

 

You describe it as "illegal" - it is a breach of an FCA rule. I cannot see what the penalties are.

[Night Train]

My renewal letter came through with the quote £120 less than last year. Needless to say, I accepted that.

[Ray H]

49 minutes ago, Night Train said:

My renewal letter came through with the quote £120 less than last year. Needless to say, I accepted that.

 

And my house insurance - due at the turn of the year - was cheaper last month then the year before. I hope the same will apply to the car insurance in a few months time.

[Reorte]

5 hours ago, Ray H said:

 

And my house insurance - due at the turn of the year - was cheaper last month then the year before. I hope the same will apply to the car insurance in a few months time.

Hope house insurance is cheaper too, I've found practically no choice whatsoever with that. They claim it's a flood risk. I originally assumed because of the canal (same level as the house) but no, it's the large stream / small river a little way behind it, about 25' lower than the house. There's thin red line skirting the banks on the flood risk map for high flood risk, just for the small amount it can spread out before reaching the steep banks it'll never come anywhere near getting over unless there's so much rain the whole of Manchester will be under water. But according to insurance companies being near something marked as high flood risk is no different to actually being in it - they essentially claim the maps are wrong.

[TheQ]

15 minutes ago, Reorte said:

Hope house insurance is cheaper too, I've found practically no choice whatsoever with that. They claim it's a flood risk. I originally assumed because of the canal (same level as the house) but no, it's the large stream / small river a little way behind it, about 25' lower than the house. There's thin red line skirting the banks on the flood risk map for high flood risk, just for the small amount it can spread out before reaching the steep banks it'll never come anywhere near getting over unless there's so much rain the whole of Manchester will be under water. But according to insurance companies being near something marked as high flood risk is no different to actually being in it - they essentially claim the maps are wrong.

if you're old enough try saga, they found an insurance company that used the full post code and map for our house which correctly puts it on an Island if there is a flood.. Other companies (like the one used by our previous mortgage holder ) used a short postcode which said we were soggy.. 

Edited January 25, 2022 by TheQ

[Bulleidboy100]

You usually find that if you have received a renewal quote you are not happy with, a quick phone call will work wonders. In this day and age with so much competition, most companies would rather accept less (a review of the quote given) than lose a customer.

[Reorte]

28 minutes ago, TheQ said:

if you're old enough try saga, they found an insurance company that used the full post code and map for our house which correctly puts it on an Island if there is a flood.. Other companies (like the one used by our previous mortgage holder ) used a short postcode which said we were soggy.. 

 

Still got a five years to go... Thanks for the suggestion though, maybe one to bear in mind for the future. I'm not sure if anything on the other side of the river is in the same full postcode or not, can never remember that.

[TheQ]

https://www.freemaptools.com/uk-postcode-map.htm

[njee20]

25 minutes ago, Reorte said:

 

Still got a five years to go... Thanks for the suggestion though, maybe one to bear in mind for the future. I'm not sure if anything on the other side of the river is in the same full postcode or not, can never remember that.

 

May be worth checking - they can't actually exclude you solely on your age, although they may of course offer vastly favourable terms to those with a little more 'maturity'!

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, TheQ said:

if you're old enough try saga, they found an insurance company that used the full post code and map for our house which correctly puts it on an Island if there is a flood.. Other companies (like the one used by our previous mortgage holder ) used a short postcode which said we were soggy.. 

 

My house was insured by Saga last year - this year they trebled the quote.  So I insured it with a competitor who charged me less than Saga had last year.   I don't know whether it's gone up because of flood risk, but neither the house nor the river moved since last year..  I am only about 150 yards from a "river" - it's all of 6" deep, it runs from springs a mile to south of here to half a mile north where it joins a larger river.

 

House insurance comes up for renewal in the New Year - it's a real pain in the backside trying to get through on the phone to insurance companies over the Xmas/ New Year holiday period.  Quite apart from having to listen repeatedly to all that monotonous cr*p about we record the calls, we've regulated by....

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, Bulleidboy100 said:

You usually find that if you have received a renewal quote you are not happy with, a quick phone call will work wonders.

 

There's no such thing as a quick phone call to these call centres.

[uax6]

My car insurance renewal came through the post at the end of last week, up almost £100 on last year... On phoning around (I only run moggy minors) I found that a couple of other specialists couldn't match the new quote, but that a local big specialist could smash it (and the bloke on the line lived in the next village!). 

So I phoned my existing insurance (who I've been with for 25 years, and yes I did shop around in that time, but no-one could match them) and asked why the price had jumped so much: my existing policy was a legacy one, and the new price was the best they could do, not even possible to knock anything off. So I said that after 25 years I'm walking away, they said goodbye!

I find that sort of customer 'care' bizarre, even more so when the end less on hold messages claim that they have won yet another customer care award...

 

Andy G