It is that time of year for me again, car insurance renewal.
For the past few years I have insured through the IAM (Inst of Advanced Motorists) and their people in Northern Ireland, they are my broker so to say. Now I know that insurance has rocketed but from 2 years ago £320 to a quote of £495 now, full no claims, no points etc is ludicrous.
I phoned them and said can you improve on this figure as it seems very high and got the normal “uninsured drivers, legal claims, people suing etc”
Taking this into account I phoned round wasting my time and came up with a quote of £403 from the AA (that was a surprise). I phoned my people back and said, tuff tits better quote from the AA, immediately they quoted £380.
Why do we have brokers when they are not doing the best for me by doing the phoning round and getting the best quote, if they do nothing then I may as well do the calling, but I really feel I should be paying someone else to do this.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Caveat emptor. 🙂
Just been through this with 2 cars Rick. I was going to scrap one but decided to see if it would pass an MOT, which it did, so now its a mobile dustbin. Going on line to a ‘comparison site’ was a big mistake, leading to unsolicited phone calls. I was surprised to get mixed messages about my ‘no claims discount’ from all insurers. Both cars have me listed as the main driver – if were to start again I would lie about one of them (although 1 is my wife’s car, I am the one who drives it the most). To keep my no claims discount (on both cars) I had to insure both cars with the same insurer.
A long and boring story, the outcome being my old insurer stating that “The price is a loss leader to get my custom and will be loaded back on at the next premium” (as if they didn’t use the same tactic!). Letters from both the old and the new insurer, generated by computers, sent erroneously, which indicated lack of data coordination (both withdrawn following phone calls).
One thing I have noticed when they ask questions is “do you hold a full licence” to which I do. So when insuring daughters car she puts me on the policy to keep her premiums down, they asked if she wanted the wife on there which would make her premium even less, however the wife has a full UK licence, but for automatic only, which doesn’t bother them despite the fact daughters car is manual. It beggars belief.