Hey all,

I'm possibly being daft here, but currently I'm paying a good price on my car insurance with DirectLine and it's up for renewal at the end of next month. Now having had no accidents, claims and the fact I'm a year older, can I presume that the policy can just carry on running? at a similar* cost?

* using the term loosely, don't mind paying a few more ££.. in total

cheers all.

Yes, they will send you a letter a month or so before the current policy expires offering you a new premium for the same level of cover. If you do nothing it will just roll on and the direct debit will be ammended/you send them a new cheque. The cost will go up mind, even by a nominal amount (think mine went up by ~£30 in ~£250). Best to at least shop around and see if you can better it (I couldn't)

Yes it can.

Cost will go up though, as they like to make money that way. The only people I have ever known not to do that are Ford Insure – my wife's insurance is actually going down each year.

Generally it's very much worth looking around since most insurance companies send higher quotes for returning customers as a ploy to improve their margins on the people who don't look around. There is no such thing as loyalty in the car insurance game.

Cheers, if it's up by around £50 then I'll probs just leave it rather than shopping around, save the hastle. Any more and I'll go compare.

Although I seem to recall DirectLine would match ANY quote, hmm.

mastiles_fanylion – Member
Yes it can.

Cost will go up though, as they like to make money that way. The only people I have ever known not to do that are Ford Insure – my wife's insurance is actually going down each year.

Some chap I know was insured with NFU (yes, the farmers' union) and his went down.

The current practice of increasing renewal premiums is called renewal pricing. It relies on customer apathy to make money.

The problem I have with Direct Line is that every year the cost creeps up, I phone them and they justify the price through various bulshitty stories, I then tell them that I have found a much cheaper quote (always a genuine quote which can be proved) which they then price match!!! PITA every year, but I'm now paying 350,00€ fully comp agianst over 600,00€ 4-5 years ago!!

Try giving them another quote, nothing to lose.

The current practice of increasing renewal premiums is called renewal pricing. It relies on customer apathy to make money.

Yep – we halved our house insurance after two years of not checking. 🙁 I feel ashamed to admit that fact!

if it's up by around £50 then I'll probs just leave it rather than shopping around

That's how they make their money. Do it if you like as it'll make my premium cheaper. Shopping around takes minutes, can you make £50 that easily? Once you have a figure you can go back to original insurer who will probably match it to save any paperwork.

It's worth getting any insurer to requote, IME. Even going back to the same insurer, I've always been given a lower quote by asking "can you requote that?"

You'll be lucky if it goes up £50.
Just had mine and it went up 40% with nothing changing – nearly £200!

Some chap I know was insured with NFU (yes, the farmers' union) and his went down.

BTW It's NFU Mutual, not the farmers union – lots of people mix the two up!!!! They offer a discount that increases the longer you've been insured with them up to a set amount.

Having said that motor rates are rising across all companies at the moment due to various factors. Always pays to shop around as said above but make sure that the cover you get is what you want – eg some give a courtesy car while others don't.

mine just went from £319 to £1300 with Churchill,i went elsewhere. 😯

Admiral – gone up by almost £400 (each year with them) – expires tonight at midnight and we have both just discovered this…we are currently checking other sites out and appear to have got both cars down to almost £500 – even with my 3 claims (1 was black ice, 1 was my fault and 1 was someone drove into me – first 2 I take the hit but third is still being held against me as I made a claim (I didn't as the driver admitted everything and got her insurance to do it all but that still counts as me making a claim!)).

@rse!

Thanks all!

Definately shop around! I just got a renewal for £565 (was £340 last year), their online price with the same details were £320!) So I cancelled and tried to buy it online, I then was instructed to phone them, which I did, the upshot is I went elsewhere as they wouldn't honour the quote.
In short I saved over £200 for looking around. Sod loyalty, you don't owe them.