Car Insurance Tips & Tricks

A question about : Car Insurance Tips & Tricks

My article on Car insurance - on how to cut the cost in four steps includes a list of hints and tips as well as the main system. If you have any additional tips or tricks (legal) for reducing car insurance, please write your information and experiences here, by clicking reply

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Best answers:

• I am about to start shopping round again for car insurance as mine is up at the end of the month.
  Last year I found that by having my dad as a named driver on the policy brought the cost down about Ј20.
  I was a 26 yr old male with 4yrs no claims. I was also told that insuring your no claims bonus is a waste of time. Not sure why but I have never bothered since.
• please can you replay to my help on first time insurance.
  :-/
• i always without fail, shop around every year 1month before expiry date.
  Last year i took out car insurance with a company who gave me an on par insurance for less with my last insurance company who was underwriting it!
  Then the previous company, sent me a questionaire why i did not take out a policy with them again!
  When i asked why i could obtain cheaper insurance with another company that they underwrite, no reply.
  No wonder Winston is turning in his grave(clue).
• If you are a young driver, take "Pass Plus" lessons, it costs about Ј300, but insurance companies will, most of the time give you a 30% discount.
  They dont usually ask you if you have it, so you have to tell them about it.
  Direct Line takes 30% off for the 1st year.
• A particularly useful tip for those of us who live in Northern Ireland - buy a Porsche! I have a classic Porsche and when I needed insurance for my wife's normal car the premium from my specialist classic car insurer was about Ј300 less than a quote from a mainstream company meaning I effectively insure my Porsche for free with enough left over for servicing.
  It works like this - the classic insurer assumes that since you own a classic car you must be a more careful driver than the general public, hence they are able to offer lower premiums on their "everyday" insurance policies.
  It doesn't have to be a Porsche - buy a cheap MG midget and either stick it in the garage (in which case you can get even cheaper "off-road" insurance) or enjoy yourself by taking it out a few times in the summer!
• "If you are a young driver, take "Pass Plus" lessons, it costs about Ј300"
  I completely agree with this tip but not so sure about the cost. !When I did it 3 years ago it was basically six extra lessons at the same rate as my normal driving lessons, which I took with the same instructor after I'd passed my test so cost me around Ј120.
  Andrea !
• After shopping around, I've found that Sainsbury's motor insurance was the cheapest. If you have a Reward Card they give you 1000 points for signing up, plus if you pay with a Sainsbury's Visa card you'll get double points. My son who is 26, single & lives at home drives a Ford Zetec Fiesta was with Tesco but Sainsnbry's beat their price by a mile!
• If you (any age) don''t have a no claims discount then try the Co-operative Insurance Society (CIS). They won't come up on all internet searches because they only quote over the phone (or so they told me) but they give an introducttory 45% NCD to new customers
• Here is some madness.
  I received my NU Direct renewal at a price of Ј425. I decided to check this online with NU Direct, and with the same criteria the quote was Ј315.
  I rang NU Direct to ask why, and was put through to an Indian call centre. I was asked to give all my details of insurance again (which took 27 minutes!!!!!!!) and even then the quote was over Ј400. Nobody could tell me why there was this huge difference between online price and renewal price (they suggested it was due to the 5% online discount ???). Nobody would even call me back to explain why. >
  I ended up taking up the online NU Direct quotequote. :-/
  Incidentally, the nearest Tesco quote was Ј333 and I am told by NU Direct that they underwrite the Tesco policies.
• Sorry Martin, but did we not go through ALL this in May or April? IE ALL cut to the bone-- no curtesy car,no foreign travel, no legal exps,car in drive, EXACT mileage declared, spouse on as second driver etc etc Ј150.00 excess etc AND IT COMES BACK to good ol` Ryl & Sun All. now called MoreThan WAS nr end of Yell. Pages
  @ 5/01 they saved me Ј69.00 @5/02 they cut ANOTHER Ј22.00 OFF & @5/03 ANOTHER Ј29.00 , ALL without being asked!! AND for the last 3 yrs Tesco AND Sainsburys have been more expensive. NOW on 65% NCD GUARANTEED FOR LIFE.
• ???One trick I have heard of to reduce car premiums for prospective new drivers is to take out insurance for a moped or scooter when 16, even if you have not quite bought it yet!!!!! Then when you are old enough to drive a car at 17 you will already have some no claims bonus. The cost of the moped insurance can be considerably less than the savings of your no claims discount on car insurance.
• I didn't think that no claims on bike insurance could be used for cars.
  I certainly been told that in the past.
  Has anyone done this recently?
• Dirty trick for insuring older cars and vehicles with lower market value, basically anything you would normally insure under Third Party Only:
  Find a company that offers DOC extension to basic policy. DOC stands for "Drive Other Cars", it's a clause to normal policy which extends the third party cover for you to drive any other car that is not owned, registered, or being hired to you.
  In practice what it means is that you get insurance (and DOC extension) for Insurance Group 1 dirt cheap Fiat Panda and drive Insurance Group 16 class car, be it 2.6 litre Ford Mondeo Ghia X or BMW Z3 Convertible as long as the car you drive is owned by your wife (and vice versa) and you're fine with the fact the car is covered TPO.
  Obviously it would be insane to use it for new cars but if you drive a car like Mondeo, big Citroen, Cavalier or any vehicle with sky high depreciation and market value lower than accident repair costs (especially in urban areas with risk zone factor 5 or 6) then Ј1,500 quote could suddenly become Ј400, all legal and in accordance with terms and conditions...
• I have a tip for saving money but only if you pay in monthly instalments.
  Most insurers charge an APR if you pay them monthly rather than annually. Check the APR for this - they could be ripping you off! We checked our two companies last May when renewal was due and found the APR was 18% and 10% respectively!
  So we paid them in a lump sum from a credit card (in this case Smile at 9.9%). That saved is Ј40 on two policies that cost us Ј900 between them.
  I was then lucky enough to get the 0% Barclaycard and transferred this balance across. This means I now save Ј130 compared to if I'd paid monthly direct to the insurerers.
  You do have to be disciplined and pay off the card within 1 year but we just pay the same payments by Standing Order to Barclays and are looking forward to clearing the balance a month early in April - leaving us with an extra Ј130 to spend/save during that month!
  Ian Ridley
• Ian, thats a superb trick, and one I should have thought of. (all the best ones are obvious once you think of them). Ut hmmm...... it may just appear ini my book
• One very large insurer dropped interest for monthly payments - they now add what they call an admin fee
  strangely from the renewals (i'm a broker) I see this admin fee varies - directly in relation to the the premium-
  I calculate at a rate similiar to 12% APR
  - but of course they don't quote an APR as its a admin fee.
  Some comanies don't charge extra for monthly premiums (although you could say they don't offer discount for annual)
  CARE some brokers now selling home & car insurance on annual basis - funded by credit finance (effectively a loan) - some cases the interest charged is higher than that offered by the insurers own monthly plan!!!
  I prefer monthly (if no extra cost) for my clients as usually if no claim !that year the company will not charge any penalty (you just cancel DD) rather than trying to get a rebate from the insurer ! -
  I advise on home insurance - rather than motor !- but
  I believe that in the Motor Ins world the rebates on a cancelled policy are less if its the first year you have been insured with them.
• My car insurance is up for renewal and I’ve been shopping around. During the year we had 2 incidents where our car was damaged but we weren’t driving it at the time. The first was caused when nieghbour left his handbrake off and his car rolled into our garage door pushing it into the car inside – this was fully reclaimed from his insurer we didn’t even have to find and reclaim the excess. The second incident was caused by a kid on a pushbike crashing into the car on our drive, we had to pay excess (the claim was nearly Ј1000!) but we have protected no claims.
  When entering quote details on Elephant I put one incident under my name and one under my wife’s (second named driver and a housewife). My wife also has a speeding conviction. Not happy with the initial quote of Ј862 I put all incidents under my wife’s name and the premium reduced to Ј768. Since no driver was involved in either indecent I assume that this is acceptable.
  Does this make sense?
• i have a number of tax exempt cars (ie pre 1972) that i drive regularly. Mostly these have been insured at the most basic level through Tesco's but i now want to move to fully comp - trouble is that i cant find any way to either find all the companies that offer classic car insurance, or to compare the quotes
  does anybody know of any good websites out there that will do this or can recommend a particular company?