There’s no love lost with car insurance companies

My wife received her car insurance renewal today. In round figures they want £450 to renew when she paid £250 last year. My wife is a keen shopper but she’s also a loyal customer. Whatever she buys is well worth the money but normally from the same sources. Unfortunately she has to become an unfaithful customer.

Because there’s no love lost with car insurance companies. Despite my wife’s loyalty the insurance company will take her for £200. Sounds silly but think how it makes up for the tight deals they do to win new business.

What’s amazing is the results of her shopping around getting direct online car insurance quotes.

The first 9 car insurance companies she got quotes from directly online were all under £250. 4 of which were under £200.

I suggested she search ‘car insurance for over 50s.’ She got the same range of price so they want your business but the quote won’t necessarily be the cheapest because you’re over 50. She didn’t get any advantage by searching, ‘car insurance for women over 50.’

My wife was so incensed she decided to visit her insurers site to get a direct quote. WOW. No £450 quote – they were the cheapest. She wouldn’t give it to them though, out of principle. It’s a pity.

Next she visited one car comparison site because she was ‘confused.’ They asked her for her renewal quote. She entered the sub-£200 direct car insurance quote from her insurer, not the £450 she received in the post.

The car insurance comparison company beat the quote. But the question is what would she have got if she’d entered £450 as a renewal quote. It also mashed up every quote she’s previously received – some higher – some lower.

I can only say after 43 years selling cars that car insurance companies are respected as master marketers. They take a product and create many different products through different distribution channels and different promotions with different prices. You have to pick the bones out of it all.

It is worth the hours of effort to shop directly with car insurance companies before you go compare the market. Saving hundreds of pounds can contribute to other costs like interest payments, fuel costs or servicing.

I’ve tried to unpick car insurance over on carbuyersinfo by detailing what you need to know and making the point savings are real. I’ve detailed the information you need before you start shopping, made the point the quotes are free car insurance quotes and added the FSA’s advice. I maybe patronising when suggesting how to make comparisons and providing a list of car insurance companies to contact direct.

The point is you can save a lot of money. Up to £2,000 in some instances I’ve come across.

I hope this post is interesting and useful. If you go across to carbuyersinfo the advice could help you save money.

If you think your family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances could benefit from this please Facebook or tweet it.

You may wonder why I don’t name and shame our present insurer and recommend our new insurer. The reason is not only do car insurance companies mix products, distribution, promotions and prices, I believe they change the odds like bookies. So if they have a volume of bets, or profit for the day they can switch from profit to volume or visa versa. In the same way if they have their quota for sex, age, occupation – whatever and types of cars they up the price and move to different mixes. It’s fair enough because they must balance their books – I don’t know! Who does – shop around.

Regards
Ralph
carbuyersinfo.co.uk. car comparisons to help you find a car to suit your purpose and purse

How long does it take to phone a long list of car insurance companies?

This is worth near 4 million pounds to you – a spoof but true. It’s a bit like Jamie’s 30-minute meals. He’s done the preparation, got the resources, and the ingredients are sitting on his shelves. You just get to see 30 minutes of action.

Over on carbuyersinfo I’ve prepared a list of car insurance companies. You just need to copy and paste my list into a column on a spreadsheet to make them a resource – something you can benefit and profit from in the future.

You need at hand your name, address, DOB, marital status, gender, email address and telephone number – you know that.

You need correct details of your car, parking, mileage and use.

Your licence is something to look after and protect in terms of convictions, points, fines and bans. The word care covers it.

So you’ve got a list of car insurance companies and the answers to their questions. You need to create columns for premium, excess, duration, quote reference, breakdown and legal cover, hire and injury for inclusion or added cost.

You need the one payment price and monthly cost.

I say phone a list but nowadays your pushed online to do the work of their receptionists. The online quote only counts if you make an upfront payment. If you go monthly you lose the online discount and then pay added interest. Something you might like to complain about to the FSA. Why should you lose the online price by paying monthly? You just spent an age doing their work for them plus given them data they sell on. Interest is something else. BUT IN TOTAL YOU’LL PAY 25% MORE PER ANNUM. What’s the base or interbank rate today?

How long does it take to get quotes from all the companies on my list. ALL DAY. 8-hours. BUT we did this exercise against a £1400 renewal quote and got it down to £600 cash. We got that on quote #15 but still kept going – you never know. £800 saving in one day. Which is about the return you’d expect if you had near £4 million invested. Not a bad days work. Take the day off work. Break the British economy with absenteeism until we get cheaper car insurance.

Save yourself  a fortune by going over to what everyone needs to know about car insurance and read the whole boring sequence just because it can mean so much money to you. There’s nothing to buy, no subscription, it’s all free like car insurance quotes. The message is they are free car insurance quotes, get as many as possible.

Regards
Ralph
carbuyersinfo Car Comparison Site Differences and Similarities Revealed.

Need a list of car insurance companies to phone direct?

The bigger your list of car insurance companies, the more car insurance quotes you can get in, which increases your chances of saving big money.

Here’s your big car insurance companies list.

You must phone car insurance companies direct before you use car insurance comparison sites because once you use a comparison site they bag you as their customer. If you use a comparison site and then phone direct the insurance companies will say they’ve already quoted you through the comparison site. Getting quotes from comparison sites severely limits your ability to later shop around directly.

Regards
Ralph

Hundreds of Car Reviews and Comparisons

When I first started making cars comparisons it was a hobby. I’d retired from 43-years selling cars and it kept my hand in. Over the years I’ve gradually found the best visual format for comparing cars. The format in recent car reviews to compare new entrants into the Crossover 4×4 SUV market really works best.

On most other car comparison sites you have to view multiple pages to make a car comparison. I’ve managed to compare all the figures for car price, dimensions, fuel economy, CO2 emissions, maximum speed and acceleration on one screen as in my Skoda Yeti review .

I’ve also added a sequence of articles highlighting the importance of direct car insurance comparison quotes which can save you hundreds every year.

The thing is the interest in carbuyersinfo car comparison pages just keeps growing month on month. The joke is I’ve never even generated a header creative to identify the site. Still thousands of visitors come directly through their browser to the site every month with half my page visits back for a second time or more.

The decision has always been to add new car comparisons, improve visitors experience on old pages or generate a creative for the header. Maybe I must get round to making the pages flashier.

Another thing I struggle with is I can quantify price, performance, versatility, economy and safety but not comfort and style. Cars in the same class seem so similar to me that it’s only your taste in comfort and style that separates them.

Prestige is another car feature which is difficult to deal with. How highly a car owner think of a car can be approached differently. For example, high levels of ownership satisfaction for Skoda, Hyundai and Kia vs what a premium brand name means to an Audi, BMW, Merc owner.

Anyway, all goes well. I’ve just got to get serious and put a banner up to head 1,600 pages.

Regards
Ralph