You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Renewal quote just in.
Same car, same address same drivers same everything.
£450 last year, £749 this year!
Mrs Seadog has got this reduced by increasing Voluntary Excess and reducing annual mileage to close to actual. Still lots more.
Blimey.
Just have to shop around unfortunately. I had a good couple of years with A Plan at around £3/400 but in Jan this year their renewal was a good £1000 increase. Did the comparison to-and-fro and now with Adrian Flux for the slightly more acceptable sum of ~£750, although that's after some beefy modifications so I don't feel too hard done by.
Van insurance was tasty too - £800 for a 15yo T5 - but it's new to us so not got anything to compare with
Mine was 60% up with Direct line. Strangely, my dad’s went down about £80, also with Direct Line
It is somewhat non-sensical.
Camper - 2no. 49yr olds with 15yrs NCB - decreased £6 to £400ish. Would not even consider insuring the 22 year old who used to have his own camper and 2yrs NCB insured with them. Cheapest other quote with the 22 year old was £3600 and £900 excess....
Fabia estate - doubled from £500 to £1000. Refused to insure the 18 year old who they insured last year. Cheapest quote for the 18 year old was many £000's.
No claims, no points, no change in circumstances.
It seems anything deemed a slight risk has a much harsher rise in cost than before...
Apparently "Insurers say rises are partly due to general inflation, rising car repair costs - with garages charging more for parts and labour - and paying out more for written-off cars, due to the value of used cars getting ever higher"
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/tips/2023/10/31/
Not just us then.
Shopping around made very little difference.
We did get it down to a reasonable increase, mainly by reducing the annual milage. We had 11k, but it's actually more like 7k averaged over the last 3 years.
@Matt_outand about Interesting your point about the Fabia. My daughter, in her thirties, has a 10yr old Fabia 1.2. Her quote was almost £200 more than previous year. We have a 4 car multi policy so I queried this & was told by two different people that they don't have information on how the computer algorism works things out regarding different manufacturers. Could be lots of Skoda claims in her area (lots of Skoda taxis), expensive parts etc etc. Also EV repairs are so expensive everyone's insurance gets adjusted upwards. Think it's been in the news & motoring mags.
Converted campervan (not VW). Insurance renewal quote came through and went down £70 so I have just left it to auto renew 🤯🤷
I was expecting a ~50% increase!
Mrs's renewal this month came in less than last year, so at least it isn't universal. Mine is next month. Even if it's something outrageous I'm fairly confident shopping around will find something as good or better. Was paying <£200 a year fully comp til a couple of years ago.
I wonder if they are trying to offset the cost of EV write offs by increasing policies across the board. I understand that fairly easy repairs are being deemed write offs due to the slight risk of battery damage/future liability? There has also been a lot of publicity over the price of EV policies.
I'm not knocking EVs at all, I'm a fan, just a theory
I work for an insurance fraud team.
Fraud goes up drastically as finances bite hard for people
The number of and the value of personal injury claims has gone down, so we are seeing a lot more unscrupulous solicitors and accident management companies etc turn to bent metal claims with large credit hire claims etc.
Plus many makes of car are struggling for parts, especially BMW, VW etc, so often insurers are writing off the cars instead of repairing to stop the large hire claims.
Finally there are more and more electric cars on the road, people think they are great for the environment, but very cagey second hand market, nightmare to repair, and often they are written off because of the cost of repairs, and the fact they need specialist repairers and disposal techniques. The days of repairing cars with a steel frame and metal wings and body parts attached to it are coming to an end, the use of exotic materials such as carbon fibre causes all manner of headaches, and even windscreens and the ike have become very complex to replace often.
Plus factor in things like the weather, how much rain and flooding have we had...
I wonder if they are trying to offset the cost of EV write offs by increasing policies across the board.
There's an equal(ish) chance that your cheaper older car is going to plough into a Taycan/Model Y/etc and write it off which your insurer will have to pay out for, compared to the EV owner wrecking their own vehicle.
Reading this makes me worried for my wife’s renewal in a few weeks. Her car is currently being repaired by the insurer after another knock 🫣. It’s ok though because she told me it wasn’t her fault…..again. She must just be unlucky, for the fourth time I guess.
I wonder if they are trying to offset the cost of EV write offs
It's not just EV repairs.
Modern cars have so many sensors that what was once simple body work repair, now involves huge labour connecting and disconnecting stuff to knock out a dent or spray a bumper.
One of my favourite YT channels (Salvage Rebuilds UK YouTube - SRUK) buy write offs and sell them on after doing them up. They make good money because cars get written off so cheaply by insurers. They did a VW Taigo that, I think, had 900 miles on it and was a write off. They could have made about £10k on that sale if they were greedy.
Frustratingly that £10k is part of the reason our premiums are going up.
EVs don't help of course, but all modern cars are so fiddly that repairs to anything are on a different level to a generation ago.
But huge PSA on Salvage Rebuilds. Great guys and a great channel if you are inclined.
My renewal came in £800 more than my current policy - with zero claims or incidents in 20+ years and no changes to my circumstances.
Even shopping around I struggled to get anything near my current policy price. So now the car is gone.
1.0 Skoda Fabia was one of the chrapest cars to fetch Jnr insured on 4 years ago. If more youngsters have got them because of this, then had more crashes, the risk profile will be changing.
That said, looking at the kids I know locally who have passed a test recently, it's not the car that is the problem.
Another small but contributing factor to the problems with EVs: they frequently require longer stopping distances, as they're usually 0.5-1 tonne heavier than a comparable sized petrol/diesel car. This just happened to or neighbours with their electric, 2.5t Kia SUV. On a dry road downhill, emergency braking for someone turning across them, theirs simply didn't slow down quickly enough. It's hard to be sure from the dashcam footage but it did look like it should be possible to be able to stop in time but the driver is adamant he was giving it everything...
Our two car policy with LV went from about £360 to £410. That's for a Fabia and a Superb in a rural setting in Angus, two semi-mature drivers, both clean.
Mine went up from £800 to £1400 but the original auto renewal was about £2200. One protected claim in period but that was all. Very much thinking of getting rid and getting an old banger.
Mine and my wife cars both stayed the same (LV which I switched to as the cheapest option last year for a company with feedback that suggests they actually pay out on stuff)
Home insurance is another matter though and has gone from £1500 to £2300 this year with no real options to switch as not many insurers cover thatched properties other than NFU (who I insure with) and a couple of companies I have never heard of.
Finally there are more and more electric cars on the road, people think they are great for the environment, but ... nightmare to repair
Just to give a bit of background on this, cost to replace one failed battery cell might be 4-6k.
Cost to replace an entire battery might be 40-50k. These are main dealer, premium marque prices.
Feel free to whinge about motor manufacturers' profit margins, or dealers for that matter. 😀
Oh, and JLR recently said they were going to put £1million into working to reduce the risk of theft of Range Rovers. Woohoo, that's nearly ten whole cars worth of money. :sarcasticsmiley:
Just done the wife’s Freelander 2. Current provider wanted an extra £100, up from £285.
Quick check on the comparison sites and got same level of cover but included RAC cover for £320.
We do live in a sleepy, low crime part of town and she’s never claimed or had points in 30 years of driving.
Both our house and car insurance increased this year, by a significant sum. Shopping around brought both of them back down to vaguely sensible levels similar to last year.
Mine and Wife's stayed the same. Son's car looks to be a massive increase - due next month, so he may SORN it as he is using the 'run about' 12 year old Aygo. That insurance is £1400 pa with a new driver and my 23 year old son as drivers (as well as me and MrsF).
~40% hike on ours come renewal last month. My initial reaction was "are you %^&*ing kidding me?" but half a day comparing wombats saved me about 80 quid. Premiums have shot up across the board.
I appreciate @scud's observations, but insurance on a 1 litre grannymobile Seat with 10 years NCD and taking additional voluntary excess really shouldn't be pushing £500.
This article last month was an eye-opener (TLDR: garages, claims management companies, car rentals, lawyers etc all make lots of money if claim payouts are higher)
As was this - Cash For Crash scams up by 6,000% last year
£475 last year. £600 renual quote this year. Phoned them and said its too much, can tou do anything? They then quoted £500. They exploit the lazy and the busy.
@pennine - I compared it to our old cars (Leon and Ibiza) - all were silly increase, it seems it is the young drivers they are looking to not cover/charge more for. Maybe there has been more of their mates crashing this year...
Slight thread drift - I had a near miss in a car park recently. Started to reverse out, usual watching several places at once. Rear window. Nose of car. Side window for the entrance road for cars entering the car park. Suddenly the car auto-braked to a complete stop. A car in one of the places directly across (which had been stationary when I started to reverse) had driven out and passed behind me close enough to trigger the braking sensors.
Learning p0int? It wouldn't have happened if I had reversed into my space and as I wasn't needing to use the boot no need to park nose in.
Well yeah, always reverse in. Usually I do that, then return with a full trolley of shopping and unable to get anywhere near the boot. Win/lose.
And yeah, it's shop around time for insurance now. Been with Tesco for years as they were cheap, but not this year so moved on to.... (can't remember.... whatever was top of the comparison list with a known breakdown bunch added in).
Ours went up £12. But changed cover to add commuting again after 5 years of wfh and and extra 6k miles a year. So I’m seeing that as a reduction in premium. #manmaths.
Rich_S all of your figures seem to be off by almost a factor 10. I3S battery pack is €8k at list €6.6k (still new from BMW) if you shop around. Those are fitted prices for a 42.2kWh pack in a CFRP casing with the BMS included. A colleague who looked into replacing the battery on his 8y old Tesla Model S with a higher capacity version was quoted £12k by Tesla.
Mine went up 100% in February turns out it was quite competitive! Direct line wouldn’t even quote.
Again no change in my circumstances!
My insurance came up for renewal with the AA, and I was quoted nearly £600, up from about £350, if I recall correctly. I was getting quotes from Confused, etc, for around £325-380 or thereabouts, but I thought I’d phone AA and see what happens. When you look at the likes of Confused, they’re just quoting numbers based on old information, or just winging it. Because I’m doing half the mileage I was over the last few years, I’m not commuting to work, I’m now retired and I’m already covered by AA through my bank account for recovery, I got it reduced to £386, about the same as most other insurers once various details were taken into consideration.
Quite pleased with that, just by talking to a human, rather than accepting what algorithms tell you.
difficult to tell as I've gone to a multicar policy to get my 20yo daughter's premium down, she had a small bump last year and her insurer declined this year. For the two of us it's 120 per month, for a 95k mile/2016 Sportage and a 90k mile/2007 Mitsu Swift
My 18yo son, newly passed, in a Citroen C1 of similar mileage and vintage to the Swift, was £1600.
Yes, dear reader, that's £3k on car insurance. My wife pays her own, it's about £375. I'm 55, professionally qualified, fairly senior role at work, and I can't afford Sky telly either.
I've had these crazy increases over the last few years. But a quick shop around or go back to original provider and the price is dropped, even below the yesr before.
No so now.
Not sure wtf is going on with insurance quotes at the moment. I've been with Admiral for last two years. Went from just under £300 to last year's renewal of £475. Tried the comparison sites, but were surprisingly competitive so decided to stay. Renewal came in today at £300!!! Volvo SUV driver too.
Just got my renewal quote, due at the end of the month. Up from £314 to £328. After all the threads on here about it I was expecting much worse. Will ring a couple of others too just in case. 2013 Transit camper conversion
It will be interesting to see what quotes I can get come renewal time, with 1yr NCB, clean record etc, but I've not had a car for about ten years.
Current insurance is about £500 on a 1.2l shopping cart, I'm hoping I can get that down to about £300 or better, as I was paying that much for a Volvo T5 AWD in a pervious life.
I'm mid 40's though, so that probably counts for a lot... young drivers are always going to get bummed on insurance, though, as they are a huge risk.
Just quoted 339 by esure, new to me aygo I have no ncd. Upped the xs to 1k and Inc breakdown, seems OK. Some of these big suv s must be eye watering.
Reported here last year that it doubled and now its gone up by another 50% - no claims and convictions 20+ years. The quote negotiations dance begins.
A tip that may work for some, but not all. Go max excess and then get excess insurance separately . Didn't work for me, but saved my wife about £200.
Mines up for renewal in November.. I wonder what it will be like.. I'll have one years no claims..
I'm a bit of an edge case though as I didn't have a car for about 8 years..so kind of starting again...
A 1.2l granny mobile, mid 40yr old, currently paying about £500 with zero NCB but a clean licence /record.
370 down from 375 last year, with the same insurer. 6 years no claims, 31 years old, business mileage policy on a 9 year old Passat.
Mines up 25% this year with my current provider (after a similar increase last year) and annoyingly I cannot beat it with any other provider.
My provider (was Flow, now branded Allianz) also have increased excesses so that's worth keeping an eye on.
517 -> 777 quoted with Tesco on a now 4 year old eNiro. Back down to 548 on a comparison site though the tesco quote was monthly the new policy paid upfront.
Home insurance also through this month 449 -> 491.
Youngest passed his test 2 weeks ago, age 17. He bought a car at the weekend (he's starting an apprenticeship in August and commuting by car is the best option otherwise its 2 trains and a lot of walking). We shopped around extensively and for many of the cars beyond group 6 or so (including his brothers 71 plate base Corsa 1.2) we were refused a quote. We were basing deal on him being the Policyholder and main driver and me the other named driver (aged 58, clean license)
He ended up with a 1 yr old base Polo, 1l and 80bhp, group 1. His first year premium is £3800 (with Acorn), and hopefully with the telemetry box it comes down significantly for yr 2, if he behaves. Our other cars are on Admiral multicar and their price for the Polo was £7400 ...
Just got my bike insurance renewal through - R1150GS, full NCD, no claims or convictions. £170, up from £89.
Comparison sites look like I can get a better deal, but some of the excesses are ridiculous - £900, on a bike that's worth maybe £2k.
Mine has gone down £7 a month, for 1000 fewer miles and adding on breakdown cover which saves me £100 a year with AA.
Quite happy with that. Early 40s, Twingo RS but in Leeds which is most of what adds to the cost…
Mine went down a hair on the renewal, I beat it down a little bit more with the usual lies.
But comparison sites and new online quotes, **** me. The absolute best I found was over twice my renewal. I'm sure there'll be better prices out there if I spent long enough digging but that was more than a casual look and it's all just incredibly bad. Glad I like my current guys!