Safe Speed Forums

We've all seen these ads from the likes of Privelege (aka Direct Line) who witter on about how they guarantee to beat your car insurance renewal quote. Also at this time of the year I get lots junk mail from other unheard of companies promising the same thing (all of who are relying on old data. My renewal is in November thanks to company car driving a few years ago)

Now I know that many people on this forum drive "interesting" cars, either high performance, rare imports, classic cars or a combination of all three.

So what happens when you ring up the likes of privelege for a guarenteed beating of the £100 renewal quote that you get on your 1960 Corvette on a classic car policy. Do they actually quote you £99.90 for fully comp or do they find some way to wheedle out of it.

Just curious really as I'll have to wait 5 months before I get to wind up these jokers myself, and I'll have probably thrown away the junk mail by then. (oh wait, I already threw it away, damn!)

you missed the fine print there. They're not offering to beat your best quote but your renewal quote - ie the one your current insurance company sends you which is usually more than what you'll pay if you cancel your current insurance and take out a new policy with the same company.

I'm well aware of that, but I strongly suspect that a mainstream insurer like Privelege is not going to be able to compete against a classic car specialist on their own turf, even with renewal loading taken into account.

And that is the kind of thing I'm wondering if anyone has tried.

If you play them at their own game you can get an awful lot out of them.

I tried it on with my bike insurance company - I got an online quote for a policy that had no named rider and didn't allow me to ride other bikes. I then told my current insurers about the nice low quote I'd been offered and they renewed my policy (with named rider and cover for other bikes) for the same price as the online quote! I ended up saving about £40 and got a better excess and extras!

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

They'll specify that insurance has to be "like for like" (ie. same insured amount, same excess, same terms etc...). All it takes is the odd different feature and they'll not allow it, which is probably much more likely on a specialised policy.

Having said that, those that offer the same for house insurance do seem to honour their offers - I've not paid more than £100 after cashback for house insurance in about 3 or 4 years switching between offers and (ab)using the price-matching offers.

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Carl Prescott

The only restrictions I can think of on a classic car policy are limited mileage and (possibly) no commuting.

Both of these can be set up on a normal policy by stating you use as just SDP and stating that you only do 5000 miles per year.

One thing I have found (repeatedly) is that the "10% discount" for online policies works a charm. I HATE booking it online without a human in the way to run over the fine print & ask about little things not specifically mentioned in the forms. Just get your quote ref. no. and phone them, you'll get the online prices (they'll just call it up) but you get a human to speak to. I'm currently with e-sure (<4 NCB) / priveledge(5+ NCB) and with 4 yrs NCB,(driving 4yrs) F/Comp protected I'm about £480 for my VX Omega. Not the cheapest I could get, but who wants a cowboy outfit?

On 5 yrs NCB in a couple of months - time to wangle a better deal out of them methinks... or tell them I'm cancelling, good leverage for getting the real best quote.

I got annoyed by Kwik Fit one year. They claimed to beat the quote and when I pointed out the excess they were offering was significantly larger than my current one they were really arsey and said 'they'd beaten the quote and that was it'. Plonkers.

I usually shop around but with modified cars it is very difficult to find insurers that will either quote or ones that don't want endless detail which I don't know eg how many mm is the car lower than standard. Liverpool victoria did me an outstanding deal one year. £152 fully comp on the skyline as a renewal. Slight mistake, they meant it to be about £650..... It was entertaining ringing around a few other brokers seeing if they could beat that Needless to say I rung up the day I got the renewal and paid the whole premium in full. On renewing I did check several times that it was correct. The first lot of paperwork that arrived confirmed the amount so I had no reason to believe then it was wrong. The 'oops we've made a mistake letter' arrived a few months later. I then had a slightly stressful year as they mentioned any change in the policy and it would go up to the full amount so I was dreading having any sort of incident. Luckily I didn't and pocketed £500...which was nice

Yeah, funny that - it might mean that people with "interesting" cars dislike speed cameras more than people with "boring" cars.

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I stole this .sig

Didn't you see the Sky Poll? from nearly 19000 drivers (a damn sight more than in any of the SCPs surveys), over 80% thought speed cameras should be scrapped.

When I drive to work in the morning I'm damn sure that for every 10 cars that pass me, eight of them are not "interesting".
Most of the people on here drive interesting cars because they have an interest in motoring, because of that interest they can see the inherent failure of speed camera policy. Most of us have no points.

On my drive to work I pay very little attention to any speed limits, I look at the hazards and drive accordingly. On a restricted access DC on a dry day I will drive at 80-85 - in heavy rain i will drive at 60. In heavy traffic I will happily pootle along at the speed of all the others, keeping a safe distance. Just because I have a 200bhp+ car, does not mean that I drive everywhere like some ASBO'd nutter.

I have a grey import and currently have my insurance via the owners club. When I rang a couple of these "we guarantee to beat your renewal quote" shysters, one said they didn't insure grey imports and the other quoted over a hundred more than my renewal quote. Both refused to meet their promises from their TV adverts. Trading Standards were not interested because the insurance companies would almost certainly be able to wheedle out under a "like-for-like" clause.

The moral? ... don't believe adverts and shop around for yourself!

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Will

So a 200bhp car is boring compared to a more powerful one, and 150bhp is
even less interesting? That sounds like male penis-envy. But I like your idea
for putting ASBO’s on repeat speeding offenders – I hadn’t thought of that …
Hm, food for thought!

PS: asking motorists whether they like cameras is rather like asking turkeys
to vote for Christmas!

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I stole this .sig

Thats a good summary of public opinion, BW. Have you been reading the swiftcover.com survey?

Like others on here -still waiting - not asking for much - if they can save me £180 , i'd be very happy - even if i had to pay £15 - £25 for the certificate - and no ,my car is not interesting - last one was slightly, but with increase in cams and fact that in NSL areas i like to proceed sprightly, i felt that for a few years it might be prudent to loose a few HP.

BTW - is BW feeling ok --- next he'l be admitting to sucking lolipops and driving to the conditions (safely of course)

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Note that I delibarately said "interesting" not "Fast"

A 1900's steam powered car is certainly interesting, but I doubt it'd win a race against a Smart Car

Classic cars are interesting. Performance cars are interesting. Rare imports are interesting (even if the car in question is regarded to be fairly dull in it's home country, such as the Camero). Modified cars are interesting (not just modified for speed, but also show cars, paint jobs etc.) Kit cars are interesting.

A 1.0 04 plate Ford Fiesta in silver with a Baby on Board sticker is not interesting even though it is faster than some of the cars on my above list.

To be fair Privilege did beat my renewal quote, and every other quote I had....... and was fully comp and all the others were TPFT..... and they were offering 0% interest on monthy payment(I normally pay up front but thought I may as well take advantage) so all in all a cracking deal.

The customer service has been very good as well, when Ive added tempoary cars that Ive borrowed for a bit of fun....... cheap for that as well.

The easist way to get cheaper insurance is just to find your cheapest quote, knock 10% of that and say that some over company has quoted their price -10%. In most cases they will offer to match or beat it, bingo.

Good point, Capri - i found last year that when paying over the year - the interest rate can be a deciding factor - not just how much the insurance costs , but how much you pay overall - a large broker can (and one does ) charge 29% - almost cheaper to pay it on a credit card.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Much cheaper to pay it on a credit card. My Egg card is 5.9%

Yeah very good point. Of course unless you get a 0% deal its always better to pay up front, if possible of course....... however if you are paying monthy its the total charge that is what matters. Sounds dead obvious but I wonder how many get caught out with a low premium but high interest rate?

Had a look at my charging system ---deposit 10% + 9 payments -so it costs me about £10-£15 extra a year - last company - deposit ( can't remember how much) and balance on 11 payments .Result , a saving of almost £100.

But strangely enough - it all seems to be a lottery - companies that are dear for me are cheap to my daughter, living half a mile away,and they're not female inclined companies.
And as for loyalty - found only person worth being loyal to is your wallet.
I found confused .com /elephant.com a good starting place - to narrow down the list to the real cheap companies - then look to see which ones will still be there in a years time - thats the crunch with cheap policies - it happened good few years ago - don't think it could happen today - but the last place to find out is on the road.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on