Today I did something that I’ve been putting off for a couple of weeks: I waded into the minefield of car insurance.
My renewal quote had come through from my current insurer for £430. I saw it and went ‘pfft, not paying that!’. So this morning I sat down to sort it out.
You’ll know from a previous post that I’m a bit of a MoneySavingExpert fan, so I followed their Cheap Car Insurance guide. There was one insurer that was consistently coming out cheaper than my renewal quote by about £55 – not bad, I thought. But that insurer happened to be the company I’m already with.
So knowing I could save myself £55, I was feeling pretty pleased with myself, and as this company was consistently beating its own quote, I thought I’d look on my favourite cashback website* to see if I could get any cashback by going through them. The cashback site was offering £30 cashback, but only for new customers. As I was already a customer of this insurance company, I think I’m unlikely to get the cashback, but I thought I’d go through the cashback site direct to the insurer, rather than buying through the comparison websites. If I got £30 cashback I figured that’d be a nice bonus, and either way I’d still be saving myself £55.
And then I put in all my details, clicked to get a quote… and the number that came out was £260! A whopping £170 cheaper than their renewal quote. For the same company, people!
So here’s my summary of what I’ve learnt today:
- DON’T just accept your renewal quote from your current insurer. Chances are you’ll save money by going elsewhere
- DO check price comparison websites. Check more than one – the price you’re quoted varies slightly from one site to another. For me the price difference on there was around £10 for exactly the same policy.
- DO go direct. If you’re finding one insurer is coming out consistently cheaper on the comparison websites, it may well be worth going direct to their website. It’ll take a bit more time, but for me, 5 minutes extra saved me over £100!
*This is a referral link, just so you know. If you sign up I will earn a small referral fee, and be very grateful. You will also earn a small bonus, too.
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