Re: Advice please advise on my shortlisted car insurers (Sheila's Wheels, esure, Halifax, Norwich Union)

You could try nfumutual - its not just for farmers, they don't appear on comparison sites and are reasonable

Same here, but in my case I use a broker. The same one for the last 20 years or so. Suits me. I've got better things to do than look for the best insurance deal. He knows what I want, and only offers me suitable insurance at a competitive price. £200-250 FC for a group 17-18 car seems good to me, which usually means less than of 2 years with the same Co Mike.

Thanks for the info that they also do this for car insurance. My Direct Line house insurance had crept up to £300 over many years. Three years ago, their online quote was £106! When I phoned, they said they couldn't give me this, but helped me make an online application for exactly the same cover and policy wording at the cheaper rate - i.e you had to cancel one policy and take out another.

This year, the renewal price was creeping up again. I got an online quote £60 cheaper, phoned them and asked about this, got put through to another department and my policy was renewed at the cheaper rate with no hassle.

Toom

In message , Ret. wrote

And if you do 10,001 miles you are uninsured :)

Most sensible people notify the insurance company that they will be exceeding the mileage stated.

Why? It isn't really a hard limit in the sense that you would (as the other Alan *jokingly* remarked) be uninsured.

The mileage figure I supply to my insurer is an *estimate*. If I exceed it, I exceed it. It's no big deal.

Indeed they can claim you are uninsured and I know one biker who fell foul of this. Remember they are not there wanting to pay out and will se any excuse not too.

When I was going to exceed my 8,000 limit for the year I simply notified them, they upped it to 10K no cost, above 10K would have cost another £12

Possibly, but I think the insurance companies got their market analysis wrong. A few years ago a couple of companies (Prudential and Lloyds TSB, I think) were offering 120 quid cashback. But I put in some random details into comparison sites and the best quotes were about 200 quid - and Pru or Lloyds before the cashback were only a few quid more expensive than the minimum. I imagine if you have lots of NCB the quotes will go down to 150 or 100.

To be offering a 60% reduction on the market price either means they were really desperate for customers (why? can't see them investing the cash and making 60% return per year), or someone stuffed up the analysis. Perhaps their average customer's insurance is more like 500 quid, so they thought 120 was a reasonable enticement. But of course it encourages lots more people to take their bottom end insurance (some people even got paid to take out insurance they didn't need) and breaks their business model.

Theo