VW Car insurance

[HD]

VW Insurance were actually fairly competitive last year when I first got my GTI. Most insurance companies were coming out at about £1,200 and VW quoted me £979 (after a bit of haggling). In the end I went with Sky Insurance (one of the forum sponsors) for £850.

This year I've switched to Endsleigh for £630.

It definitely pays to spend as much time as you can using all the comparison sites, going direct to those not on there and considering specialists like Sky Insurance.

(I'm 26, the insurance covers me and my wife, we live in North London, 4 years NCD, 12,000 miles per year including business use.)
[/quote

Pacman £630 considering your in London is quite competitive i think... cheapest i got of a comparison site was £1200  ..not good!!!!

[davo245]

Anyone getting stupid renewal figures thru?

[Dav3smith]

Yes, I've just renewed. Gone from sub £400 to £790.

[SRGTD]

Premiums in general are on the increase. Factors that might account - or partially account - for the increases;

• increased energy costs, which will impact the cost of running car body repair shops
• high inflation rates so cost of parts and paint used in vehicle repairs are likely to be costing more
• much of the tech in modern cars is at the front of the car, so susceptible to damage in a frontal impact, and expensive to replace. Associated costs (e.g. recalibration of sensors) can also be expensive
• increased complexity and cost in repairing certain types of vehicles (e.g. EV’s). Higher write-off frequency associated with EV’s which will add to insurance company overall claim costs
• recent parts shortages (e.g. semiconductors) are likely to have pushed up the cost of those items. I dare say the price of parts affected by shortages wouldn’t have reduced back to pre-increase levels when normal supplies were resumed
• insurance companies will have a financial objective of delivering a profit so they can pay a pay a dividend to their shareholders!

Always pays to shop around at renewal as the chances are you’ll be able to find comparable cover at a lower price, but don’t always go for the cheapest price as it might be the cheapest for a reason (e.g. poor claims service, poor customer service).

Other actions you can consider taking - e.g.;

• consider increasing the excess in return for a premium reduction
• are there any extra cost add-ons under the policy that aren’t needed that could be deleted?
• review the declared estimated annual mileage figure and reduce it if it’s higher than the annual mileage driven. However, always be honest and ensure the declared mileage is realistic as falsely declaring too low a figure would be insurance fraud (falsifying risk information to get a lower premium), and could result in the policy being voided or the insurance company declining a claim.

My premium increased by around 9-10% this year - less than I was expecting, but I’m old , live in a low risk area and I’m a low mileage driver. From memory, my premium went up by around 15-16% the previous year.

[fredgroves]

I got my renewal through from Tesco.... its cheaper than last year.

Have a look at Tesco would be my suggestion.

[BillSan]

Had my home insurance renewal and it's the same there.   Premium was up 85% - no claims ever.

In the end I had to increase my excess from £250 to £500 but the premium was still up by 40%. 

Waiting for car quote in June and suspect I'll be on all the comparison sites (and Tesco - thanks Fred!) for a few days.

[SRGTD]

Brands such as Tesco whose main business activity isn’t insurance use a panel of insurance companies and the premium quote of the cheapest insurance company on the panel is put forward to the customer. Tesco will be managing the panel and acting as a broker - not the underwriter - and the panel business model encourages the individual panel insurers to improve their competitiveness - they won’t acquire business on the panel if they’re not the cheapest.

However, a couple of potential downsides of this business model for the customer are;

• they may end up being insured by an insurance company you’ve not heard of / you know little or nothing about.
• insurance companies on the panel need to have low prices to increase their competitive position. To have competitive prices, they may reduce costs in other areas such as their claims service. Hopefully, all panels will have service level agreements covering key areas such as customer service and claims handling that individual panel insurances have to sign up to provide a high quality, consistent service to customers.

Panel arrangements such as the above are used by many of the ‘big names’ in the insurance market where insurance isn’t their primary product - e.g. AA, RAC, high street retailers such as John Lewis, M&S, Sainsbury’s, high street banks, along with some of the traditional large insurance broker names such as Budget, Hastings (there will be others too).

I don’t know if the name of the specific insurance company providing the cheapest price on a panel is disclosed to a customer at the time of the initial quotation; IMHO it’s certainly something that’s worth checking out as it might influence a customer’s decision on whether or not to accept the quote (e.g. if a customer’s had a bad experience using that insurance company in the past).

Always do your homework when buying insurance, and don’t always go for the cheapest…………..

[GKR47]

We had a minor bump a few years ago which was our fault. We were insured with Tesco and on that occasion their claims department were very good.
Last July I insured my GTI with VW and their quote was very competitive, which was a surprise, so I'm now with them.