Car insurance renewal - a bit shaved off the quote

I'm no wheeler-dealer, but my experience with BT and Vodafone over broadband last year has made me just a little more inclined to ask for something off if I want the product but don't like the price. Thus it was this morning with my car insurance renewal.

I should explain that my house and car insurer is Liverpool Victoria (LV), and they have a tie-up with the Civil Service Motoring Association, who rebranded themselves - for some reason - as Boundless a few years back. I joined the CSMA back in the 1970s explicitly for their cheaper insurance and road rescue cover (under the banner of Britannia Rescue). I still take advantage of that, as retired civil servants can. At least I think it's still an advantage to go with LV as a CSMA/Boundless member. Maybe it isn't any more - although LV would be crazy not to offer lower premiums to a captive customer base of hundreds of thousands of people. That's business it should strive hard to keep and not lose to other insurers.

Another thing I should mention is that the last occasion for making a claim on my motor policy was now over five years ago. It had slid into the mists of time. So I was expecting a reduction in my annual premium, or, if premiums generally had risen rather a lot, then to pay much the same as last year, which was £440 for fully-comprehensive car insurance on Fiona, my posh Volvo XC60. That included a £350 excess, and no-claims bonus protection.

I'd budgeted for £450, just in case.

So when the 2020/21 quote was emailed to me, I was a bit disappointed to find that LV wanted £474. It looked as if they'd added exactly 7.5% to the previous premium. It was no consolation that, according to the Internet, motor premiums have been soaring, and 7.5% might be less than some might have to put up with.

As I've done several times in the past, I looked at what another insurer would quote. Not that I was eager to quit LV, but to gather ammunition for a bit of haggling, to get something off that £474, and reduce the cost to £450 or a bit less.

What would Direct Line ask? I fed in my details and Fiona's and the headline answer was £340.

Oh! Was LV ripping me off? It wasn't quite so. That £340 included a £600 excess (rather high) and no NCB protection. So in the case of any claim, I'd take an immediate hit, and my ongoing premiums would be much higher.

I tweaked Direct Line's quote to make the cover come as close as possible to LV's. Now the price was £407. And this would be the new-customer price, always a substantial discount on the price for ongoing years. Next year it might well be well over £500, more than LV would ask for anyway.

Still, I now had a real figure I could discuss with LV. I phoned them up.

To cut a long story short, I got my renewal price down to £450 and felt satisfied. A really hard-nosed and pushy person would have done much better! But shaving twenty-four quid off was good enough for me. £450 represented only a 2% increase on last year's premium, which seemed acceptable. And LV will know that I am prepared to shop around.

This is what I have paid in annual insurance on Fiona since buying her in 2010, always with LV. Fiona has a top-of-the-range spec, a big powerful engine, an automatic gearbox, permanent four-wheel drive, and does a fairly high mileage of (normally) 15,000 miles a year. She cost £40,000 in May 2010, although scrappage and trade-in allowances on my previous 4x4 car reduced this to only £34,000. I think she's now worth about £5,000 if traded in. I live in mid Sussex, which is mostly rural.

2010   £369
2011   £442
2012   £513
2013   £447
2014   £421
2015   £493
2016   £569
2017   £466
2018   £464
2019   £440
2020   £450

The annual cost has stayed much the same, with occasional blips from claims. Considering the march of inflation - 2020 prices are roughly 22% more than they were in 2010 - I am actually paying less now than I ever have. For instance, that £442 in 2011 was the equivalent of £540 in 2020. Good to know.