Nothing like a loyal customer to fleece, after all they have to pay for the low rates they offer new customers somehow....
Ah the joys of Insurance renewals
Car & House due next week given 'zero' house claims in 35 years and 7 years NCD on motoring you would have thought a discount in order ? It seems not.
Got 2 fresh quotes both significantly cheaper will they never learn, it would be far easier sending me 2 quotes exactly the same as last year and I would stick with them but no lets try to pull his pants down arrghhh gotta love the hearts by the prices.
In my line we constantly worked hard on and preached 'client retention'
...rant over sorry.
Nothing like a loyal customer to fleece, after all they have to pay for the low rates they offer new customers somehow....
I thought that this practice was made illegal quite recently; maybe it hasn't yet come into effect. I'll look it up and paste a link when I find one.
Link HERE.
Last edited by Skier; 6th April 2023 at 11:33.
not sure it's working out that way ? business as usual or unusual
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From 1 January insurers will be banned from quoting customers a higher price for renewing their home or motor insurance than they would pay if they were a new customer.
The new rules brought in by the FCA are expected to save consumers £4.2bn over the next 10 years.
The FCA’s reforms follow a review that uncovered that many insurers were increasing prices for renewing customers year-on-year – a practice known as price walking.
As well as leading to higher prices for loyal customers, price walking distorted the way the whole insurance market worked. Many firms offered below-cost prices to attract new customers, who then paid more over time if they renewed their insurance. Insurers used sophisticated processes to target their best deals at customers who they thought were less likely to switch in future.
Sheldon Mills, Executive Director, Consumers and Competition at the FCA, commented:
‘Our interventions will make the insurance market fairer and make it work better. Insurers can no longer penalise consumers who stay with them. You can still shop around and negotiate a better deal, but you won't have to switch just to avoid being charged a loyalty premium.
Raise it with them (why they're apparently flaunting the FCA regs) or go elsewhere (a whole market to choose from). I move home insurer every year, but my car insurance has been with One Call for 4+ years, the premium is fixed and it beats any competitor.
Experienced this and usually sorted by a call resulting in a discount taking the premium back to the previous year's level. Frustrating but I presume the percentage of customers who just default to continue is greater than the business they lose.
Not all insurers seem to do this so only have one we use now that does.
Imagine if you were one of those people who have missed the dont out renew button
Multiple reasons I'd have thought.
1. Their overheads will have gone up
2. Cost of replacement parts and items will have gone up.
3. More people claiming as they've not got spare cash they would have used to avoid a claim and mess their NCD up.
4. More people putting in dodgy claims to get cash.
5. Still got to pay a a nice share dividend.
It's probably just exploiting the people who have automatic renewals, hoping they don't notice or are too timid/can't be bothered to negotiate a lower price.
From my experience this year there was no interest in matching prices.
I was with Churchill last year. No changes to my situation this year and the renewal quote was nearly double last years premium. On a comparison site, they had gone from being one of the best value insurance last year to one of the most expensive on the list. I phoned them up expecting some kind of negotiation. They weren't interested in offering a lower quote...that was it.
I don't really understand the rationale from going from the cheapest to the most expensive. It's an industry where the companies work in very weird ways.
I review every year and had to do the shop around again, with one that I had to phone to cancel they said they could match, if they'd offered that in the first place I wouldn't have already bought elsewhere!
Another was cheaper renewal elsewhere and calling up to cancel and they knew I had swapped as part of the same umbrella and would have matched
The move to electric cars, inflation and also people getting back to driving post covid must be upping the claims; coming after I imagine a couple very profitable lock down years previously.
I think they hope as an existing customer you can’t be arsed to shop around and will just renew as a mater of course.
Similar experience with AA on home insurance. After a renegotiation, I've had several letters (signed by Gus Park, MD of Insurance!) saying that I am no longer insured but to ignore it/them if I have "renewed in the past few days"! (all fully paid, five weeks before, receipts and cover via email etc.) Shower of s****! Left hand doesn't know etc!
I recently had to claim on my Sainsburys home insurance. As a water main had started leaking in the back garden. As soon as I contacted them I had to pay the £300 excess that was part of the policy. No assessment of the damage. Just £300 gone in a flash. Then I got a call from the firm that was going to do the repairs. They explained that if our pipe was an old lead pipe that had sprung a leak due to its age they would charge us £90 to fix it. If it was a modern plastic pipe that was leaking then it would be covered. Needless to say it was an old pipe and I had to pay them £90. So £390 out of my pocket to repair something that you would assume was covered by your insurance. I’ll never insure with Sainsburys again and I’ll pay more attention to excesses in the future
Isn’t it cheaper to do that and then insure the excess?
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Not clear to me - did the repair cost £390?
Seems like repairs to lead pipes weren’t covered anyway so issue of excess is a red-herring.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Car insurance renewal up £60+, 30% increase.