Car insurance renewal ritual.
Just had an ‘invitation’ to renew my car insurance, only to find the premium has been increased by more than 20% over last year, for exactly the same cover.
I’ve been with the same company for eight years and for the first few years the premium actually decreased year on year. Then it suddenly increased by 25%, so I phoned them up to enquire why and was give some sob story about ‘ambulance chasers’. When I commented I could get the same amount of cover from competitor insurers for much less, they capitulated after some hard bargaining and offered a much better quote.
Since then the quotes have gone up by 13 – 17%, and each time I have to go through the ritual of looking at competitive quotes and haggling with my insurers. The actual monetary increase is comparatively small, so I might appear to be unnecessarily parsimonious, but it’s the principle of it that irks me.
I’m sure insurers automatically increase the premiums to established and loyal customers; treating them as ‘soft targets’ and relying on their ‘inertia’ so they will just shrug their shoulders and pay. Well not me!