car insurance

My car insurance is due next month.  Oh joy..  More worryingly the MOT is due tomorrow, getting done on Thursday and I reallyreallyreally hope it passes because my tax is due at the end of the month (so the weekend) and I'll be a bit screwed otherwise.

But yeah, insurance. Last year's cost £620.  That included no no-claims of any sort, and Alex as a named driver.  But I did live in the middle of the countryside and had a garage.  So not too bad.

Had the renewal quote through - £660!  OK so that's for the new address which is in the middle of town and has no garage (but does have off street parking), but I'd have thought that a year's no-claims and no other named drivers would have had some effect.

So on Friday night I got a load of quotes online. Two small issues with that (well maybe three):

  1. confused.com is still a shit website.  I had a good rant about it last year, for various reasons including that it makes you choose a password but chucks a fit if you use anything other than letters.  Yup, not even numbers allowed.  This really didn't impress me.
    Still exactly the same :roll:  Now with the added feature of not letting me back in to view my saved quotes.  Idiots.
  2. phone calls.  One of the great things about doing things online is that I don't have to speak to anyone.  No sitting on hold listening to callcentre monkeys reading from their scripts and trying to make a commission selling me stuff I don't want.
    Or not - I've had 5 or 6 phonecalls in the last three days.  I answered the first one (Saturday lunchtime) - "hello miss warren, you've had a quote from us I was just ringing to follow it up".  That's nice.  I told them I hadn't made a decision yet and would be doing it online anyway.. "ok then we'll ring back later".  And they did.  Luckily for me I now have caller display, so have since been ignoring any calls from 0800/0845 numbers (at least 5 calls from 3 different numbers so far).  Particuarly unimpressed by the one which woke me up on Sunday morning.
  3. women only insurance?  that can piss right off.  I'm not wasting my time getting quotes from Sheila's wheels or diamond or any other sexist insurers.  Yeah yeah, women may statistically be better drivers so we 'deserve' cheaper premiums or whatever, but they can shove it.  On principle.
But yes, apart from all that.. Cheapest quote so far was about £400 I think, which I much prefer!

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10 Comments

  1. Iain's gravatar

    *prepares to be glared at*
    Not better drivers. Statistically less likely to have an accident. Some insurers only cover older drivers, again, statistically less likely to make a claim. I'd love someone to produce some evidence that people of a particular race, or sexuality, or religion or *something* were statistically more likely to make a car insurance claim, just to see if the insurers would dare to alter their prices...

    Iain | 26th Mar 07 23:31

  2. Katy's gravatar

    no glaring - you've seen how I drive :|

    but then again we've all seen how Robin drives so maybe I'm not that bad really...

    Katy | 27th Mar 07 11:10

  3. Iain's gravatar

    Oh, I never said all blokes could drive safely, that's clearly not true... I was just being pedintic* about why they offer discounts for female drivers...

    *I know. I can't help it.

    Iain | 27th Mar 07 17:07

  4. Katy's gravatar

    hrmph

    pedantic

    *evil glare*

    Katy | 27th Mar 07 17:23

  5. Jem's gravatar

    pedintic, eh?

    I can't believe you're against women's only insurance if it saves you money. OK, I can't stand those adverts.. but that's money you could spend on something more interesting!

    Jem | 27th Mar 07 19:14

  6. Katy's gravatar

    what, like shoes or makeup or some other sterotypical girly crap? pfft

    Katy | 27th Mar 07 19:19

  7. Jem's gravatar

    I was thinking geek t-shirts.. or even those earrings you seem to obsess over :P

    Jem | 27th Mar 07 20:28

  8. Iain's gravatar

    I can't seem to resist saying pedintic if it's likely to give me the opportunity to tell someone to stop being pedantic when they correct me... :D

    Iain | 28th Mar 07 0:00

  9. Katy's gravatar

    yeah, and you know full well that I won't be able to stop myself from correcting you... bah

    Katy | 28th Mar 07 19:05

  10. Robin's gravatar

    *evil glares all round*
    £600 is cheap for insurance, I have been driving for 5 years, no claims, but as I have only had one year of being on my own insurance I still pay £850 (I got a new car, ford focus ghia 2l jobby).
    Point is you don't need to go to a women only one, men are discriminated against anyway.



    My driving is good.

    Robin | 29th Mar 07 7:10

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