Key Post What are the options for shopping around for car insurance?

I wanted to make sure that they were not charging new customers a lower price so I got another quote and it came out cheaper.

I rang 123.ie and they said that the details must be different and they were. Apparently I had put in the wrong model although the cc is the same. I had my car valued at €3,000 on the renewal and €1,000 on the new application. So they put in the correct model and reduced value and came up with the same price of €372.

Brendan
 
Hello Mr. Burgess,

For what it's worth, I believe we can negotiate to some extent by telephone, but not online.

To the best of my recollection, I don't think I've ever got my best insurance quote via an online quote (well, unless you want to count the quote I got from SuperValu earlier this year, but that was kind of by phone too).
 
Brendan Burgess said:
thought I had a very similar risk
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You & I are very different risks Brendan! ;)

It made a huge difference adding my missus as named driver. And they quoted me the same for F&T or fully comprehensive which was a first for me.

As others have said, you've a chance of negotiating on the phone. Insurers differ, but in my experience in the past there seems to a limit of about 40 euro that the phone agents can reduce by, depending on starting quote.

Have a look for other RSA brokers to see if they'll beat 123 for the same details - some will waive the set-up fee for a new policy.
 
I've been with Allianz for years now. They are always either the cheapest or close to compared to the competition but I don't accept the initial renewal price. Have to be careful now though as car is close to 15 years old although it has very low mileage so drives like a 5 year old car.
 
MrEarl said:
While I think that a list of contacts for motor insurance quotes would be very useful, I think the nature of the business is such that various providers can be more or less competitive depending on their desire to grow their market share at a particular time. As such, this thread could go on for ever, with extremely different experiences for the different insurers or brokers being reported. Perhaps the solution is a thread for each entity where discussion on that entity can take place, all linked back to a master thread where the various parties can be categorised (i.e. brokers or insurers, specialist for commercial insurance, target markets etc.) ?
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I totally agree with this and would take the same line on most or all insurance products.
There is simply too much variability to say that a specific insurer is best value in a specific or even general case.
E.g. some insurer may seem good value in general for younger drivers this year but as soon as they have enough/too much of that business then they may become more expensive in that category.
In any case even a minor difference between customers' details can have a large knock on effect on the premium and without access to all insurers' actuarial policies/criteria it's almost impossible to predict what might happen without simply shopping around online, by phone, via brokers etc.

Anyway - I'll add my own anecdotal update now for what it's worth... :)
I previously posted here:

https://www.askaboutmoney.com/threads/first-time-cover-for-50-year-old-on-learner-permit.200582/

My 2016 premium with Liberty was €735 for the cover outlined in that thread.
My 2017 premium again with Liberty was c. €560 (I'm using rounded figures for simplicity).
In 2017 I got my full license and they added on cover for driving other cars at no extra cost.
This year's renewal premium with Liberty was €600.
As mentioned before I have two named drivers on the policy as it practically halves the premium for being insured alone!
As it happens with some insurers adding named drivers increases the premium.
Anyway one of the named drivers incurred 3 points recently so I declared this.
The premium went up to €655.
I asked if they could do anything better and it came down to €625.
I shopped around a bit more and was getting nothing near that (most were €1K+) until I applied for a new business quote with Liberty (who I'm already with) with exactly the same details and the premium came in at €615.
After another call they matched that and then knocked it back down to €600.
(Caoga mentioned earlier would not cover me because I don't meet their criteria for how long I've been driving and on a full license).

The only conclusion that I can draw from this thread is that each individual needs to shop around as widely as they can.

The issue of customer service/reliability is maybe a different one that CAN be quantified for the general case.
 
ClubMan said:
....

The only conclusion that I can draw from this thread is that each individual needs to shop around as widely as they can. .....
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That, and negotiate as hard as they can.

Massively time consuming and most frustrating.....
 
RedOnion said:
Have a look for other RSA brokers to see if they'll beat 123 for the same details - some will waive the set-up fee for a new policy.
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To save other members time and hassle, avoid Sullivan Insurance Brokers Limerick and Slattery Sullivan Insurance Brokers Nenagh. They are RSA brokers but are a disaster to try and deal with.Unfortunately for me, I placed my insurance with them in August and as of close of business yesterday, Friday 16th November 2018, all of the issues which arose in relation to the policy have yet to be resolved despite contacting the underwriters twice.

I can, if necessary, quote chapter and verse here in support of my post.

Beware!
 
Just to prove the point that some brokers / insurance companies suck you in with a good deal in first year and attempt to strangle you in the following years , this is my experience.
I wont bore you with the details but nothing has changed in the past twelve months apart from myself and the car being one year older

Last year moved to Aviva through AA brokers . Great value price @ .............................................£430
Today got renewal quote of .....................................................................................................£730
Five minutes ago went online and used different name but same details to get a quote from AA for ...£417

Cynical or what.
 
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