Dave Thornton

I sold my Impreza last week and phoned my broker (a chain of reasonably well-known brokers) and informed them. I'm only six weeks into my year's policy (having renewed it with them for the 9th time) and pay by monthly direct debit at 0%. So I asked them to cancel it and would have expected back two weeks' premiums, less any admin fee. I was then persuaded to suspend the policy as I won't be getting a new car for about 4 weeks. The Impreza STI was £871 and my potential replacement 330d with 260bhp upgrade they wanted an ADDITIONAL £98 (i.e. £969 for the year, with the same insurance) which is a rip-off. Bear in mind that their other branch is quoting £489.

My hunch is that they didn't want to cancel the existing policy as they would have had to replay about £200 commission. So much for their claim that they have shopped around for me - it looks like they are thinking solely of their bottom line and not about a long-standing customer. I'll be voting with my feet!

Tony@Greenlight

Hi David,

Sorry to hear about your problem.

If your policy is currently suspended, without any cover in force you may be able to get the Insurer to turn the original suspension into a cancellation (from the original suspension date).

This on the basis that by suspending your policy cover has effectively ceased on your last vehicle and no other vehicle has been added since.

Ask your broker to call the underwriter and see if they can negotiate this for you. Which is pretty much what we would do for you.

Kind regards

Tony

Dave Thornton

Thanks for your advice Tony. I will be cancelling the policy and the direct debit too. I used confused.com to get an idea of prices and the insurance companies who quote well for particular models, though sometoimes you get what you pay for! I got quotes for several models:

Impreza STI £580
BMW 330d £403
Audi RS4 (old model) £504
Evo VIII £725

Privilege and Admiral seem to come out well for my age/location/taste in cars!