Car insurance renewal - EU travel cost & admin charges

[Arianne]

Originally Posted by ashadam

One of the main benefits of company car driving is not having insurance hassles, excess charges and having to get new quotes every year due to your existing provider raising charges for no reason.

'tis true but, from my experience, there is one factor you fail to mention about the 'company car' experience. It's the dragon that is the person always appointed as the company's Fleet Manager.

I once had the offside doors of my company car redecorated by a Land Rover Defender and the trailer with half-a-dozen sheep in the back of it. I was stationary while the sheep swept by watching their trailer's wheels 'do a Banksy'.

The first thought I had was oh, flippin hec - how am I gonna explain this one to Linda in the Fleet Department Linda came from Fife too (Scottish folk will know how much worse this makes my story).

On the plus side though.....I used to have a desk very near to Linda in Fleet. And she always threw me the keys to any decent demonstrator that the manufacturers were trying to promote - Impreza, Jag, 4x4 etc. Popular with me but Mrs A refused to get into the Impreza as she found the performance too extreme.

Ah, those were the days!

Arianne

[MikeIOW]

Originally Posted by Arianne

'tis true but, from my experience, there is one factor you fail to mention about the 'company car' experience. It's the dragon that is the person always appointed as the company's Fleet Manager.

Ha! Yes, both companies I have had company cars with had those power-crazed dragons.
One took far to much pleasure when one team member of mine suffered a second incident, when they could then demand £500 from that person direct....even when one incident was clearly NOTHING to do with them!

I don't miss that one iota!

Originally Posted by Arianne

Linda came from Fife too (Scottish folk will know how much worse this makes my story).

Good job I'm English then....Mrs MikeIOW hails from Leuchars......can't say I have noticed any problems, but then she was a Forces child and left at the tender ago of two!

[ashadam]

[QUOTE=Arianne;1902035]'tis true but, from my experience, there is one factor you fail to mention about the 'company car' experience. It's the dragon that is the person always appointed as the company's Fleet Manager.

The providers we use handle everything for us expect for insurance which is company's own policy all employees have direct contact with leasing company's. So don't suffer problems like you mentioned also using own insurance policy is the winner as we have no excess charge for minor issues upto $2500.

[JonathanD]

The ethics of price comparison websites can certainly be called into question. They promote themselves as being whiter than white and the friend of the consumer when, in reality, they find ways of altering pricing structures to favour the insurers they themselves receive the most income from to funnel more traffic and business through those insurers. Nothing illegal or contrary to regulatory rules of course as they do not give any advice making it a case of caveat emptor - let the buyer beware.

My advice with price comparison websites is check a few of them rather just one to gauge who is competitive and who is not as results will differ significantly between them for the same insurers so checking a number of price comparison websites should even out such irregularities. Having done this go onto insurer sites directly and deal with your chosen insurer directly to ensure a third party doesn't get a kickback out of your transaction at your expense! So in other words I advocate a policy of using price comparison websites as a free service to save you the legwork of checking 15 or 20 or 30 different insurer websites. Price comparison websites are often paid by insurers based on how much traffic is generated, or pay per click as it is known, so I say why not let the insurers pick up the tab for your legwork!

Personally speaking, I look beyond price alone wanting to get a high level of cover for a price I feel is reasonable. The Defaqto website is useful for comparing the benefits different insurers offer, each one being given a star rating - all manner of types of insurance are analysed and not just car insurance. My car insurance has been with a number of different insurers over the years, latterly Aviva then Allianz then LV= and now Volvo Car Insurance.

Jonathan

[NigelDay]

I used the comparisons sites recently for my mother's car. What was funny (interesting) is how they all seemed to come back with the same quotes, many of them being exactly the same. Even the 'form-filling' sections were remarkably similar as if they were based on the same database structure with just cosmetic differences. The choices then came down to which cuddly toy you wanted (or not). I much prefer to deal direct (as suggested above). I'm also reminded of the comment a broker made to me some years ago. You only realise how good (or not) your insurance is when you come to make a claim.