Just renewed the insurance on my fun car, 2006 SLK350. £167 including a £20 discount for renewing online. Full protected NCB, Legal Exp, 4000 miles p.a SDP and Business Use. Hefty excess of £300 though. IAM Cornmarket have failed to price match on this car for two years running, so I've stuck with GA,

2007 Merc A180 CDi, 8000 pa SDP and Business Use, max protected NCB, Legal Exp, zero excess was £201 due April, this is with Cornmarket.

So I agree that shopping around can produce some low insurance quotes. I think it helps considerably that I live in Suffolk.

Just renewed the two cars with Cornmarket once more, the old Merc less than £200 (renewed), the Landcruiser quote was up to just short of £300.

A run round the comparison sites found Saga offering £273, wife happy enough with them and i would have been happy to change, unfortunately their website wouldn't play ball and a phone call to them proved pointless because they couldn't find my quote on the system, and a telephone quote was some £300, so scotch that.

Today i searched Direct Line who came in at £250ish, protected policy, £250 total excess, legal.

Would have been quite happy to go with them, but Cornmarket once again met the challenge so have stayed with them, £40 saved.

We keep hearing premiums are rising which is not my experience, is this becoming a postcode based pricing problem more than just general rises, where those in cities and other more busy areas are seeing the large rises.

I quite agree - when I moved out of my parents' home about 12 years ago (I was in my early 30s), from a small-medium sized town near London (lots of traffic) to one half the size in a rural area with only a rush hour in the evening and quiet the rest of the day, my car insurance (same cover, 8 years PNCD, same insurer [Esure]) was £50 (12%) lower at £367. Its gradually dropped to what it is now, about £250 (same circumstances). Only one year did it go up, and only to about £300 from £280.

It seems as though, once you've been driving (whether you first own a car at 17 or like me, starting at 24 [previous car]) for 5-7 years, your insurance drops like a stone (it did on my previous car, a 1.0 Micra from the 1990s, and for many people I know), but living in a 'high risk' area (though they never seem to take into account where you work, which I would think is VERY important) known for accidents, thefts and/or fraud (cash for crash etc) seems to make a reasonable difference.

What would also be interesting is to hear the views of any backroomers who are older than 70, maybe 75+, as it seems as though they are now being more heavily penalised for their age than used to be the case. My dad, who's nearly 75 himself and who worked in insurance for 35+ years, said that age premiums for older drivers seem to be rising faster than for middle-aged ones. I must admit feeling very sorry for younger drivers, as they seem forced into getting those telemetrics gizmos and still have to pay really steep prices for the first 5 years even if they don't have any claims or accidents (i.e. non-fault).

To me, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of transparency in the industry as a whole as to how they often get wildly different quotes for the same cover, even for 'very low risk' people/cars - whilst there seems to be a lot of competition with lots of firms, I'm not so sure, as many are just 'names' owned by larger insurers, and, like with fuel prices, seem to base their pricing structure on what the 'market leaders' are charging rather than what they can afford plus a decent profit margin.

What would be useful is how the quality of customer service differs from one insurer to the next, when you need to claim. I suppose it often comes down to a cost-benefit analysis as to the premium paid versus the frequency of claims and potential claims experience you may get from them. Its always difficult to ascertain the quality of these products unless you actually make a claim, and even then it could be luck either way - unless many others have also given their opinion on them for claims, your experience might be the anomaly.