Agree, had multicar with Admiral for 1 year, the renewal quote was more expensive and they weren't interested in negotiating. Multicar = multi-profit for them!

Please bear in mind that cheap doesn't mean it's a good policy and/or insurer. Most of the time you can only tell when you need to make a claim, especially a fault (or difficult to resolve) claim.

(1) Many people find a cheap quote from a comparison website because they have to have insurance, and chances are that they won't need to claim this year so quality of service is secondary.

(2) If you have insurance, your renewal quote will usually increase automatically unless your NCB is still growing to offset that. If the NCB has plateaued and the premium goes up by much, a phone call querying why will often get it back where it was. If it doesn't, go somewhere else and take advantage of a cheap quote for a new customer.

(3) if by misfortune you have to claim, then you find out who the decent insurers are. As has been said, Aviva can be very helpful in my experience - tho I haven't claimed in recent years, only been compensated from third party's insurers.

SAGA are behaving very strangely at the moment.

2 years ago - moved to them - new customer - good deal. Last year - still a good deal - they said (on the phone) that they don't put up premiums for existng customers as other insurers do.

This year - increase of 35%, same car as last year. I know premiums have gone up more than the average rate of inflation, and 10% or so would have been credible. I asked why - their underwriters won't allow them to tell me.

Now with LV= (with the unexplained equals sign) - very good deal, as I'm a new customer, and they also provide my pension. Next year, who knows? Leif's experience suggests that they are no better.

SWMBO has changed from a Group 15 Audi A1 to a Group 29 A3 convertible. Her premium has gone down. Probably wisely, she didn't ask why: but as their underwritiera are apparently too stupid to be able to transfer her details from one car to another, they seem to have treated her as a new client.

I read the other day that SAGA are losing money hand over fist. A change of underwriter would be worth their consideration....

I had to make a claim with Aviva about 18 months ago. I was able to chose the repairer, so did some googling on each of them and chose the best. Very happy with the work.

I lost a couple of years of no claims, but the renewal wasn't too bad.

I've moved my wife's car over to their new 'plus' scheme this year - it claims to give the same renewal quote as a new customer would get. I guess we'll find out in a year's time.

Just renewed my car insurance with Hastings Premier but rather than renew on their email I went through a price comparison site. Half expecting to be blocked at some stage as an existing customer but it went through fine. Premium was £100 less than their email proposal, 25%. Shocking.

I did what the Moneysaving Expert recommends and bought the policy three weeks before the renewal date.