Car insurance reviews

Story link: Car insurance reviews

The financial news portal, Finance Markets, has set up a series of reviews for car insurance that make for interesting reading:

AA Breakdown Cover
AA Motorcycle Insurance
AA Van Insurance
Barclays Car Insurance
Churchill Car Insurance
Churchill Van Insurance
Co-operative Motor Insurance
Direct Line Car Insurance
LV Car Insurance
Aviva Car Insurance
RAC Breakdown Cover
Saga Motor Insurance
Swiftcover Car Insurance

The key message seems to be that the cheaper the car insurance policy, the more likely you may suffer from support and claims issues.

So the less you pay for a policy, the less you should expect of it.

Alternatively, instead of trying to find the cheapest car insurance policy, if you instead pay a little more for a policy from a company with a strong reputation, the extra few pounds can really make a saving in the long run.

Nationwide offers car insurance discounts to current account holders

Story link: Nationwide offers car insurance discounts to current account holders

The Nationwide Building Society is offering discounts on its car insurance for its current account holders:

From earthtimes - Nationwide car insurance discounts:

Car Insurance

* 50 pounds off car insurance premium for quotes given from 1 November 2009 until 31 March 2010.
* The offer is available when eligible customers buy a new Nationwide car insurance policy and applies to the first year’s premium.
* The Nationwide car insurance product is rated 5 star by independent body Defaqto (2009) for the quality of cover.

It’ll be interesting to see how successful the Nationwide are with this, and whether other major insurers will start pushing on the upsell from other financial services into car insurance, and other insurance products, for that matter.

Young Drivers hit with big premiums

Story link: Young Drivers hit with big premiums

Young drivers have always had a problem with premiums for car insurance, but apparently the situation is getting worse:

Young motorists charged “horrendous” premiums

Young drivers feel ripped-off by car insurance firms because it is cheaper to be fined for not being insured than to pay for insurance, said Nigel Lacy of car insurance scheme Young Marmalade.

Teenage drivers can find themselves paying “horrendous” insurance premiums of up to £3,500, Lacy said.

According to Lacy, insurance companies need to make more of an effort to take care of young drivers and work with them to improve their driving skills.

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Certainly it’s a fair point to make, but perhaps any kind of push for cheaper premiums needs to go hand in hand with education and greater training.

We continually read stories in the papers about how a young driver takes friends out, shows off a bit, then loses control resulting in many of the passengers being killed.

So while reducing premiums is laudable, we need to address the issue of road safety among young drivers as well.