I normally buy my bikes around now so the insurance follows, been with Bennets for years, generally comfortable with the renew automatically, I've questioned them a few times but normally renew with them. This year I've had the time to fish around, the figures are wild. Bennets just over £300.00, the lowest after a comparison site quote was £92.00 I could add breakdown and legal but with that it would be way under £200.00 I've been riding for 50 years, max no claims, clean licence, is someone taking the piss?
I normally end up with one of the usual suspects (Bennetts, Carole Nash, Devitt, Cornmarket, etc). Last year was Bennetts, but this time around it was (shock horror) Ducati Insurance, which underneath was Ageas. Bennetts was too high - like yours, not quite so extreme, but not close to competitive. In terms of value for money, it was just over 3% of the value of the bike. That's with 10 years no claims, 10k miles per annum and £500 excess. That felt pretty fair to me, when you know a 0mph tip-off might be £1000.
Insurers aren't allowed to take advantage of returning customers, so it shouldn't be connected to loyalty: https://www.abi.org.uk/products-and...es-to-the-pricing-of-home-and-motor-insurance '...when existing home and private motor insurance customers renew their insurance policy, the price charged by the insurance provider cannot be more expensive than the price that they charge to an equivalent new customer for the equivalent policy' There's something else going on there. Maybe a change of age range, extra risk in your area, risk for your particular make/model, etc. Or Bennetts just don't want your type of business.
With a little light grizzling the quote of £305.00 has suddenly dropped to £198.65, apparently with no fees and commision, a lower bike value lower annual mileage. Do I detect a feint whif of bullshit? I went with them for ease, it has all the addons in that figure, Praise the Lord
Insurers have their own risk factors which often seem to bear no relation to the real world. Two years ago Hastings refused to insure my Multi as I had exceeded the modifications allowed. The offending item? A carbon belt cover. Last year and this year it made not a penny difference. During that time my next door neighbour had a motorbike nicked. I braced for the increase in premium as have heard it can make a big difference, nothing! It dropped that year.
I worked for a few insurance companies, 21 years with Aviva, I shop around every year. They all use similar underwriting criteria but so that they aren’t all competing for every customer all the time they have loss leaders, so for a particular age range or part of the country, bike make etc one of the insurers will be much cheaper than the others for a month or a few weeks, that’s why quotes can vary so much. So if you have the time to spare shop around at every renewal. Use the big comparison sites to start with then drill down to the most competitive brokers. Brokers also get different rates from the underwriters depending on the volume of business they do, that’s why you can get two different quotes from brokers but the underwriters are the same. There aren’t actually that many underwriters for motorcycle insurance.
What sort of percentage do the brokers normally work on? They always claim a few percent, but can often drop a fair bit if pushed it seems.
I went with Footman Jones this year, after years of increases from Devitt. FJ offer guaranteed valuations and they added my other bike at no extra cost.
