It's great that you have researched it Vish. Got me thinking. I think I get the gist of what you're saying.
When I renewed last year I tried getting my excess up to around £350 (total) to try and bring my premium down. I seem to remember companies either weren't interested in doing it, or it made little difference to the premium.
I've had a look at my policy and it's as follows -
£542 premium (inc. - in my early thirties, 11yrs nc discount, no convictions, £25 motoring legal prot. and protected nc.) and £300 excess which consists of £200 compulsory (for damage anyway, less I think for fire or theft) and £100 vol. (The cost of my Sainsburys premium seems quite steep compared to others', although maybe living close to a big city doesn't help :S)
But like you say I'd probably still pay out more than my excess rather than claim if a third party wasn't covering it. So I may see this year if I can reduce my excess whilst not increasing my premium too much - so, as said, I wouldn't need to pay out too much in the event of a big claim.
It doesn't seem like people in my position get a great deal tbh. The insurance companies don't look that far back - although I guess I'll be glad of that if things ever do go pear-shaped. A chance to get a clean sheet in just a few years.
I agree, I think it's best to start motoring life with a car that's reasonable to insure - build up your no claims. I'd have loved to have a car like my 182 when I was younger - but for financial, and not-killing-myself-or-others reasons, it's probably good that I couldn't afford the equivalent of the time. Mind you a sky-high excess probably focuses the mind!
From what I can work out protected no claims is worth it if -
a) you've got enough that's worth protecting, and
b) you're taking out a policy with a new company, or you've been with them for less than 4/5 years.
Once you've been with the same company for a while (and already have lots of nc built up), making one or even two caims in a year isn't necessarily going to dent your no claims discount by enough for the cost of protecting it to be worthwhile (with respect to the following years premium.)
Few more questions -
If you've got protected no claims, what difference does it make to your following years' premium. For example I'd have thought the insurance companies would have been hit hard with the exceptionally bad winter we had (must have been more accidents than normal), so they'll probably increase premiums this year to cover it. Protected no claims would make no difference to that. But what if you make a claim whilst having protected no claims - the following year they can ask for whatever premium they like. They may
tell you that you're no claims was held at the same level but still ask for a higher premium. Although I guess they wouldn't want to scare you off to another company as they'd lose their chance to get some money back from you.
And what about changing insurance comapany under such circumstances - you'd obviously have to tell any prospective new insurer about your claim, they wouldn't care that you had your nc protected with your previous insurer.
Is motoring legal protection worthwhile?
Anybody come across any decent 'insurance company review' type sites? People often get really hung up on the numbers when it comes to insurance (which is obviously important.) But you only find out what companies are really like if you need to make a claim - and then people are left wondering if they really should have gone for the cheapest deal. I'm guilty of not researching this myself, although if I knew a company had a bad reputation for its customer service I'd steer clear of them - irrespective of the deals they could offer. If you try googling criticisms of any company or industry you'll always find them - so it's difficult to form valid opinions.
I really hope someone can be bothered to respond to this. I seem good at killing off threads. Maybe it's because I'm new, or maybe it's because people figure life's too short to read my ridiculously long posts
