An Open Letter...

....to on-line cage insewerers.

You are, by and large, cunts.

I am using the world's most popular browser on the world's most popular
OS.

Why, then, do your sites routinely break when I try to get a quote?

Why do many of you deny that my postcode exists?

Why do none of you recognise my job title[1]?

Why do several of you deny that my car exists?

I will tell you.

It's because you are (as I may already have mentioned) cunts.

Therefore Direct Line will, once again, be receiving some money from me.

After I've rung them and lied about the great deal I found in the
Interweb-thingy.

[1] A fairly straightforward and non-darsyesque one, it must be said.

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - Manufacturer of the "Champion-105" range of rearsets
and Ducati Race Engineer.

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
SBS#39 Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (On its hols) Kawasaki ZN1300 Voyager "Oh, Oh, It's so big"
Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single" Yamaha GTS1000

 

CIS were easily the cheapest for me and my recently acquired Saab.
http://www.cis.co.uk/

 

Tried confused.com? They beat my DL renewal by quite a margin. Well
worth a look.

 

Confused.com are crap.

When I was insuring my Orion the top two companies doubled their quotes when
I tried to buy them and the the third company halved theirs (making them
over a hundred quid cheaper than the best that confused.com said I could
do).

Insuring my wife's car Direct Line are always the cheapest by miles, but if
I go through confused they decline to quote, even though they'll give me a
quote if I put the same details in on their own web-site.

Insuring the Fiat confused told me I couldn't do better than £900 and
something a year, with Elephant being around £1,200. Because I'd been told
that Elephant were good for coupés I went to their site, put in the same
details and got a quote of £613 and then added the missus to the policy for
no extra charge.

So, in summary, all confused.com can do is give you list of insurance
companies that you can try yourself - don't believe anything else on that
site.

--
AndrewR, D.Bot (Celeritas)
Kawasaki ZX-6R J1, Fiat Coupe 20v Turbo
BOTAFOT#2,ITJWTFO#6,UKRMRM#1/13a,MCT#1,DFV#2,SKoGA#0 (and KotL)
BotToS#5,SBS#25,IbW#34, DS#5, COSOC# Suspended, KotTFSTR#
The speccy Geordie twat.

 

Hence the name I suppose.

--

jeremy
'02 Fazer 600 in blue
_______________________________________
jeremy at hireserve dot com

 

According to Radio 2's man in the know, such products are known as
'screen scrapers' and the best they can do is give an approximation of
the premium from a given insurer, based on the comparatively few
details you giive to them.

I have found confused a bit vague, although comparatively quick. A
better screen scraper can be found here:

http://www.moneysupermarket.com/motordefault.asp

It will go and query 50 insurers' websites on your behalf once you
have entered your details once. It takes a few minutes to get all its
results, so a coffee is recommended. It worked for me rather better
than confused. YMMV.

The thing is, once you get to the website of the individual insurer,
they want more details - the SP30s, the DDs, the twocking. Then you
get the chance to redress the balance by lying about your
fortress-like brick-built garage, the electrically locked and sealed
underground vault for bike storage, the pack of ravenous Dobermanns
and how you've personally eradicated all untermensch from your
locality to improve security.

They'll still make your fucking eyes bleed though - fact of life.

 

Has Sir considered ringing his local NFU office?

A proper old school insurance company if ever there was - my experiences to
date are:

* They insist you always deal with the local office - net result is you can
actually deal with someone face to face, rather than some disinterested call
centre battery hen, if you wish.

* When we had two cars insured with them, and consequently went back down
to one, I cancelled one of the policies... I was expecting to still maybe
owe them a little money, but no - three days later, a cheque turned up with
a refund of premium to me.

What they do is take your total premium for the year, divide by 365 and then
multiply by the number of days you've had cover - in other words you only
end up paying for the cover you've actually had - not experienced this from
any company before!

* A small, probably not of interest to you as you already have bike
policies, other benefit is, you're covered to drive other peoples cars *and*
bikes.

* They don't appear to give much of a monkeys about any mods your vehicle
may have had.

Finally, my dad was unfortunate to be involved in an accident with an
uninsured driver, a few months ago. Given his work horse, is a year old
van, he wanted it sorted properly, and with minimal fuss - the current
insurer for that, refused to lay on a hire vehicle, and took their time to
approve the estimate / repairs.

The garage repairing it advised him that in their experience, NFU are really
quick to approve repairs / pay out for written off vehicles etc.

Anyway... my experiences of them so far, are excellent - they appear to be a
very honest breath of fresh air, in a market full of shitehawks.

You can normally, if you go to a site like Confused.com find someone a bit
cheaper, but they've never quoted me stupid money on anything I've asked for
quotes for, or insured with them.

The only pisser, is by the local offices admission, they're not very
competitive on bike cover.

HTH

 

I had all this yesterday with some spanish companies. Spent ten minutes
entring information only to be left waiting - waiting - waiting. Only
got one to work. Also, apparently my car doesn't exist. And I had to lie
about the year I got my licence because it's impossible to have passed
my test in January 1979 because I was too young to drive then.

--

Paul.
CBR1100XX SuperBlackbird
BOTAFOT #4
BOTAFOF #30
MRO #24

 

Halla said...

I've not had a problem with Kwik Fit sticking extra stuff on. They did
ask if I wanted that sort of stuff, but unlike the ins co I was with
before they don't phone me every week just to make sure I haven't
changed my mind.

 

I would be - a shit job, if ever there was. One or two people I know have
ended up doing brief stints of it, and the scenarios they related to me,
were not favourable.

Ah, but it's your job to not let them get to you, isn't it...

No charge at all, from NFU.

Nor when I've changed my vehicle other than an increase in the actual
premium, if the vehicle was a higher grouping etc.

I've only ended up paying for what I've actually had - sat there and worked
it out for myself, and I'd only paid for the exact amount of cover I'd had.

Heh

 

Odd. I;ve used them several times. The quotes I got have always been less
than ones I've tried direct, particularly when one factors in the time.
When I've contacted the company that's listed with the quote, I've had no
trouble purchasing at the price quoted. No extra details have been
required, either.

--
Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
Alfa 116 Giulietta 3.0l (Really) Sprint 1.7 156 TS S2
Triumph Speed Triple: Black with extra black bits
www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

I used them when my recent renewal came through, and their best beat
the DL renewal by a good 1/3rd. When I rang DL to ask I was told
"that's the price, we won't move" so I did. I did phone around a
little and managed to get another 50 quid off and green flag breakdown,
so although I didn't buy the confused quote they did give a good
indication of what I should expect.

 

Its in the job spec

And let that be a lesson to you, popular does not = best

 

I spent a little time looking at my renewal. Collonades were cheaper
than any of the internet quotes.

Problem with the internet quotes is the fuckers keep you in a database
and pester you repetitively if you give them your correct email address.