Saga Insurance

[zeddykay]

I received my renewal notice today. In addition to a large increase in premium I noticed an extra £ 20 charge called a "renewal arrangement fee". Never seen this before. What can be the justification for this , given that in most cases if you get a quote as a new customer you get a better deal anyway!

Seems like an evening to be spent online. Any thoughts?

Thanks

[Higgy]

They are good to new customers, but alas not repeat ones, they even wanted a £40 cancellation

fee when I sold the insured vehicle.

 

Shop around using Confused.com or Compare The Market, always seems to work.

[PJay]

Higgy - 2016-04-26 5:13 PM

 

They are good to new customers, but alas not repeat ones, they even wanted a £40 cancellation

fee when I sold the insured vehicle.

 

Shop around using Confused.com or Compare The Market, always seems to work.

 

If you do google/compare the market. make sure they are MHome insurers . Caravan Gaurd, we where with but Safeguard where cheaper

PJay

[Bojitoes]

Hi

We have just reinsured our van with camping & caravan Club. We got quotes from Saga- the most expensive at £422, Comfort and Caravan Guard at around £350 for similar cover. At one time or another over the last 8 years we have been with each of these companies so I don't really think there is much difference between any of them.

Bob

[Brock]

Is the renewal fee free of Insurance tax? It might be away round the raised insurance tax i.e. lower premium+fee = lower insurance tax. Or if the fee is taxed a way of raising additional income whilst making the renewal quote look competitive.

[snail]

We have been with Saga for last three years, I too had this charge of £20, I contested it, thier explanation was it's always been there only this year they have to disclose it, however they gave me a £25 discount as a loyalty bonus, worth a email?

Also the breakdown cover has increased to £107 from £95 last year, overall I thought not too bad so have renewed with them

 

Good luck!

[Colin Leake]

They do this to me every year on the car motorhome and house insurance. Each time they do I ring them up,we have a chat and they find ways to substantially reduce the premium. It's a UK based call centre and they are very helpful and easy to deal with. No problem in fact it's all just part of the game and great fun.

[DJP]

The £20 fee is to cover the set up costs for providing info to the authorities that your vehicle is insured and to provide other insurers with your information. That's what they told me last week.

[david lloyd]

Colin Leake - 2016-04-26 7:46 PM

 

They do this to me every year on the car motorhome and house insurance. Each time they do I ring them up,we have a chat and they find ways to substantially reduce the premium. It's a UK based call centre and they are very helpful and easy to deal with. No problem in fact it's all just part of the game and great fun.

 

I find the whole process quite aggravating Colin. The Motorhome insurance with Comfort was on a par with last year even considering the change from 3 year old panel van conversion to 6 month old coachbuilt and the hike in IPT. However. We also use their house/contents cover (mainly for the increased time away from home cover) and the travel insurance - again for the increased time away cover but also because they were pretty good with pre-existing conditions. But, sad to say, the quote for the latter is up by over 50% (after allowing for the IPT rise) and they put this down to my wife reaching 70 and going into another age band. To make it worse, we complete a medical disclosure form and as she is awaiting an outpatient appointment for a painful right knee they have excluded this plus a previously disclosed long standing condition that she has medication for but has never had recurring symptoms of.

 

The sheer thought of spending endless time ringing other companies (some who do not do travel insurance) and having to plough through the their forms to complete the ore-existing conditions etc is just enough to make me think we should stay with Comfort and accept the inevitable.

 

David

[Tracker]

No experience of Saga with a van but one of our cars is with Saga and last year it was badly damaged in an unseen car park hit and run incident.

 

The car was unsightly but driveable and with one phone call to Saga where our tale was sympathetically listened to, the car was collected next day, at which time a loan car was delivered, with our car being duly returned impeccably repaired and valeted three weeks later.

 

All in all an impressive performance and it remained a competitive premium even at the next renewal.

 

Insurance can be a real pain and sometimes it is easier to just renew it and get on with your life, but it is still worth having a quick scout round at renewal just to see if a better deal can easily be found.

[PJay]

Tracker - 2016-04-27 9:42 AM

 

No experience of Saga with a van but one of our cars is with Saga and last year it was badly damaged in an unseen car park hit and run incident.

 

The car was unsightly but driveable and with one phone call to Saga where our tale was sympathetically listened to, the car was collected next day, at which time a loan car was delivered, with our car being duly returned impeccably repaired and valeted three weeks later.

 

All in all an impressive performance and it remained a competitive premium even at the next renewal.

 

Insurance can be a real pain and sometimes it is easier to just renew it and get on with your life, but it is still worth having a quick scout round at renewal just to see if a better deal can easily be found.

 

You where lucky. We had an accident on the A! Dec 2014. They kept us waiting for 6 hours in cold, eventually we got a taxi to take us to a Travel Lodge for the night, which we had to arrange ourselves and get our own hire car. We are STILL waiting for our excess to be refunded! SO we no longer insure with SAGA

 

PJay

[Keith T]

We are, and have been, with Safeguard for many years, though I generally check on renewal to see if its worth changing.

The 'renewal fee' does aggravate me, but I think all that has happened really is that it has been charged for many years and only in the last 2 or 3 they have shown the breakdown of the costs.

 

IPT has gone up, and I think there is another rise due at the end of this year (?), but my renewal due in a few days is almost the same as last years, and having checked with a couple of other insurers, they are still the best especially if you include the breakdown cover they offer within the policy..

I was actually quite put out from one insurer who I tried, when they asked my date of both, went away for a few minutes, and came back and said I was too old for a new policy from them...at only 75!!.

[gmacz]

My renewal had a big increase as well, about £70.

Something about increase in tax.

I had a look and it was 3.5% i think.

This worked out at under £5, i offered to renew at same price as last year plus the tax.

This was accepted.

[breakaleg]

We had a weird insurance experience this year, we bought a new motorhome in May and our renewal is due around about March, so I phoned the caravan club when we changed and there was an additional charge of around £180.00 our old van was nine years old, so when the renewal notice came through for the same cover (including new for old for two years) it was about £500.00 this is what I was expecting, now it gets interesting, when I was driving my wife's car, we had a strange altercation with a transit van, I spoke with the owner and agreed to fix our own and no claim was made.

I told the car insurer (wife's car insured a month earlier than the van) they said, no extra charge, thanks for letting us know, when I told the caravan club, sharp intake of breath, Equity red star will no longer cover you but, aviva will, but they want an extra £190.00 on top of the £500.00, I told them that I would shop around.

I did, two other firms offered to cover me for £500.00 but shield direct covered me for £241.64p three years new for old and very little difference in the terms but the weirdest thing is, it is by equity red star!?

Pete

[zeddykay]

Thanks for all the helpful replies.

Phoned Saga today re a renewal quote of £375. Immediately dropped it to £340 when I said I wasn't renewing( 5 year loyalty bonus, apparently) I told them that was not good enough to match Safeguard and another drop to £330. I reluctantly agreed because they have been a good company in my experience, but it should not be necessary to have to do this every time. I usually don't offer second chances on quoted price as a matter of principle, but I am learning not to cut off my nose to spite my face!

[Brians dad]

I found another strange practice from Saga when I went for an online quote. It came out very reasonable, and I thought I would compare it with some others. I went back to Saga and looked at my quote again, and it had gone up £4. Three days later I looked again, and the quote had gone up another £5.I phoned them up to find out why they seemed to be adopting what I call 'Ryanair' pricing, but could not get the guy to give me insurance at the original price, or any explanation of why they price variably. A pity, as it was a good quote, but went elsewhere as a matter of principle.

[Dave225]

I have had several polcies with Saga but have been dropping them at renewal times. They used to be excellent but in recent years have a dopted a poilcy of screwing the last nut out of any loyal customers. My disillusionment with them b3egan when I discovered they were quoting me car insurance 100% more than the Caravan Club, so I dropped them for that. Then my home contents came up and again I discocvered they were 50% more expensive than another major insurer. The sting with this one was that I had elected to pay by Direct Debit and in the small print of the renewal was the clause that it would be renewed automatically unless I telephoned them. If I just cancel;led the DD, they would impose a charge. So I called them to cancel and was of course asked why. I decided to be honest and stated that the renewal premium was far too high. I was asked what I had been quoted and when I gave the figure I was told that Saga could not match it. I then received a long lecture on why Saga could not give cheaper quotes as their Underwriters made up the figures, not Saga. I suggested that this was a matter between them and the underwriters, nothing to do with me. I eventually had to just put the phone down as they would not stop complaining about me cancelling. My caravan insurance is due this month and again I have found a cheaper quote, so it will be canncelled as well.

 

The moral is of course shop around but if you do deal wiith Saga, or possibly others, do not enter into a Direct debit agreement or you will have a job getting out of it. Pay a lump sum and it stops on renewal, despite you getting a lot of letters telling you that time is running out to renew.

 

I have used the Caravan Club this time round but possibly in years to come they too will decide that loyalty is to good an opportunity to screw me.

[Bulletguy]

I've been going through insurance quotes as mine is up this weekend. Saga came out the most expensive and even when i phoned them, they weren't interested in sorting anything competitive.

 

I'm remaining with Scenic who i've been with the past three years now, but dropping the breakdown cover (£109) in favour of ADAC at £66. So my renewal will be £150. Also i get green card insurance at no extra charge from Scenic who cover virtually every non-EU country.

[colin]

I renewed with Saga last month.

Had a claim throu them couple of years back and it was handled very well.

did an online compare search and one company which I had not heard of before came very low, which I dismissed due to no knowledge of them (may be a mistake), Caravangaurd and Scenic where a bit lower than Saga and the rest where higher, had what could best be discribed as a painful phonecall to C&CC insurance which was a little higher than Saga, So a quick call to Saga to ask if they would come down to around quotes from Caravangaurd and Scenic, a minute or so later they came back with a competitive quote which I accepted.

[colin]

Dave225 - 2016-05-05 4:36 PM

 

The moral is of course shop around but if you do deal wiith Saga, or possibly others, do not enter into a Direct debit agreement or you will have a job getting out of it. Pay a lump sum and it stops on renewal, .

 

You also need to look out for continuest payments on Credit Cards, RAC insurance are buggers for this.

[bodach]

Not Saga which I gave up on some years ago but Camping and Caravan Club increased my premium from just under £300 to about £700 because I am now 80 years old. No other reason and not negotiable. Now with Shield with an extra driver included for just under £400.

[Wirralian]

I have been with Comfort for a number of years because their renewal quotes have been minimal increases each year. But this year they pulled a flanker on me.

 

My renewal was due in January but at the time the motorhome was in storage in Spain until March. I explained this to Comfort who advised me to contact them again in March. So come March, I expected to pay the renewal quote of £266.66. But no, Comfort quoted me £391.66!! I was being regarded as a new customer. So what's happened to a new customer getting a better deal. Despite protestations Comfort would not budge on this saying that it was the underwriters decision.

 

John :-(

[lennyhb]

Just had my renewal from Comfort an increase of £8, just had a shop round nearest is £90 dearer.