Cancelling insurance mid term.

[dave21478]

So, I change cars fairly often and my current insurers are a little-known name that came up on a French compare the meerkat style site. For the past couple of years they have been nice and cheap but my last vehicle change with them has gone to hell. Despite the new car being lower value, about half the CV fiscal and more common than the last one, the premium has rocketed to an unreasonable level.

An online check shows plenty of other insurers will offer the same cover for about half what I am currently paying, but my current policy is only a few months into a new year. A quick poll of people I know here gets plenty of replies along the lines of "Cant do that, have to wait till renewal". Are they actually right, or is just not the done thing for some reason?

I am not fussed about loosing the part-year NCB.

[Chancer]

AFAIK if you have the necessary documents to prove that you no longer own the vehicle you can ask them to cancel the insurance, doesnt sound  like you will get much of a refund though.

You can ask them at any time for proof of bonus, cant remember the term, réléve quelquechose, and armed with that you can go to another insurer and keep the bonus that you had accrued.

Was it A****a***ue whom you put me on to by any chance? My premiums are still pretty cheap but I guess that they will get me in another way when they can.

I had insured with the AA just before moving to France, I had an Alhambra, the premium was unbeatable and there was IIRC £100 cashback which came to me over a couple of months, why they just didnt reduce the premium I dont know, the documentation looked really suspect, no printed policy booklet or terms and conditions, everything had been ginned up on a colour laser printer on plain unheaded paper, the average teenager could have done better apart perhaps from the spelling.

Anyway after a couple of months I changed to a much lower rated vehicle and like you they tried to stuff me for a much higher premium plus a hefty admin charge, I refused and cancelled and ended up in the crazy situation of having had free insurance for a few months and they had paid me for the priveledge.

[dave21478]

Yes, its the same company. They have remained consistently cheap for me, but this last episode is a right mess for some reason. The policy was up for renewal a couple of months ago, and I was happy with the price so let it go ahead. It has remained roughly the same price no matter what car I have covered with them, ranging from a sporty wee boy racer thing to small vans. I then changed car from a 4x4 to a wee diesel peugeot and the premium has gone up by over double.

I am happy enough to "sell" the car to someone, which will give me a certificate de cession and I should be able to cancel ok - I see no other way of doing it really - I have just browsed through the paperwork and it tells me that they will not cancel a policy outside of the renewal period unless there is good reason....ie selling the car. I would guess that finding the same cover much cheaper elsewhere is not going to be "good reason" in their eyes!

[Chancer]

Were you still tiers only with them Dave?

Interesting to know that but for this time they have been equally cheap for the other vehicles, did you have to pay an admin charge for the other changes of vehicle?

Perhaps they have cottoned on to your frequent changes of vehicle and decided you are a "Jacky" (a Kev)!

The cost of insurance and the carte grise figures strongly in my calcules for should/if I change my vehicle, just having filled up with diesel at €1.36 a petrol car converted to bio-ethanol is looking tempting, its about 89cts around here.

[dave21478]

Yes, it is tiers only. You know what? I don't think there ever was any admin charge for the changes - they would just recalculate the premium (I pay monthly).

Changing cars often doesnt seem to be the done thing here. I wonder if that is whats doing it.....

And yes, the costs of motoring are making me reconsider a few things. The Landrover sitting at the bottom of my garden now has all its paperwork needed to be registered here, however I am waiting until the end of the month when it reaches 10 years old before I do so as the carte gris will then be half price. After all the hassles, I recon it will probably just be sold on as I am struggling to justify the costs of having it. The downside is that I need a decent car to tow a large trailer and the peugeot is only rated to pull about 1 ton, so thats no use and whilst a 4x4 has its uses in winter, I am now struggling to justify the cost of running it year round, hence thoughts on selling it. Dunno really....the Landy is uncomfortable for daily use, handles like a burst couch and costs a fair chunk in fuel. The pug is comfy and cheap, but gets stuck on a slightly sloping bit of damp grass and wont pull the trailer (legally anyway) with my equipment on it.

I looked into cars running on E85 a while back, and my conclusion was to choose the car carefully. Some modern-ish things from the likes of Saab can run it straight off with no modifications, but there are dire warnings about using E85 in most standard cars. There are a load of plug in "tuning boxes" that allow E85 to be used in any injection car, but as far as I can gather, all they do is lengthen the injection pulse to richen up, and do nothing to address other things that should be done. From what I remember, ideally the compression ratio needs changed and timing altered a fair bit too to get full benefit from E85. It would be easy enough to build up a carb fed engine specifically to run on it, but since E85 is still somewhat rare on the forecourts, you would need to plan your runs carefully to avoid being stranded as I doubt it would run well on normal petrol.

[Chancer]

My situation is similar, I have a very economical and pretty bulletproof diesel estate, 65mpg and close to 300000 miles, most of the time it is more than I need but I do have a large box trailer that weighs 750kg unladen and has a huge frontal area and its a real struggle to tow it even unladen unless I open both the roller doors, fully laden (overloaded) and badly balanced I had a real brown trouser moment on the M25, the snaking and pitching lifted the back of the car off the road and it took up all 4 lanes (twas the M25/M26 junction) plus the hard shoulder.

The trouble is I only use it once or max twice a year so a van or 4 by 4 is out of the question hence my considering a large petrol estate car running on ethanol, there is a garage selling it in my local town (we are a producer of betteraves) and also in Amiens and Arras both a 30 minute drive away, my pal has a converted Renault Laguna, the guy who did it allegedly had it in for the morning for fine tuning but i dont believe it, he is a real crook and also a Police informer, it lacks power on the ethanol, not a problem for me but is also less economical, nonetheless may pal has done 100K in it in the last few years so is quids in.

I am quite tempted to convert a carb/dizzy engine though, food for thought.

Interesting to hear about the vehicle changes to date, have you ever had more than one at a time insured with them?

I reckon that the system has flagged up your numerous vehicle changes as anomolous, they have looked at it and gone into "c'est pas possible mode" after all no-one in their right mind would pay for that many carte grise's except of course someone in your position, they probably think that you have crashed them all [6]