Review rated by 7 Ciao members on average: very helpful
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I have been with Kwik Fit now for just over 2 years and as far as cheap insurance is concerned they are the best. I paid £212 for 3rd party insurance which was the cheapest bar one I could find on the web. Probably like a lot of others, I had never heard of the other company and they might have been a couple of quid cheaper...but you rather buy from someone you've heard of. The only minus I have had is this year with my renewal, spoke to them over the phone and was all done in dusted in minutes. But I did not receive my certificate, so a week or so after the old one had expired I phoned them and asked if they could send it me (after first checking that I was actually insured!). They promised to do so, so that was fine. Unfortunately I had to ring them again but then it arrived. The week before last though I go the post office to get my road tax renewed and guess what they'd omitted the car details (i.e. registration #) on the certificate. Kindly enough the lady at the post office gave me a disc but she didn't have to w/o the proper certificate. So on the phone again and they re-send me a correct copy straight away. Although the people are all very friendly the general service does seem a bit sloppy (But hey 212 quid!).
So now for the MONEY saving bit. Nearly all car insurers charge interest when you choose to pay your insurance in instalments. I wasn't aware of this untill I added up the instalments and it ended up to be quite a bit higher than my original quote (for an anual payment). So I phoned them back to ask why this was. So Kwik Fit explained that they charged 17% (not sure of exact numbers do not quote me on the exact figure) when paying in instalments. So I asked them to reverse this and told them that I would pay them in full intead. Hence saving myself quite a bit of money. 17% on a £212 quote would be approx £20 (calculate to pay interest over half the yearly quote, i.e. when 6 months are gone you have already paid in half the money). I have had a little look around on the interweb and it seems that some insurance companies charge anywhere up to 25+% APR. So if you have an annual insurance of £800 you would pay a whopping £100 in interest. Now I can hear a lot of you think, well where am I going to get the full amount (maybe £800) from in one go? Here my advice would be to, like myself, get a good on-line bank account (which is a tip in itself as you earn interest on your current account) and save up for you yearly insurance bill. My on-line account let's me set up various jars (with higher interest then current account) so I have a Car-jar where straight after my salary has gone in I deposit £50 (you can set this up so it does it automatically on certain date of the month). As I drive a cheap car this normally covers all my bills (insurance, MOT and road tax + any repairs). When saving up for your insurance bill (say £800) you would earn the interest over these saving (save £67 a month, so as before you earn yearly interest over half the annual amount), if you get 4% interst this would be £16. Next to this you would save (when taking a 20% APR) £80 on not paying the interest for a direct debit.
I.e. a TOTAL SAVINGS OF £96. On the overall amount of £800 this is a 12% saving. Not bad I'd say.
08.11.2005 17:51
There are so many companies to choose from and work out the best deal
08.11.2005 09:28
Its amazing just how many companies branch out into the insurance side with Kwikfit being no exception. I do like the concept of the 'jars' as well! x