On 27 Feb 2011 at 6:47pm bazm wrote:
Can anyone recommend a good insurance broker (for car insurance)? The online sites are just not flexible enough. My wife has a foreign licence that is not recognised here so will have to have a provisional one, and thats horrendously expensive!
On 27 Feb 2011 at 9:03pm MC wrote:
RT Williams in Brighton/Hove. Tel: 01273 328 181
I've been with them for years, but have always checked out on-line site as well. They've always got me the best deal, and with a lot less effort than I needed to spend on the mostly incomplete web offerings.
One year my RTW broker told me that we can't beat the "such and such" on-line offering so do that... I did, and it was cheap.. but when I came to renew it a year later it had gone up by over 30% (it was an introductory on-line only 1 year aimed at hooking you into expensive repeat business)... but RTW been honest enough to tell me about it and recommend it for a year.
I use them for car, house and business insurance. Can't fault them. Take the work out of it and always get me a very good deal. Highly recommended.
On 28 Feb 2011 at 10:00am Mystic Mog wrote:
Personally I feel that domestic insurance should be nationalised so that there is just one company to deal with. Often pointless choice and a waste of everyone's time. Rant over.
On 28 Feb 2011 at 11:11am Twinkle wrote:
Absolutely not, Mystic. Competition amongst insurance companies is what keeps prices down, especially for "non standard" cases. Example is the original post - lets say there was one company, and it had decided that foreign drivers (who can drive perfectly well) should be priced alongside provisional licence holders (who can't drive perfectly well). If there's no competition, nothing will change; foreign drivers are stuffed. But thanks to competition, some firm or other will realise that there is a reason to differentiate, and the price for foreign drivers will slowly come down. The choice offered by brokers is absoilutely what is needed. Nationalisation isn't necessarily a bad thing - reduction of competition very much IS a bad thing for all of us.
On 28 Feb 2011 at 1:31pm MC wrote:
I get so annoyed when i see people spout this brain-dead brainwashed 25-tubes-of-exactly-the-same-toothpaste-is-a-good-thing mantra. "Reduction of competition very much IS a bad thing for all of us" is just not true. Nothing is ever that simple, that black or white, that straightforward. Competition does not necessarily equate with efficient use of resources, competition does not necessarily mean great products at the best prices.
On 28 Feb 2011 at 2:31pm teacher wrote:
By Jove MC you really stood on your soapbox. Not quite sure what you was on about but I am definetely going out to buy 25 tubes of exactly the same toothpaste. Thanks for the tip.
On 28 Feb 2011 at 6:24pm MC wrote:
Sorry I get annoyed by simple-minded platitudes being handed out as if it's Moses revealing the ten commandments.
I hope it does not take too long to choose the toothpaste. 25 brands desperately trying to differentiate themselves and spending tons on branding, advertising and packaging for a product so simple it beggars belief.
Rant over
On 28 Feb 2011 at 6:30pm MC wrote:
Actually it's worse than that. Its 50 different products manufactured by only two or three different companies. Conning the public (and especially Twinkle).
On 28 Feb 2011 at 9:00pm Mystic Mog wrote:
Churchill and Direct Line are the same company, they also used to do Tesco's insurance and are owned by RBS. Some of the â??comparisonâ?? websites are actually run by a provider. There is actually very little choice. MC was actually talking about an independent broker not the provider; quite different. We are surrounded by a few service companies who operate cartels whilst pretending to sell us choice.
If choice is so wonderful then explain the point of privatising directory enquiries? I was more than happy with one number 192. Now I have a pointless choice for a myriad of enquiry numbers that offer more of less the same service at a price that is worse than the old 192 service. Have choice where it matters not for services that do not deserve us to waste our valuable lives with. Whilst I am on a roll nationalise solicitors, stop them doing conveyancing, stop them behaving as if they are better than us mere mortals.
On 1 Mar 2011 at 2:21pm Twinkle wrote:
err.."The choice offered by brokers is absolutely what is needed" was what I said; let someone else do the choosing of suppliers. My point still stands. Genuine customer choice keeps prices down. No choice over supplier inevitably means monopoly control and predatory pricing. Applies to groceries, insurance, you name it. Parent companies DON'T provide uniform insurance pricing (I switched from Elephant to Bell Direct because of price, even though are parts of the same group).
A single provider of insurance would be a disaster - fine if you're a UK male aged 25-55, but what would happen if that provider decided arbitrarily that it wanted to charge double the rate for anyone over 55, or anyone who was non-UK, or it didn't want to insure anyone under 21? "We'd force them to do it because we'd own it..." - back comes the argument for nationalisation, where we'd all pay the same rate - but I don't want to pay the same rate as a 19 year old.
on the 192 - keep calling BT's service if it bothers you. Most of them have gone bust, so it can't be a money spinner. Look at Yell's shareprice over the past 4 years if you want a laugh. The old BT 192 service was offfered as part of the complete service BT used to offer - that is, it was in effect subsidised.