High risk driver (outstanding accident, plus six points) - £1006

[Denny]

I thought it was probably worth posting here considering how much I just saved at the last minute by making one last phone call.

I\'m 31 years old, I have full protected no claims bonus, and I\'ve held a full license for car and motorbike for over ten years.  The car is a completely unmodified UK model with a category 1 immobiliser.  Those are the good bits.

I live in South London, and I park the car in residents parking overnight - basically \'on the street\' as far as insurance companies are concerned.  Those are the \'slightly dodgy\' bits.

In December 2002 I found out that I\'d forgotten to renew my car insurance six weeks before, when a random spot-check happened to pick me up.  That led to a court appearance, six points, and a £200 fine, for IN10 (driving while uninsured against 3rd party risks, or whatever it\'s called).

In June 2003 a careless car driver pulled out of a parking space straight into the path of me on my SV650 motorbike.  Crunch.  Among the other unpleasant effects (in hospital for a month, on crutches for a year), I have yet to settle the issue of liability for this accident - so it\'s a large claim and still outstanding/pending, rather than proven non-fault.

Those are the really bad bits  

I think it\'s safe to say that the combination of the details above makes me fairly high risk as far as insurance companies are concerned, and that was reflected in the quotes I was getting this week...  ranging from outright refusals, starting as high as ~£2600 from random \'respectable\' companies, down through a rather disappointing ~£1800 from Adrian Flux.  There were a few at ~£1400, including Tesco and Norwich Union via a broker, and it looked like that was going to be my best bet...  then I decided to ring NU direct.

They initially quoted me £964 (!), but that was with £570 excess.  The guy ran through all the excess options with me from £570 down to £270 in £100 drops, and then £200 which is their lowest excess...  in the end I opted for £470 excess and a premium of £1006, but even at their lowest excess they still were quoting me ~£200 less than anyone else had managed.

Cover includes a \'luxury\' courtesy car, legal cover, breakdown cover, and protected no claims - it basically seems like a really good package.

So, not cheap by most people\'s standards, but if you\'ve got a bit of a chequered past like myself, you might want to give NU a call: 0800 068 3661

Regards,
Denny

[Gerry M]

Sorry to put a dampner on this, but their aftercare is useless, I wrote off a brand new car policy quoted like for like, spent the good part of 6 months phoning deli callcentres to find out what was happening, it took them 2 months to say it was written off, when looking at a it you could tell in 10 minutes, then they hummed & ha\'d about what what happening, 5 months later it was passed to blue cycle who do NU\'s sourcing who had been waiting for the info from nu for 3 months who kept loosing it. Once in blue cycle\'s hands there was no problems. We wrote a letter to NU seeing as they were still removing the money from the bank for the policy on a car which was written off. Eventually got it back, but needless to say I wont be using them again & i\'d been with them 7 yrs with a previous claim with them which was sorted in 3 days!

[TonyBlair]

I have also heard that the customer service side of NU is really really poor. I can\'t remember any stories off hand, but I can say that I\'ve only heard bad things about their level of service. The only good points I\'ve heard about them is their prices.

I guess it\'s the old saying; you get what you pay for...

Cheers
Jon

[BlueAdept]

Interesting,

I was messed about royally by AON over my fitting of the US spec cruise control to my RX8.

Their position was that it was not suported by Mazda, and so they couldn\'t cover me...   While my position was that if it was "Supported by Mazda" then it would be an optional extra and I wouldn\'t be declaring it as a modification... and they were not concearned about my other modifications, dispite the fact that Mazda probably wouldn\'t be happy about those either...

Still, I ended up having to cancel the policy and go to Adrian Flux who quoted me less anyway!

[GeckoGareth]

Denny,

am I right in thinking this is for the black UK FD? If so that would explain it being reasonably priced.

If it was a Japanese one I think you\'d have been having to drop your pants to get insured.

regards

Gareth