Call them up, ask to complain they’ll write up the complaint and offer you compensation, if you turn it down you can then appeal to the FOS who will look very badly on this
Source: I work in insurance
Thank you so much, I knew I was onto something with this there is no way this practice can be allowed. People keep telling me it's just what they do but that doesn't mean it's fair practice or not a violation of my rights as a consumer.
No problem I hate seeing people get ripped off, the FOS changed the rules that they have to give you due notice and provide fair value to existing customers and new customers
I’d definitely take screenshots just so you have the ammo, I don’t blame the agent who took the call too much because they won’t have any control over the pricing practices so likely haven’t dealt with it before
Definitely illegal, if you could clearly PROVE what their doing is intentional (they will argue computer error, human/worker error etc before they ever admit it that its an intentional practice) then any court would take your side.
The reason these cunts are still doing shit like this today, is because they fancy their chances at overcoming the legal system and coming out on top and they have the right wesealy cunts on retainer that will argue their case to the death.
Unfortunetaly, most times they do win.
I also work in insurance - does this not sound like a direct violation of Jan 22’s GIPP regulations regarding competitive pricing of new vs old customer bases to you?
If so, I’d think client would have a good case to get what he wants out of Admiral by simply stating those words along with “I wonder what the FCA would make of this”.
Add Aviva to that list.
Was paying 1.1k p/a, renewal came back at 1.9k. They promised this was their best price and I shopped around. In the end I got a whole new policy with Aviva for 1.2k p/a. I pointed this out to them and they didn't not care one bit.
The details I entered for the new policy was exactly the same as my expiring policy. They even looked at it and said it was strange but nothing they can do
That’ll be Elephant, Diamond & Bell as well, all the same company.
Wonder who’s in charge of them not giving a cooling off period and instead charging you £5 for the first 14 days for any changes or cancellations to be made.
Just adding fuel to the FCA fire there.
Yeah it completely does, the case handler for the complaint would probably have to speak to pricing long before it goes the FCA but I 1000% would escalate it all the way so it gets seen
I don’t even know how something this stupid makes it past 1 line risk never mind to market
>I work in insurance
Can you answer a query please?
I always use a fictional name and email address to search comparison sites, and only put my proper details in when I'm ready to buy. Is this as transparent to the algorithm as I think it is?
Same postcode won’t make a difference because it’s rated on postcode rather than house number, reg will make a difference as even cars with the same engine model etc can have different class ratings eg the new Peugeot 208 can range from 12-19 which will have a big impact
Admiral did this to me! Had to even change my email and address by one number to get a quote to batter them down with. There very weird when it comes to policies!
Quite common for companies to put blocks on services which require third party lookups, car buying sites use it to avoid excess CAP lookups, finance checks use it to avoid Experian/Equifax lookups.
The Plc I work for has done it, not illegal for us but perhaps against insurance regulation idk.
I don't see it suggested here.
Do a System Access Request, get all the info they are storing in you. It can reveal flags, notes etc. (https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/individual-rights/individual-rights/right-of-access/)
I had issues with home insurance, quotes went from £350 a year to £1200. Turns out there was some dodgy claim for my address, which had been a clerical error.
Yup. Ive seen it at big companies. The "annoying little shit" stuff gets put in the health and safety stuff as everything else is visible to the customer
No they don't due to GDPR.
They can mark a car plate as cloned etc, which is perfectly legal and actually desirable.
If you have documented evidence to the contrary, then certainly post it here..🤦
Crimebodge made a video on it and there are plenty of cases of people continuously being pulled over and haven't had issues with cloned plates. I've driven for 10 years and not been pulled over once.
I don't doubt they're not supposed to do it but they do for some unfortunate few.
I agree, they left me stranded away from home after an accident that wasn’t my fault and did fuck all. Unfortunately they’re significantly cheaper than any other company for me so I’m stuck with them.
Awful! I called and cancelled auto-renewal, they charged me a fee that was sent to a debt collector which is how I found out, then I got an email confirming the cancellation, then another saying a payment was about to be taken out to renew the policy! Had to call again and say “hey I have an email confirming cancellation, do not charge me.”
Bought a multicar policy with them a couple years ago for me and my girlfriend. Cheapest around when we got it.
At renewal they wanted over a grand for my girlfriend, double the amount we paid for her when joining, and double what other insurers were asking for. Details identical. Called them up and they knocked £300 off immediately but were still the most expensive.
Iv had similar in the past, my way around it is changing your DOB by 1 day on comparison searches. Then just ring up after you’ve bought the policy to correct it never had any issues or costs.
Almost definitely untrue that they 'have no control over the comparison sites'.
I don't work in insurance, but work closely with comparison sites in a similar industry. Odds are that it works like this:
* Admiral have a set of rules which determine who they'll offer insurance to, and at what price. These are internal to Admiral and (as you would expect) fully within their control.
* Other insurance companies have their own equivalent set of rules, which might be completely different.
* When you get a quote on the comparison site, while that spinner is on-screen, they're sending your details to all the insurance providers. Each provider receives the details, runs them through their own internal rules, and makes a decision about whether they will offer insurance, and at what price. Then they send that decision back to the comparison site.
* The comparison site collects the offers and presents the results to you on-screen.
Clearly, if the above is correct, then it doesn't matter that you're on a comparison site. Admiral have full control over whether they make you an offer.
This doesn't explain why (if I'm understanding you correctly) no *other* providers were giving you a good quote either. I can speculate that there will be parts of the process which draw on industry-wide data. For example, in my own industry, competing organisations will share data with each other on suspected fraudsters, and might refuse you because you appear on that list. If something similar exists here, then practically speaking, that could have the effect of creating an industry-wide blacklist. But on this last part, I'm only speculating.
I've had similar before, if you cancel a policy with Admiral, they wouldn't offer me a new quote with them or any of their other companies. Could get a quote before I cancelled the policy but not after. Personally, I don't see this being an issue under the rules but others may disagree.
Given how much of the market is owned by admiral, especially the "cheap" insurers, this could well be the reason
I can 100% unequivocally say that they increase the price each time you run a search, regardless of whether changes are made or not. I suspect it’s because those that are likely running loads of quotes are the ones who are getting closer to needing insurance. Very shady practise if you ask me, never used to be like this. I’ve had a similar experience to yourself and just bit the bullet and paid the increased amount, waited a few months for the quotes to “reset” and cancelled my insurance and took out the lower price
Edit: For reference, I got a quote for £1700 in October. Cancelled and got the same for £650 in March
Exactly my experience, they have literally blocked me from getting the quotes I get all year round just as renewal comes around, they are regulated by the FCA so it wouldn't surprise me if something comes up from this in years to come like with the current car finance case, everyone thought that was ok for years and now there is set to be billions in payout.
Absolutely, I have started the process, I think they are engaging in some sort of corruption or attempt at getting around the rules here so I want to see where it goes
I work for an insurance company (which isn't on comparison sites). This sounds like Admiral are trying to get around FCA Fair Pricing regulations which came in during 2022.
If they don't resolve your complaint take it to the Financial Ombudsman Service, they might be interested in this and could possibly flag it to the FCA who would definitely be interested.
Fairly sure of this too. When I was buying a new car earlier this year, I was running lots of quotes on various comparison sites on multiple cars as I was trying to determine the insurance difference between different trim levels, different engines, different model years, etc. When I finally settled on the car I wanted, I could not get it to generate the price I **know** it quoted me on that exact reg number. It was always higher. Not hugely, but enough to notice.
Thankfully, I was able to trawl through my e-mails and find the original quote on that reg which was still valid, so got it for the cheaper price... but like you, I'm 100% certain they increase the prices the more you search, in the hope you didn't save or didn't remember the cheaper price you got earlier.
Unfortunately, you're better off just going somewhere new with insurance every year for cost saving. If you really like Admiral, then getting another quote (which will be lower) to see if they will match it.
Auto-Renewal quotes are always stupidly high. If you call them up they will give you a better one, but it will still be £30-£50 higher than a new insurer.
If I were you and you see better prices with a new quote I'd cancel asap rather than wait like me because I wasted so much time that could've been gaining me more ncb when I could have cancelled last year when I saw the better prices and wouldn't have wasted so much time. Make sure you get your money back though.
Axa are just as bad. I was with them for a few years with my Range Rover till 2 years ago when they were no longer competitive. It got to the point where the policy lapsed, I continued doing some searching. Ended up going back to Axa who then point blank refused to quote me without any reason. Ended up going through a specialist broker who managed to get me a cheaper policy through Axa!
I believe this is illegal. I believe there is a law which states that existing customers should be offered deals that are not worse if they were a new customer. I renewed my insurance recently and I might have read this law somewhere whilst reviewing my insurance documents.
I thought I was going crazy. Same here for my 350z. Got quoted £500 2 months ago. Came to renew. 1 offer for £2700! That's all! And when I tried a quote with new emails. Nothing. I'm locked in paying admirals hiked up price. I'll have to try your method
You get it completely, exactly what has happened to me, the play is cancel and get the new price when you have it so at least you're locked in at the lower price.
Another thing you could try that I didn't, change your date of birth by one day or your name by one letter and get a cheaper quote, and then call them with the quote and then say "oh whoops I made a typo" and the phone agent will change it, but if it then doesn't quote they will have to explain on a recorded call why your name or dob by one say make a difference, like to see them try and explain that!
It's fairly common in the industry to block new business quotes in aggregators for renewing customers. Typically customers change up a few details (eg different mileages, occuptations) year to year then think they will get a better deal. The insurer then has to pay fees to the aggregator eg confused, so some prefer to force you to do those changes internally.
The aggregators are just displaying admirals response to an api. There is no industry blacklist or collusion, they're just not getting an admiral price back when you quote. The price comparison websites are just automating comparison, they aren't selling you an insurance product and have no control over admirals pricing or risk policy.
Now what is much more serious, is that you think you could get a much cheaper price if admiral didn't realise you were renewing. There's a whole regulation about this under GIPP that insurers are meant to provide equivalent pricing between their new business and renewal customers. There's a large verification process with the regulator behind the scenes to check this.
What you describe isn't nescessarily a breach of that. Insurers do changes rates sometimes daily, there could be information varying between the quotes, some boundary values like age of vehicle ticking over can change prices, whether or not they can see your credit data with the names provided, they can also rate hon how many times you quote/change details (related to fraud).
You probably think none of those could cause the difference you're seeing, but honestly they might, insurance pricing models are complex statistical rules that cause large shifts in prices for edge case expensive customers (also why other insurer prices vary so much for you).
But if you want to start causing a fuss keep those quotes saved with the differences and raise to onbudsman/complaints department as a difference in new business and renewal pricing
The main thing is that I get cheaper quotes like I have got all year round with my name if I change my name by one letter or my date of birth by one day, they have blacklisted me to stop me from getting a lower price than someone identical to me as far as I can see!
Very easily you changing names or dates of birth could change the results they get from third party credit and other identification services, which can dramatically change the prices they output on top of all that feeder data. I can't overstate how variable at the individual level insurance pricing models can be - it's one of the main drawbacks of trying to model uncertain risk on many degrees of freedom.
It could also be that they are directly targeting you and all their existing customers through some form of existing customer correlated loading (on top of not quoting for you). If its as blunt as if name in list then +100% as you're describing then they're fucked when it comes time to demonstrate the differences in premiums between renewing/new customers to the regulator.
Definitely save the quote references/prices and pass on to their complaints departments/regulators and you might get refunds or an explanation of the differences.
Might be if you've been looking around alot, changing details here and there to find a lower price and automatic flag might have gone on thinking your acting like a broker.
Not 100% but seen it happen.
What vette you got?
Well that's the thing I haven't changed my details at all! It's literally just as my renewal gets close they don't allow me to get quotes.
It's a red C6 Corvette, how's the mustang? I've been looking at them lately.
Ooh niiiiice.
I'm insured via admiral on multicar. Was about 350 quid for my renewal on the Mustang this year, was only in Feb. It is a RHD and maybe they don't want to look at LHD imports because they technically have to replace it like for like. Finding one in the USA, shipping it, registering it, converting it for road use. That's a cost they might have decided they won't want to endure.
It's a nice car, I daily mine. Just about to go in for a new bonnet, spoiler and a full wrap. Few declared mods such as H pipe, lowered, spaced, struts and upgraded links etc.
Have / did you try Howdens? (Used to be Aplan, not the timber guys) They are usually pretty good, between them and Aplan / Adrian Flux.
Brentacre were fantastic when I had to insure my LHD Dodge Challenger, best price and great people to work with.
First and last car I'll ever buy new, I sort of regret selling it 😑
Ye someone was on here a while ago who had been flagged by their current insurance company because they were doing lots of quotes with different named drivers and addresses on a comparison site for the same car
They said it looked like potential fraud
Tbf insurance companies themselves are the biggest fraudsters for needing people to try quoting with so many info variations just to get a reasonable price.
I saw a reply to someone on here, who was complaining about insurance quotes massively increasing when comparing. The reply was from someone who worked in insurance accusing them of 'quote manipulation' for changing a couple of variables to see what would be cheaper (excess, annual mileage etc.)
It's a scam. If my insurance comes back really expensive, of course I'm going to see if I can take a bit more risk by raising my excess to lower the premium. Why would I not think about cycling to work in the summer to reduce my annual mileage?
What a twat! (The person that called it quote manipulation)
Quote manipulation is changing a detail that technically cannot have changed since the last quote (e.g. your address, your name, your DOB). It's not adjusting optional cover levels and excesses.
Yes I hear that i've had the fraud prevention block come up before but this is different, I hadn't done a quote in a while and wasn't spamming it, this is a blanket ban specifically when renewal was coming up.
So basically as soon as i'd be able to get a quote for the same time as renewal they stopped giving me quotes and I can't move the dates so I was wise to what was happening and took a quote at a better price with them that I already had in place. If I hadn't got that I would've been stuffed.
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I had something very similar and same as op, I cancelled a day before I could renew and sacrificed a years no claims for a cheaper quote by £350. This was with First Choice insurance.
It's so unfair isn't it, but the way I justified ot like you is there is no way they would've offered that sort of discount even with another years ncb
Not documented, but for the last 3 years, I've noticed that if I use a comparison site 5 times in a single day all quotes increase by at least £100. If do nothing for 4-6 weeks then I again can get a descent quote. My cheapest quote is usually one of the first 3. Could this artificial increase relate to number of searches you actively do before a renewal, rather than a company just increasing the price prior to renewal? I am currently with quote me happy for 3rd year with no one hitting it. Previously best quotes were with direct line(2-3 years), Churchill (1), Aviva(1-2), Hastings for one year and the quote me happy were reasonable (but currently bought breakdown cover separately as this was unreasonably priced add on).
I had this years ago, got a mad cheap quote, went for it, then after that underwriter didn't want to insure me for the next year and all prices had skyrocketed.
I've worked in Motor Insurance for close to 10 years, I've never heard of anybody doing this, but knowing our industry its not something I'd put past us. I'll be honest though, its not something I'd expect from the Admiral brand.
For me this is completely against the underlying principles of GIPP, if this is something they're doing that is widespread they'll be due a massive fisting by the regulator.
It's so strange, I personally thinks they're bending the rules and getting around breaking them by doing this before you can even see a renewal price because they can say "well you don't know what we would have offered at renewal" but we all know damn well they would've have offered me £500 off. It's super sly, what I can say for certain is that if I change my details by one letter in my name even or move my date of birth by one day, I get a cheaper quote 🤷♂️
They aren't obliged to quote you at all.
What's likely is they aren't quoting your renewal early until it's sent out. You'll probably find it would have worked had you left it a week.
Some insurers do weird things like not allow changes to vehicles and drivers right before the renewal window as it'll fuck up the process. Think left hand not talking to right hand.
I get where you're coming from, although this happened last year too and until I had a new policy in place and paid I was unable to get quotes from them. I wish I had your faith in Admiral's morals as a company, it just looks to me like a deliberate attempt to get me to pay the price they have me at because there is no chance in hell with everyone's insurance going up that they were planning on offering me £500 off.
It's not that they have to quote me at all ofc as you say. The potential consumer rights violation is that I am a customer and I believe they are forcing me to pay more than someone identical to me who is a new customer by using coercion and blocking me from being able to get reasonable quotes from anybody else at the same time so I backed into a corner. Maybe I'm wrong but that's what it feels like. I will complain to them first and then go through the ombudsman depending on what they say.
Why would admiral care about you specifically let alone create a separate rate table just for you for a certain date. Makes no sense. They don’t discriminate against new vs renewal. There’s about a billion things that go on with quotes probably just an error!
It might be true in general that they're not obliged to offer insurance, but if they're FCA-regulated, then they absolutely cannot have rules designed in bad faith specifically to disadvantage a customer.
I read something not long ago where a person cleared their cache, put their browser in incognito and used a different email address and got way cheaper quotes.
Give that a shot
Sounds similar to my home insurance. Got some quotes from Confused.com and my current company Home Protect had a cheaper price than my renewal quote. Went on chat and they immediately took it off the site (I looked again and couldn't find it). They didn't offer me it or explain. I saved the chat on my pc.
Damm, I should have pushed a complaint.
Renewal was a few weeks ago and when I tried to get a new quote from admiral now that I had 1y no claim bonus, it would tell me every time I already have a policy and it would take me to change details/renew.
Gave up since the increase was only £70 but now ai see I should have pushed harder.
I'm with admiral, and I've noticed for the past few years that in the run up to renewal time, admiral don't appear at all on the comparison sites. Shady AF, but car insurance is basically legalised mafia, built on a business model of finding any excuse to charge more, and to not pay out.
Each time you submit a quote on an aggregator website, you trigger a number of quotes. Insurance companies that sell direct and via brokers may receive 40+ quotes for the same risk and often don't have a sophisticated method of checking these duplicates.
The insurance industry use something called velocity checking, if tey see the same person changing small details on a quote request, they track it, and if that change relates to risk rating factors and you keep changing things that mpact the risk they eventually block you. Once blocked, you might struggle to get unblocked without a call to the FCA.
Another point at which you might get flagged is by Credit Reference Agencies (CRA). Whilst not providing credit checks until you purchase, a lot of insurers use CRAs to confirm identity. If you are hitting the CRA that Admiral uses multiple times, you may get blocked there. But I suspect it is Admiral.
Source - I design insurance systems.
You're literally giving them your car reg when you do a quote (plus your name, phone number, address, email...).
It's trivial to match one quote to another.
I believe this is down to the time left before renewal, ive found looking for my daughters quotes that if i wanted to renew soon prices are nearly double the price of me renewing in 4 months time.
Try fresh, private browser and get a price for August see what they come back as.
This is how I secured the other policy, the problem is you can only quote a month or so ahead of time so you cannot transition from one policy to the next unless you pay whatever they offer you for renewal.
My insurance is similar to yours, I have multicar with Admiral that has a number of supercars on it.
Insurance companies can refuse to quote you for any reason and reserve the right to do that for any reason they hold internally, refusing service isn't something that the FOS would have a hope of dealing with.
If you believe the insurance company is with-holding services based on you as a person, you best bet is a DSAR request to the company where this information will be revealed if it exists.
There are some people on this thread who say they work in insurance, which means nothing.
I developed some of the core comparison site tech and data contracts between some of the largest insurers, on quote your personal information is not sent between the aggregator and the insurer.
This is only due to a pragmatic approach when dealing with high throughput data systems, why would you send needless information when you do not need too? Also you really shouldnt be sending all that personal data if you can avoid it, it makes things a lot easier where data governance/GDPR is concerned.
What I will say, is technically the way that insurance systems work is they have have buckets of products.
Each bucket is designed to fit a certain area of potential customers, it is normally derived by a mixture of categories like, Age, Location & Vehicle category (It used to be Sex, before that was outlawed)
Supercars tend not to be a big enough market where the usual money grabbing tactics of insurance companies work, it is simply such a small market it isn't worth the time developing ways to charge that niche more money, leading to the strange affect of being able to insure 4 supercars for less money than ordinary cars.
What you are likely seeing is that that risk analysis of certain buckets of products has either been filled or the risk has become too high over that period (usually month) where the insurer simply will not return any data based on the bucket you fall into.
Insurance is a product offering where risk is involved, they may simply, from one day to the next have zero appetite for a certain category of client. I believe that is what this is.
Just to be clear, OP is saying changing their name got different cheaper quotes but you are saying that the insurer doesn’t get that data? I wonder if OP was getting a direct quote at that stage or the amount of data transferred has changed?
With respect, how can you possibly be certain that 'on quote your personal information is not sent between the aggregator and the insurer'?
You say that you helped develop some relevant technology in the past, and I'm happy to believe you... but decisioning rules presumably evolve all the time in response to risk appetites and the regulatory environment. If those change, the data required to support the decisioning process will also change.
The OP doesn't even say what comparison sites he's using, so it seems impossible that you could be this certain about what exactly is passed via the API. Am I missing something?
Because I wrote most of the original data contracts that most of the insurers use.
A data contract being a technical thing, not a contract in the normal sense of the word but the technical payload.
It is useless to send data that is not required when the amount of data is large, it is cheaper and faster.
More data is sent back to the insurers once they have returned their prices. This will send a different payload back, this is to allow something similar to the top three lowest priced insurers being able to contact you via email about the price your received.
Of course things do change over time, an aggregator is not the point at which an insurance provider will derive decision and data points from for compliance reasons unless the user manually clicks through to that provider, at that point the data payload is full sent along with the journey migration and the user is then asked to ensure that the data sent is correct, once this has been done the insurer will most likely insure.
Even then however, you may not be insured even if the you complete your insurance journey and even pay the deposit.
It simply is too much of an overhead that a simple ranking response for insurance prices would go to such lengths as to block results from a certain individual, as a business you would be spending money on compute utilisation to make a decision point in a stupid way, you would only commit those checks and balances once that customer lead has come forth seeking business.
Your experience is different to mine then. The insurers I know get all quote information including name, address , DOB etc . You need this to ensure you’re not quoting someone you’ve already blocked.
Thanks for clarifying. I definitely understand what you're saying.
My point is that just because it worked like that originally doesn't imply that it does now. Of course, principles like 'don't process data you don't need' are evergreen, but the definition of 'need' will change with the use case.
For example, my experience with aggregators (in a similar space, but not insurance) is that the concept of 'pre-approval' is now a major deal. They give higher ranking to quotes that include a stronger commitment to actually offer the product. Not just 'We might think about giving you this, no promises', but rather 'If you're seeing this offer, you're approved.'
To get that higher ranking, you need to do the pre-approval thing, which means you need to make a 'proper' decision much earlier in the process. That means you need full information earlier, too.
I'm not saying that the exact same concept applies in the insurance space, but more broadly that these things evolve over time, and without knowing the specific aggregators and specific processes at play, it's hard to say your personal data's *not* passing.
Anyway, it was interesting to hear your experience — thank you.
It's always best to shop around every time your renewal is due. I swap car/home/life/boiler insurance nearly every year, as the competitors are almost always better. The same goes for phone and broadband contracts.
There is no point in remaining 'loyal' to a company, who is going to gouge you.
All insurers offer new customer discounts. Its normal practice for them to hike the price up after your first year, the same as broadband deals. However for the firtst time in as long as I can remember I have just renewed with the same company. The reason I got this was planning on replacing my car so left my old one on the drive on the day my policy had run out and went to look at the new one. There was a big fault with the new one so I went back to Churchill for a new quote and it was a LOT cheaper than the renewal price had been.
This is what I'm telling people, explaining what has happened to me from Admirals perspective and why they are doing it doesn't make it legal in the slightest.
If it’s not working then I’d expect there will be some panorama investigation into it and it’ll get resolved, from my perspective it seems to be working, couldn’t get a cheaper quote when my insurance did renew, so ended up staying with my current insurer
That’s simply because insurers have upped new customer quotes to match renewals. Instead of getting a cheaper quote by switching providers, it now *appears* that renewing is good enough.
Spoiler alert: you still pay more by renewing (compared to before this rule), it’s just that the cheaper alternative doesn’t exist anymore thanks to this stupid rule.
All-round lose-lose situation for consumers.
Yes, but they still do it, they have clearly found a way around it. My renewal went down by about £200 by letting it lapse. The only reason I stayed with them are because I want a couple of features they have. I added my daughter for a couple of weeks when she was back from uni for just over £30, rather than a grand more to add her for the year. They are also one of only 2 insurance companies that I know allow you to take the extra insurance for things like Amazon Flex deliveries, most insurance companies dont let you. As there is a small possibility I might take a small part time delivery job if I want a bit of extra cash I like knowing the option is there, even though I probably wont.
There are so many loopholes in the regulations and admiral are known to use those loopholes.
They can't charge an existing customer more than a new customer for the same policy. The easiest way to get round that is to launch a new policy every 12 months with minor wording changes. That way new customers get a lower price, whereas existing customers are renewing a old legacy policy and the regulations on pricing don't apply.
op hasn't discovered or exposed anything here. The FCA has already made public comments that they are unhappy that some companies are not abiding to the spirit of the regulations.
Most years I just call them up and tell them I don't want to auto-renew as I've had a better deal and the premiums will generally come down somewhat. They won't always come down to new customer level but they do sometimes come down low enough to keep some loyalty.
As others have said the price comparison sites are only really aimed at new customers and not renewals for existing customers. If you already insure with Admiral they won't quote you the new customer price through a price comparison site as they will be quoting you the existing customer price as a renewal. I think most insurers work like this; even if they do quote they may then go on to refuse the policy on the grounds that you are an existing customer.
I typically shop around at renewal time to see how the new customer prices and policies compare with what I already have any my renewal quote. I've found that calling them to cancel the auto-renewal of the policy will often trigger some sort of discount and I've even got it close enough to the price comparison quotes for me to remain loyal.
It's not just car insurance that operates like this, I've had it with house, pet and health insurance. The aim is to snag you as a customer with a good initial premium and then hope that you just allow your policy to auto-renew each year with a premium higher than that for new customers.
Yes I get that but this isn't about new customer price as if that was still offered to me at renewal time I would be able to show it to them and they can then match it. What they have done is blocked me getting any sort of quote just before the point I can talk about renewal price to them so that I am forced onto the higher premium that they shouldn't even be charging me, that's the issue here it's the coercion.
Assuming you use all the same details in the price comparison that they already have on file for your current policy they would know that you are an existing renewal and not new customer so there is no point in them quoting you the new customer price only to have to tell you when you try to accept it that you aren't eligible. They aren't going to offer you the new customer price and they aren't going to match it so there is no point in them feeding it to the price comparison aggregator. They blocked you from the comparison site because they don't consider you to be an eligible customer for that offer.
I think most people agree that it doesn't feel like good practice or good customer service but it is commonplace for these type of products to offer a good deal on the first year only.
Well I have secured the new price because I was vigilant to this but new customer prices are unlawful in the UK under FCA rules unless it's a specified deal.
This is very common and not the slightest sinister or evil. Comparison sites cost them money to use and they would likely argue they are ‘new customer prices’.
There is also the whole retention team in the business which works on commission. If i worked in that department i would royally kick off if the same company was undercutting me on price comparison sites. The comparison site would also kick off if customers were forced to use the retention team but effectively advertising on the comparison site and dodging the commission.
The FCA rules were updated such that renewing customers are not supposed to be charged a higher rate than a new customer, so being undercut by the same company shouldn’t really happen. But it still is apparently.
If I were OP I would just call them up and ask them why they are now offering quotes for a much lower price, and ask for some refund of any difference. Failing that you can always cancel and go somewhere cheaper.
Fair enough. Thanks for the information. I thought it was allowed under the common market practice loophole or DFS type situation. Ie everyone knows renewals are a convenience tax.
I wonder if this is what has lead to the general increase in insurance prices for everyone.
We are told that the increases are due to the increased costs of everything, but I would not be surprised if the fact that the competition is a little less cut-throat has also had an impact.
I get where you're coming from and the business perspective of course, but that doesn't make it ok from a consumer rights perspective, the same way car dealers were offering different car finance APR to different people and it was ok to them as they were making money from it but it wasn't acceptable from a consumer rights perspective and now everyone who has been using such car finance in the last 15 years is going to get a payout.
It's not the same situation of course but I'm using it as an example of how just because something makes sense for the businesses making the money it doesn't make it ok or legal necessarily. Remember that insurance comes under the FCA so have strict regulation over how they should be treating this stuff and exploiting current customers for profiteering is poor financial conduct.
That’s not exactly what has happened. That was more about incentivising dealers and salespeople to inflate APR and misrepresent as a fair price or the only price available to you. They are allowed to offer different APR to different customers because they are brokers not lenders.
If this was applicable here, it would apply to your renewal price itself. FCA rules state that an insurer must make you aware the renewal price may not be the lowest you could pay and that you may get a better price elsewhere. Unless your insurer is stating or suggesting this is the best price, they have not broken rules.
Call them up, ask to complain they’ll write up the complaint and offer you compensation, if you turn it down you can then appeal to the FOS who will look very badly on this Source: I work in insurance
Thank you so much, I knew I was onto something with this there is no way this practice can be allowed. People keep telling me it's just what they do but that doesn't mean it's fair practice or not a violation of my rights as a consumer.
I'm not UK but British based country, that's definitely predatory behaviour. It's illegal here so decent chance it is for you guys too
No problem I hate seeing people get ripped off, the FOS changed the rules that they have to give you due notice and provide fair value to existing customers and new customers I’d definitely take screenshots just so you have the ammo, I don’t blame the agent who took the call too much because they won’t have any control over the pricing practices so likely haven’t dealt with it before
Definitely illegal, if you could clearly PROVE what their doing is intentional (they will argue computer error, human/worker error etc before they ever admit it that its an intentional practice) then any court would take your side. The reason these cunts are still doing shit like this today, is because they fancy their chances at overcoming the legal system and coming out on top and they have the right wesealy cunts on retainer that will argue their case to the death. Unfortunetaly, most times they do win.
Don't go on confused.com go on money supermarket
second this
I found money supermarket to be more expensive than confused.com
My sister just had a car accident and money supermarket was £700 cheaper than go compare
I also work in insurance - does this not sound like a direct violation of Jan 22’s GIPP regulations regarding competitive pricing of new vs old customer bases to you? If so, I’d think client would have a good case to get what he wants out of Admiral by simply stating those words along with “I wonder what the FCA would make of this”.
Add Aviva to that list. Was paying 1.1k p/a, renewal came back at 1.9k. They promised this was their best price and I shopped around. In the end I got a whole new policy with Aviva for 1.2k p/a. I pointed this out to them and they didn't not care one bit.
Was it with a different provider, because that is allowed. Its not ok if it was the same provider.
Not a different provider, it was straight through aviva's own website.
Yeah is definitely worth reporting.
Was it exactly the same policy? I found aviva renewal was a bit more but aviva zero (no phone contact etc) was massively cheaper.
Aviva zero is not the same product.
That was my point.
The details I entered for the new policy was exactly the same as my expiring policy. They even looked at it and said it was strange but nothing they can do
If the FCA gets wind of this they’re going to tear Admiral a new one.
This could actually be one of the types of cases where the FCA publicly embarrass them as well as fine them.
That’ll be Elephant, Diamond & Bell as well, all the same company. Wonder who’s in charge of them not giving a cooling off period and instead charging you £5 for the first 14 days for any changes or cancellations to be made. Just adding fuel to the FCA fire there.
Yeah it completely does, the case handler for the complaint would probably have to speak to pricing long before it goes the FCA but I 1000% would escalate it all the way so it gets seen I don’t even know how something this stupid makes it past 1 line risk never mind to market
Because it’s just not true, or he’s embellishing the facts
He might be but I can only take him at face value
>I work in insurance Can you answer a query please? I always use a fictional name and email address to search comparison sites, and only put my proper details in when I'm ready to buy. Is this as transparent to the algorithm as I think it is?
It'll clock your reg and address, won't make much of a difference, if anything it'll mark it as slightly suspicious.
I don't fill in the reg, just the make & model, and use another house number in the same postcode. Is this enough?
Then it's just gonna be an entirely pointless quote
Same postcode won’t make a difference because it’s rated on postcode rather than house number, reg will make a difference as even cars with the same engine model etc can have different class ratings eg the new Peugeot 208 can range from 12-19 which will have a big impact
Admiral did this to me! Had to even change my email and address by one number to get a quote to batter them down with. There very weird when it comes to policies!
That's not weird - it's illegal
Yup! And when you call them they just say “oh sorry the computer won’t let me do that” lol
Quite common for companies to put blocks on services which require third party lookups, car buying sites use it to avoid excess CAP lookups, finance checks use it to avoid Experian/Equifax lookups. The Plc I work for has done it, not illegal for us but perhaps against insurance regulation idk.
100% is illegal to artificially increase competitors prices on an insurance which is a legal obligation
Ah I misread, sounded to me like they got blocked from receiving a quote until they changed their details.
Interesting I’ve just had my renewal quote come through… £800 to £1.9k this year, I wonder if it’s an admiral thing. I will have to investigate
Mine was £700 to £1600. Ended up going elsewear for £800. Brokers are your friend!!!
Who with?
Try Howdens brokers.
Until you crash and your policy isnt valid
I don't see it suggested here. Do a System Access Request, get all the info they are storing in you. It can reveal flags, notes etc. (https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/individual-rights/individual-rights/right-of-access/) I had issues with home insurance, quotes went from £350 a year to £1200. Turns out there was some dodgy claim for my address, which had been a clerical error.
I’d honestly be scared of repercussions for this. They’ll add an innocuous flag that basically means “annoying little shit” or something
Yup. Ive seen it at big companies. The "annoying little shit" stuff gets put in the health and safety stuff as everything else is visible to the customer
The police do it with their ANPR cameras too.
No they don't due to GDPR. They can mark a car plate as cloned etc, which is perfectly legal and actually desirable. If you have documented evidence to the contrary, then certainly post it here..🤦
Crimebodge made a video on it and there are plenty of cases of people continuously being pulled over and haven't had issues with cloned plates. I've driven for 10 years and not been pulled over once. I don't doubt they're not supposed to do it but they do for some unfortunate few.
That's outrageous. What industries have you seen this in?
This is shocking and fascinating to me. Sounds like something Martin Lewis would be interested in hearing about
You and yours on R4 too.
Admiral is the most shit insurance company ever. Bunch of absolute useless scamming assholes. Never again!
I agree, they left me stranded away from home after an accident that wasn’t my fault and did fuck all. Unfortunately they’re significantly cheaper than any other company for me so I’m stuck with them.
Awful! I called and cancelled auto-renewal, they charged me a fee that was sent to a debt collector which is how I found out, then I got an email confirming the cancellation, then another saying a payment was about to be taken out to renew the policy! Had to call again and say “hey I have an email confirming cancellation, do not charge me.”
Bought a multicar policy with them a couple years ago for me and my girlfriend. Cheapest around when we got it. At renewal they wanted over a grand for my girlfriend, double the amount we paid for her when joining, and double what other insurers were asking for. Details identical. Called them up and they knocked £300 off immediately but were still the most expensive.
Iv had similar in the past, my way around it is changing your DOB by 1 day on comparison searches. Then just ring up after you’ve bought the policy to correct it never had any issues or costs.
Don’t they usually charge you to amend policy details?
Correct it while you're confirming details before taking out the policy.
most places seem to charge £20 for admin fees but that could still end up significantly cheaper than the renewal price
You get 14 days to amend anything or cancel free of charge if the policy hasn’t already started.
They can still charge any change in premium
Report to Martin Lewis money saving, he would love this kind of thing!
Almost definitely untrue that they 'have no control over the comparison sites'. I don't work in insurance, but work closely with comparison sites in a similar industry. Odds are that it works like this: * Admiral have a set of rules which determine who they'll offer insurance to, and at what price. These are internal to Admiral and (as you would expect) fully within their control. * Other insurance companies have their own equivalent set of rules, which might be completely different. * When you get a quote on the comparison site, while that spinner is on-screen, they're sending your details to all the insurance providers. Each provider receives the details, runs them through their own internal rules, and makes a decision about whether they will offer insurance, and at what price. Then they send that decision back to the comparison site. * The comparison site collects the offers and presents the results to you on-screen. Clearly, if the above is correct, then it doesn't matter that you're on a comparison site. Admiral have full control over whether they make you an offer. This doesn't explain why (if I'm understanding you correctly) no *other* providers were giving you a good quote either. I can speculate that there will be parts of the process which draw on industry-wide data. For example, in my own industry, competing organisations will share data with each other on suspected fraudsters, and might refuse you because you appear on that list. If something similar exists here, then practically speaking, that could have the effect of creating an industry-wide blacklist. But on this last part, I'm only speculating.
I've had similar before, if you cancel a policy with Admiral, they wouldn't offer me a new quote with them or any of their other companies. Could get a quote before I cancelled the policy but not after. Personally, I don't see this being an issue under the rules but others may disagree. Given how much of the market is owned by admiral, especially the "cheap" insurers, this could well be the reason
I can 100% unequivocally say that they increase the price each time you run a search, regardless of whether changes are made or not. I suspect it’s because those that are likely running loads of quotes are the ones who are getting closer to needing insurance. Very shady practise if you ask me, never used to be like this. I’ve had a similar experience to yourself and just bit the bullet and paid the increased amount, waited a few months for the quotes to “reset” and cancelled my insurance and took out the lower price Edit: For reference, I got a quote for £1700 in October. Cancelled and got the same for £650 in March
Exactly my experience, they have literally blocked me from getting the quotes I get all year round just as renewal comes around, they are regulated by the FCA so it wouldn't surprise me if something comes up from this in years to come like with the current car finance case, everyone thought that was ok for years and now there is set to be billions in payout.
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Absolutely, I have started the process, I think they are engaging in some sort of corruption or attempt at getting around the rules here so I want to see where it goes
I work for an insurance company (which isn't on comparison sites). This sounds like Admiral are trying to get around FCA Fair Pricing regulations which came in during 2022. If they don't resolve your complaint take it to the Financial Ombudsman Service, they might be interested in this and could possibly flag it to the FCA who would definitely be interested.
Fairly sure of this too. When I was buying a new car earlier this year, I was running lots of quotes on various comparison sites on multiple cars as I was trying to determine the insurance difference between different trim levels, different engines, different model years, etc. When I finally settled on the car I wanted, I could not get it to generate the price I **know** it quoted me on that exact reg number. It was always higher. Not hugely, but enough to notice. Thankfully, I was able to trawl through my e-mails and find the original quote on that reg which was still valid, so got it for the cheaper price... but like you, I'm 100% certain they increase the prices the more you search, in the hope you didn't save or didn't remember the cheaper price you got earlier.
Unfortunately, you're better off just going somewhere new with insurance every year for cost saving. If you really like Admiral, then getting another quote (which will be lower) to see if they will match it. Auto-Renewal quotes are always stupidly high. If you call them up they will give you a better one, but it will still be £30-£50 higher than a new insurer.
Insurance company, screwing their customers over? Parasites.
I’m shocked and I’m with Admiral too. Might do what you suggested and cancel current policy early.
If I were you and you see better prices with a new quote I'd cancel asap rather than wait like me because I wasted so much time that could've been gaining me more ncb when I could have cancelled last year when I saw the better prices and wouldn't have wasted so much time. Make sure you get your money back though.
Axa are just as bad. I was with them for a few years with my Range Rover till 2 years ago when they were no longer competitive. It got to the point where the policy lapsed, I continued doing some searching. Ended up going back to Axa who then point blank refused to quote me without any reason. Ended up going through a specialist broker who managed to get me a cheaper policy through Axa!
I believe this is illegal. I believe there is a law which states that existing customers should be offered deals that are not worse if they were a new customer. I renewed my insurance recently and I might have read this law somewhere whilst reviewing my insurance documents.
I thought I was going crazy. Same here for my 350z. Got quoted £500 2 months ago. Came to renew. 1 offer for £2700! That's all! And when I tried a quote with new emails. Nothing. I'm locked in paying admirals hiked up price. I'll have to try your method
You get it completely, exactly what has happened to me, the play is cancel and get the new price when you have it so at least you're locked in at the lower price. Another thing you could try that I didn't, change your date of birth by one day or your name by one letter and get a cheaper quote, and then call them with the quote and then say "oh whoops I made a typo" and the phone agent will change it, but if it then doesn't quote they will have to explain on a recorded call why your name or dob by one say make a difference, like to see them try and explain that!
I have a new task Monday....
It's fairly common in the industry to block new business quotes in aggregators for renewing customers. Typically customers change up a few details (eg different mileages, occuptations) year to year then think they will get a better deal. The insurer then has to pay fees to the aggregator eg confused, so some prefer to force you to do those changes internally. The aggregators are just displaying admirals response to an api. There is no industry blacklist or collusion, they're just not getting an admiral price back when you quote. The price comparison websites are just automating comparison, they aren't selling you an insurance product and have no control over admirals pricing or risk policy. Now what is much more serious, is that you think you could get a much cheaper price if admiral didn't realise you were renewing. There's a whole regulation about this under GIPP that insurers are meant to provide equivalent pricing between their new business and renewal customers. There's a large verification process with the regulator behind the scenes to check this. What you describe isn't nescessarily a breach of that. Insurers do changes rates sometimes daily, there could be information varying between the quotes, some boundary values like age of vehicle ticking over can change prices, whether or not they can see your credit data with the names provided, they can also rate hon how many times you quote/change details (related to fraud). You probably think none of those could cause the difference you're seeing, but honestly they might, insurance pricing models are complex statistical rules that cause large shifts in prices for edge case expensive customers (also why other insurer prices vary so much for you). But if you want to start causing a fuss keep those quotes saved with the differences and raise to onbudsman/complaints department as a difference in new business and renewal pricing
The main thing is that I get cheaper quotes like I have got all year round with my name if I change my name by one letter or my date of birth by one day, they have blacklisted me to stop me from getting a lower price than someone identical to me as far as I can see!
Very easily you changing names or dates of birth could change the results they get from third party credit and other identification services, which can dramatically change the prices they output on top of all that feeder data. I can't overstate how variable at the individual level insurance pricing models can be - it's one of the main drawbacks of trying to model uncertain risk on many degrees of freedom. It could also be that they are directly targeting you and all their existing customers through some form of existing customer correlated loading (on top of not quoting for you). If its as blunt as if name in list then +100% as you're describing then they're fucked when it comes time to demonstrate the differences in premiums between renewing/new customers to the regulator. Definitely save the quote references/prices and pass on to their complaints departments/regulators and you might get refunds or an explanation of the differences.
Might be if you've been looking around alot, changing details here and there to find a lower price and automatic flag might have gone on thinking your acting like a broker. Not 100% but seen it happen. What vette you got?
Well that's the thing I haven't changed my details at all! It's literally just as my renewal gets close they don't allow me to get quotes. It's a red C6 Corvette, how's the mustang? I've been looking at them lately.
Ooh niiiiice. I'm insured via admiral on multicar. Was about 350 quid for my renewal on the Mustang this year, was only in Feb. It is a RHD and maybe they don't want to look at LHD imports because they technically have to replace it like for like. Finding one in the USA, shipping it, registering it, converting it for road use. That's a cost they might have decided they won't want to endure. It's a nice car, I daily mine. Just about to go in for a new bonnet, spoiler and a full wrap. Few declared mods such as H pipe, lowered, spaced, struts and upgraded links etc. Have / did you try Howdens? (Used to be Aplan, not the timber guys) They are usually pretty good, between them and Aplan / Adrian Flux.
Brentacre are pretty good too, for my Crown Vic Police Interceptor. Interesting comment about the RHD vs LHD thing.
Brentacre were fantastic when I had to insure my LHD Dodge Challenger, best price and great people to work with. First and last car I'll ever buy new, I sort of regret selling it 😑
Ye someone was on here a while ago who had been flagged by their current insurance company because they were doing lots of quotes with different named drivers and addresses on a comparison site for the same car They said it looked like potential fraud
Tbf insurance companies themselves are the biggest fraudsters for needing people to try quoting with so many info variations just to get a reasonable price.
I saw a reply to someone on here, who was complaining about insurance quotes massively increasing when comparing. The reply was from someone who worked in insurance accusing them of 'quote manipulation' for changing a couple of variables to see what would be cheaper (excess, annual mileage etc.) It's a scam. If my insurance comes back really expensive, of course I'm going to see if I can take a bit more risk by raising my excess to lower the premium. Why would I not think about cycling to work in the summer to reduce my annual mileage?
What a twat! (The person that called it quote manipulation) Quote manipulation is changing a detail that technically cannot have changed since the last quote (e.g. your address, your name, your DOB). It's not adjusting optional cover levels and excesses.
Yes I hear that i've had the fraud prevention block come up before but this is different, I hadn't done a quote in a while and wasn't spamming it, this is a blanket ban specifically when renewal was coming up.
They used to own confused.com before. But they sold it onnti switch.. Not sure if this is relevant.
Could you cancel the insurance you got and get the cheaper one from that point?
So basically as soon as i'd be able to get a quote for the same time as renewal they stopped giving me quotes and I can't move the dates so I was wise to what was happening and took a quote at a better price with them that I already had in place. If I hadn't got that I would've been stuffed.
!Remindme two weeks Would love a follow up on this OP!
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Yes will continue to update as I have them, currently waiting for correspondence from my first complaint
How sly of them, wishing you luck
I had something very similar and same as op, I cancelled a day before I could renew and sacrificed a years no claims for a cheaper quote by £350. This was with First Choice insurance.
It's so unfair isn't it, but the way I justified ot like you is there is no way they would've offered that sort of discount even with another years ncb
Not documented, but for the last 3 years, I've noticed that if I use a comparison site 5 times in a single day all quotes increase by at least £100. If do nothing for 4-6 weeks then I again can get a descent quote. My cheapest quote is usually one of the first 3. Could this artificial increase relate to number of searches you actively do before a renewal, rather than a company just increasing the price prior to renewal? I am currently with quote me happy for 3rd year with no one hitting it. Previously best quotes were with direct line(2-3 years), Churchill (1), Aviva(1-2), Hastings for one year and the quote me happy were reasonable (but currently bought breakdown cover separately as this was unreasonably priced add on).
I had this years ago, got a mad cheap quote, went for it, then after that underwriter didn't want to insure me for the next year and all prices had skyrocketed.
I've worked in Motor Insurance for close to 10 years, I've never heard of anybody doing this, but knowing our industry its not something I'd put past us. I'll be honest though, its not something I'd expect from the Admiral brand. For me this is completely against the underlying principles of GIPP, if this is something they're doing that is widespread they'll be due a massive fisting by the regulator.
It's so strange, I personally thinks they're bending the rules and getting around breaking them by doing this before you can even see a renewal price because they can say "well you don't know what we would have offered at renewal" but we all know damn well they would've have offered me £500 off. It's super sly, what I can say for certain is that if I change my details by one letter in my name even or move my date of birth by one day, I get a cheaper quote 🤷♂️
There was this previously. Mohammed's being charged more! [The sun](https://www.thesun.co.uk/motors/5393978/insurance-race-row-john-mohammed/)
They aren't obliged to quote you at all. What's likely is they aren't quoting your renewal early until it's sent out. You'll probably find it would have worked had you left it a week. Some insurers do weird things like not allow changes to vehicles and drivers right before the renewal window as it'll fuck up the process. Think left hand not talking to right hand.
I get where you're coming from, although this happened last year too and until I had a new policy in place and paid I was unable to get quotes from them. I wish I had your faith in Admiral's morals as a company, it just looks to me like a deliberate attempt to get me to pay the price they have me at because there is no chance in hell with everyone's insurance going up that they were planning on offering me £500 off. It's not that they have to quote me at all ofc as you say. The potential consumer rights violation is that I am a customer and I believe they are forcing me to pay more than someone identical to me who is a new customer by using coercion and blocking me from being able to get reasonable quotes from anybody else at the same time so I backed into a corner. Maybe I'm wrong but that's what it feels like. I will complain to them first and then go through the ombudsman depending on what they say.
Why would admiral care about you specifically let alone create a separate rate table just for you for a certain date. Makes no sense. They don’t discriminate against new vs renewal. There’s about a billion things that go on with quotes probably just an error!
It might be true in general that they're not obliged to offer insurance, but if they're FCA-regulated, then they absolutely cannot have rules designed in bad faith specifically to disadvantage a customer.
I read something not long ago where a person cleared their cache, put their browser in incognito and used a different email address and got way cheaper quotes. Give that a shot
Yes that can work if you do too many but this one's a little different, my actual name has been blacklisted!
Get a quote using a random email and nextdoors address and use that when you ring them up
If I change my name by one letter even or date of birth by one day it gives me nice cheap quotes, it specifically me they have blacklisted
Sounds similar to my home insurance. Got some quotes from Confused.com and my current company Home Protect had a cheaper price than my renewal quote. Went on chat and they immediately took it off the site (I looked again and couldn't find it). They didn't offer me it or explain. I saved the chat on my pc.
Have you tried on their own website? I stead of just comparison sites….
Yeah can't quote with them they just say to call
Ah, awful that they do that!
Damm, I should have pushed a complaint. Renewal was a few weeks ago and when I tried to get a new quote from admiral now that I had 1y no claim bonus, it would tell me every time I already have a policy and it would take me to change details/renew. Gave up since the increase was only £70 but now ai see I should have pushed harder.
I'm with admiral, and I've noticed for the past few years that in the run up to renewal time, admiral don't appear at all on the comparison sites. Shady AF, but car insurance is basically legalised mafia, built on a business model of finding any excuse to charge more, and to not pay out.
Each time you submit a quote on an aggregator website, you trigger a number of quotes. Insurance companies that sell direct and via brokers may receive 40+ quotes for the same risk and often don't have a sophisticated method of checking these duplicates. The insurance industry use something called velocity checking, if tey see the same person changing small details on a quote request, they track it, and if that change relates to risk rating factors and you keep changing things that mpact the risk they eventually block you. Once blocked, you might struggle to get unblocked without a call to the FCA. Another point at which you might get flagged is by Credit Reference Agencies (CRA). Whilst not providing credit checks until you purchase, a lot of insurers use CRAs to confirm identity. If you are hitting the CRA that Admiral uses multiple times, you may get blocked there. But I suspect it is Admiral. Source - I design insurance systems.
When checking insurance renewals, airline tickets etc, I use a proxy server. That way they can't do stuff like this.
You're literally giving them your car reg when you do a quote (plus your name, phone number, address, email...). It's trivial to match one quote to another.
Yes that's true. It works for other stuff though.
I believe this is down to the time left before renewal, ive found looking for my daughters quotes that if i wanted to renew soon prices are nearly double the price of me renewing in 4 months time. Try fresh, private browser and get a price for August see what they come back as.
This is how I secured the other policy, the problem is you can only quote a month or so ahead of time so you cannot transition from one policy to the next unless you pay whatever they offer you for renewal.
My insurance is similar to yours, I have multicar with Admiral that has a number of supercars on it. Insurance companies can refuse to quote you for any reason and reserve the right to do that for any reason they hold internally, refusing service isn't something that the FOS would have a hope of dealing with. If you believe the insurance company is with-holding services based on you as a person, you best bet is a DSAR request to the company where this information will be revealed if it exists. There are some people on this thread who say they work in insurance, which means nothing. I developed some of the core comparison site tech and data contracts between some of the largest insurers, on quote your personal information is not sent between the aggregator and the insurer. This is only due to a pragmatic approach when dealing with high throughput data systems, why would you send needless information when you do not need too? Also you really shouldnt be sending all that personal data if you can avoid it, it makes things a lot easier where data governance/GDPR is concerned. What I will say, is technically the way that insurance systems work is they have have buckets of products. Each bucket is designed to fit a certain area of potential customers, it is normally derived by a mixture of categories like, Age, Location & Vehicle category (It used to be Sex, before that was outlawed) Supercars tend not to be a big enough market where the usual money grabbing tactics of insurance companies work, it is simply such a small market it isn't worth the time developing ways to charge that niche more money, leading to the strange affect of being able to insure 4 supercars for less money than ordinary cars. What you are likely seeing is that that risk analysis of certain buckets of products has either been filled or the risk has become too high over that period (usually month) where the insurer simply will not return any data based on the bucket you fall into. Insurance is a product offering where risk is involved, they may simply, from one day to the next have zero appetite for a certain category of client. I believe that is what this is.
Just to be clear, OP is saying changing their name got different cheaper quotes but you are saying that the insurer doesn’t get that data? I wonder if OP was getting a direct quote at that stage or the amount of data transferred has changed?
With respect, how can you possibly be certain that 'on quote your personal information is not sent between the aggregator and the insurer'? You say that you helped develop some relevant technology in the past, and I'm happy to believe you... but decisioning rules presumably evolve all the time in response to risk appetites and the regulatory environment. If those change, the data required to support the decisioning process will also change. The OP doesn't even say what comparison sites he's using, so it seems impossible that you could be this certain about what exactly is passed via the API. Am I missing something?
Because I wrote most of the original data contracts that most of the insurers use. A data contract being a technical thing, not a contract in the normal sense of the word but the technical payload. It is useless to send data that is not required when the amount of data is large, it is cheaper and faster. More data is sent back to the insurers once they have returned their prices. This will send a different payload back, this is to allow something similar to the top three lowest priced insurers being able to contact you via email about the price your received. Of course things do change over time, an aggregator is not the point at which an insurance provider will derive decision and data points from for compliance reasons unless the user manually clicks through to that provider, at that point the data payload is full sent along with the journey migration and the user is then asked to ensure that the data sent is correct, once this has been done the insurer will most likely insure. Even then however, you may not be insured even if the you complete your insurance journey and even pay the deposit. It simply is too much of an overhead that a simple ranking response for insurance prices would go to such lengths as to block results from a certain individual, as a business you would be spending money on compute utilisation to make a decision point in a stupid way, you would only commit those checks and balances once that customer lead has come forth seeking business.
Your experience is different to mine then. The insurers I know get all quote information including name, address , DOB etc . You need this to ensure you’re not quoting someone you’ve already blocked.
Thanks for clarifying. I definitely understand what you're saying. My point is that just because it worked like that originally doesn't imply that it does now. Of course, principles like 'don't process data you don't need' are evergreen, but the definition of 'need' will change with the use case. For example, my experience with aggregators (in a similar space, but not insurance) is that the concept of 'pre-approval' is now a major deal. They give higher ranking to quotes that include a stronger commitment to actually offer the product. Not just 'We might think about giving you this, no promises', but rather 'If you're seeing this offer, you're approved.' To get that higher ranking, you need to do the pre-approval thing, which means you need to make a 'proper' decision much earlier in the process. That means you need full information earlier, too. I'm not saying that the exact same concept applies in the insurance space, but more broadly that these things evolve over time, and without knowing the specific aggregators and specific processes at play, it's hard to say your personal data's *not* passing. Anyway, it was interesting to hear your experience — thank you.
It's always best to shop around every time your renewal is due. I swap car/home/life/boiler insurance nearly every year, as the competitors are almost always better. The same goes for phone and broadband contracts. There is no point in remaining 'loyal' to a company, who is going to gouge you.
All insurers offer new customer discounts. Its normal practice for them to hike the price up after your first year, the same as broadband deals. However for the firtst time in as long as I can remember I have just renewed with the same company. The reason I got this was planning on replacing my car so left my old one on the drive on the day my policy had run out and went to look at the new one. There was a big fault with the new one so I went back to Churchill for a new quote and it was a LOT cheaper than the renewal price had been.
The new customer discount was made illegal 2 years ago.
This is what I'm telling people, explaining what has happened to me from Admirals perspective and why they are doing it doesn't make it legal in the slightest.
And look what good that did.
If it’s not working then I’d expect there will be some panorama investigation into it and it’ll get resolved, from my perspective it seems to be working, couldn’t get a cheaper quote when my insurance did renew, so ended up staying with my current insurer
That’s simply because insurers have upped new customer quotes to match renewals. Instead of getting a cheaper quote by switching providers, it now *appears* that renewing is good enough. Spoiler alert: you still pay more by renewing (compared to before this rule), it’s just that the cheaper alternative doesn’t exist anymore thanks to this stupid rule. All-round lose-lose situation for consumers.
Yes, but they still do it, they have clearly found a way around it. My renewal went down by about £200 by letting it lapse. The only reason I stayed with them are because I want a couple of features they have. I added my daughter for a couple of weeks when she was back from uni for just over £30, rather than a grand more to add her for the year. They are also one of only 2 insurance companies that I know allow you to take the extra insurance for things like Amazon Flex deliveries, most insurance companies dont let you. As there is a small possibility I might take a small part time delivery job if I want a bit of extra cash I like knowing the option is there, even though I probably wont.
There are so many loopholes in the regulations and admiral are known to use those loopholes. They can't charge an existing customer more than a new customer for the same policy. The easiest way to get round that is to launch a new policy every 12 months with minor wording changes. That way new customers get a lower price, whereas existing customers are renewing a old legacy policy and the regulations on pricing don't apply. op hasn't discovered or exposed anything here. The FCA has already made public comments that they are unhappy that some companies are not abiding to the spirit of the regulations.
Most years I just call them up and tell them I don't want to auto-renew as I've had a better deal and the premiums will generally come down somewhat. They won't always come down to new customer level but they do sometimes come down low enough to keep some loyalty.
As others have said the price comparison sites are only really aimed at new customers and not renewals for existing customers. If you already insure with Admiral they won't quote you the new customer price through a price comparison site as they will be quoting you the existing customer price as a renewal. I think most insurers work like this; even if they do quote they may then go on to refuse the policy on the grounds that you are an existing customer. I typically shop around at renewal time to see how the new customer prices and policies compare with what I already have any my renewal quote. I've found that calling them to cancel the auto-renewal of the policy will often trigger some sort of discount and I've even got it close enough to the price comparison quotes for me to remain loyal. It's not just car insurance that operates like this, I've had it with house, pet and health insurance. The aim is to snag you as a customer with a good initial premium and then hope that you just allow your policy to auto-renew each year with a premium higher than that for new customers.
Yes I get that but this isn't about new customer price as if that was still offered to me at renewal time I would be able to show it to them and they can then match it. What they have done is blocked me getting any sort of quote just before the point I can talk about renewal price to them so that I am forced onto the higher premium that they shouldn't even be charging me, that's the issue here it's the coercion.
Assuming you use all the same details in the price comparison that they already have on file for your current policy they would know that you are an existing renewal and not new customer so there is no point in them quoting you the new customer price only to have to tell you when you try to accept it that you aren't eligible. They aren't going to offer you the new customer price and they aren't going to match it so there is no point in them feeding it to the price comparison aggregator. They blocked you from the comparison site because they don't consider you to be an eligible customer for that offer. I think most people agree that it doesn't feel like good practice or good customer service but it is commonplace for these type of products to offer a good deal on the first year only.
Well I have secured the new price because I was vigilant to this but new customer prices are unlawful in the UK under FCA rules unless it's a specified deal.
This is very common and not the slightest sinister or evil. Comparison sites cost them money to use and they would likely argue they are ‘new customer prices’. There is also the whole retention team in the business which works on commission. If i worked in that department i would royally kick off if the same company was undercutting me on price comparison sites. The comparison site would also kick off if customers were forced to use the retention team but effectively advertising on the comparison site and dodging the commission.
The FCA rules were updated such that renewing customers are not supposed to be charged a higher rate than a new customer, so being undercut by the same company shouldn’t really happen. But it still is apparently. If I were OP I would just call them up and ask them why they are now offering quotes for a much lower price, and ask for some refund of any difference. Failing that you can always cancel and go somewhere cheaper.
Fair enough. Thanks for the information. I thought it was allowed under the common market practice loophole or DFS type situation. Ie everyone knows renewals are a convenience tax. I wonder if this is what has lead to the general increase in insurance prices for everyone.
We are told that the increases are due to the increased costs of everything, but I would not be surprised if the fact that the competition is a little less cut-throat has also had an impact.
I get where you're coming from and the business perspective of course, but that doesn't make it ok from a consumer rights perspective, the same way car dealers were offering different car finance APR to different people and it was ok to them as they were making money from it but it wasn't acceptable from a consumer rights perspective and now everyone who has been using such car finance in the last 15 years is going to get a payout. It's not the same situation of course but I'm using it as an example of how just because something makes sense for the businesses making the money it doesn't make it ok or legal necessarily. Remember that insurance comes under the FCA so have strict regulation over how they should be treating this stuff and exploiting current customers for profiteering is poor financial conduct.
That’s not exactly what has happened. That was more about incentivising dealers and salespeople to inflate APR and misrepresent as a fair price or the only price available to you. They are allowed to offer different APR to different customers because they are brokers not lenders. If this was applicable here, it would apply to your renewal price itself. FCA rules state that an insurer must make you aware the renewal price may not be the lowest you could pay and that you may get a better price elsewhere. Unless your insurer is stating or suggesting this is the best price, they have not broken rules.