Renewal time for me again and I've had to do a fair bit of raking about this year.
Up till 3 yrs ago I had a Tradex homefleet policy which was very reasonable, but overnight they wanted out of the homefleet market and the premium doubled so I had to go on the hunt.
Two years ago I settled with KGM through a broker called Primo PLC. I was a bit dubious the first year when I was insuring My D2, a Defender 90 and a series for ?485 thinking they were simply trying to get me on the hook. But being what I am I checked out the small print and satisfied myself that while there were some risks and no added frills, overall the policy covered what I needed.
Last year the premium went up to over ?550, but others had hiked up considerably more, so I just stayed with them. During the year I changed motors and had my 52 D2, a 99 d2, the modified series and a heavily modified v8 lightweight.
Their original quote for the 4 motors on fully comp with business use was ?1000, but they recommended Brit at ?900. I remembered seeing the Brit logo on the MSA licence cover, so assume they must be specialists.
I still shopped about and got another spurious company who reduced it to ?854 and went back to Primo who eventually managed to get Brit to reduce to ?830 inc IPT, driving 3rd party cars and employers business use for me and my wife, protected NCB on the D2'S and greenlaning cover on them all.
I phoned specialists like Sureterm who didn't want any of the D2's if they had business use and wouldn't protect the NCB. This was weird as I'd insured multiple vehicles with them in the past including my first Disco with business use. Frank Pickles was very good on the modified vehicles (?233 fully comp on the two modified series motors), but couldn't do any better that around ?500 each for the Disco's
So it seems that you still need to do a lot of groundwork before you settle for anything. But as I'm sure George will agree. look deeply at the wording and be satisifed that you have the cover you need and are prepared to accept the possibility that you might not get all the bells and whistles the more expensive companies provide, such as built in courtesy cars and legal expenses insurance etc.
The real proof of the pudding is your experience when you come to claim, but as I've found through dealing with claims for our 40 buses, it matters not one jot whether you go for the bargain basement company or pay top dollar to the large multi nationals the customer service can still be crap for want of a better word.
Duncan
