Car Insurance

[j*oono]

I dumped my old car insurance with GIO and took up a policy with Coles, underwritten by Wesfarmers.

I was a bit shocked with the renewal policy from GIO, or Resilium.  $763 with a $500 excess on a car that is only insured for $12,900.  No claims in the past and with 65% no claim bonus.

Coles/Wesfarmers gave me a quote and with extras it came to $490.  It's fully comp.  Has anyone else switched to Coles and any problems?

[lyndal1838]

Wesfarmers underwriting business has been bought by IAG (NRMA) but they have a 10 year agreement with Coles apparently.  I have a feeling you will soon find your premiums beigh bought into line with the IAG companies....and they ain't cheap.

[cezm2012]

I have been tempted to switch. I have been with the same insurance company for years, though I do a comparison every year. The thing that keeps me there is the ease of claim. Last year I had 2 accidents - one rear-ended me and one side-swiped me. When I contacted the insurance company they offered me a choice of three repairers on the spot and my car was in for repairs the next day.

My friend has a cheaper policy and when she had an accident, she had to get 3 quotes herself and then send them off to the insurance company. It was almost 2 months before the insurance company got back to her and told her which repairer she could use. Only one instance I know, but it has made me nervous about the cheaper policies.

[punch*drunk]

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@cezm2012 wrote:

I have been tempted to switch. I have been with the same insurance company for years, though I do a comparison every year. The thing that keeps me there is the ease of claim. Last year I had 2 accidents - one rear-ended me and one side-swiped me. When I contacted the insurance company they offered me a choice of three repairers on the spot and my car was in for repairs the next day.

My friend has a cheaper policy and when she had an accident, she had to get 3 quotes herself and then send them off to the insurance company. It was almost 2 months before the insurance company got back to her and told her which repairer she could use. Only one instance I know, but it has made me nervous about the cheaper policies.

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For me, I'd be happier with the second policy. Although I wouldnt have stood for the 2 month waiting time. Nothing annoys me more than being unable to choose your repairer. In fact I changed insurers earlier this year because they sent my car more than an hour away for repairs and they didnt do a very good job. I have a local repairer who is excellent and they completely ignored my requests for him to give a quote.

Joono, I googled for reviews for Coles and found lots of complaints although I'm sure you'd find that with any insurer, I ended up changing to GIO, strangely enough they were the cheapest for me. Several years ago i'd cancelled all my GIO policies because they were dearer than everyone else.

[j*oono]

I have no idea why GIO were so high compared to others.  I have had my car insured with them forever and never made a claim and yet each year the car value goes down and the premium goes up.  Perhaps these insurance companies offer cheap deals to new customers and hit their "loyal" customers to cover the cost.

I suppose in future I will look around each year.  I was able to carry over my so called no claim bonus so that shouldn't be a problem.

Online reviews are usually unhelpful.  I have seen so many falsehoods written in reviews and let's not forget it is usually the squeaky wheel that does the most complaining. 

Unfortunately, you never know whether you have made a mistake with an insurance company until you need to make a claim and then it's too late.  My biggest fear is getting hit with third party property so perhaps when the car is older I will just stick with that.  And drive carefully.

[bright.ton42]

I don't know much about insurers except that most of the premiums are high so I've consiered

third party insurance too but doesn't that mean that if you're in a prang and your car is a write off you won't

get any compensation at all?    Couldn't you lose thousands?

Anyway I'm going to check Coles out. 

[punch*drunk]

Online reviews are usually unhelpful.  I have seen so many falsehoods written in reviews and let's not forget it is usually the squeaky wheel that does the most complaining. 

True, I'm often skeptical about them too. You can usually pick out the legitimate from the whingers though.

[this-one-time-at-bandcamp]

Here in the US, I've been locked into State Farm insurance for almost 30 years.  The original agent was so nice, we have all our insurance with SF, home and auto.  Currently I pay $440 a year for the 2006 Saab, and about $200 for the Isuzu ute.  We have had 3 claims on homeowner's over the years, 4 on auto......

Interestingly enough, we are bombarded with TV ads for insurance, one of which, Allstate warns us to beware of cheap insurance because it might not pay off, and then "Esurance"  ads come on telling us that we can save money in as little as 7 1/2 minutes by getting a quote from them.  Odd thing is, Allstate owns Esurance........

[daydream**believer]

My hubby is a p-anel beater so he picks who we insure our car with based on how good the company is at paying up when a person has an accident. He sees a lot of people have many issues with insurance companies once the time comes that they need them.

[green.fields]

We recently left SGIO for exactly the same reasons Joono quoted, hubby had his vehicle with them ever since he got his license. We went to Aami who interestingly is owned by Suncorp who also owns GIO. 

[j*oono]

You should get a list from him Daydream about which ones are good and which bad.  I'd love to see that.

We have had our house/contents insurance with AMP since the day dot, now it comes under GIO and Resilum too. You never really know who you are insured with these days.

I didn't make a claim in over 20 years and then we had a couple of years with a claim for a smashed glass door (someone threw a brick through it) and then the air conditioner compressor for a few thousand and then the leech drain pump replacement.

The claims were a breeze, really good but thanks to that our excess has gone through the roof and with that a warning letter letting us know that we would be reviewed yearly due to over claiming.  That was maybe 3 or 4 years ago and they still haven't dropped the excess even though no further claims made.

Fantastic PR after maybe 30 years of customer loyalty!  They will be next to go.