[Alscoob]

Have been with direct line for some while, but this year their premium has shot up. Any recommendations ?

I know it all depends you car, age, convictions etc, so-

It's a 330d no accidents, 3 points, wife & I only living in Norfolk & we're both the wrong side of 50 ! & they want £862 ! bonkers.

[330XDave]

Very similar price to me mate. 330d xdrive, 32 years old, 14 years no claim, no claims no points. Low to medium risk area. Daylight robbery.

[Steces]

335d here

Initial quotes were more than a TDV8 RR Sport but ended up with it at around 1/2 to 2/3 the price of the usual suspects with LVE after reading posts on here.

Cheers

[WalterMB]

Our renewal on 340 Touring with Aviva is £254. Similar age, but no points.

[GEP77]

It does seem to be creeping up (at quite a rate) for pretty much everyone.

The thing is the premiums are only as high as they are because this is what it is costing the insurers in claims each year (roughly anyway).

The thing is cars cost more to repair (composite structure, multiplex wiring and non-repairable components) all put the price up. Claims invariably end up with hire cars given out to the victim and some of the rates are pretty extortionate. And of course the elephant in the room of personal injury.

You just have to look at some of the quotes people talk about on here where they want to get work done outside of insurance - and typically it is ridiculous how much garages charge. To put it into context it is far cheaper to repair an aeroplane (labour rates anyway) than a car.

So back to your conundrum, it really is a case of shopping around. Everyone is treated differently and whatever solution works well for one person might not for the next. From my point I'll favour insurers who deliver if it all goes wrong rather than the one that offers the cheapest price.

[ByTheSea]

Confused.com...

http://www.confused.com/

...I use them every year for the best quote. I am currently paying £198.74 for myself and my wife driving. We're with quotemehappy.com

[RENT-A-GOAT]

Try LV I'm in a high risk area & LV were £300 down from AXA, who I was with before

[Hooded]

Originally Posted by Alscoob

Have been with direct line for some while, but this year their premium has shot up. Any recommendations ?

I know it all depends you car, age, convictions etc, so-

It's a 330d no accidents, 3 points, wife & I only living in Norfolk & we're both the wrong side of 50 ! & they want £862 ! bonkers.

That's quite a lot, how much did you pay with direct line last year?

I find direct line haven't been competitive for me for a while now (they were ok 10 or so years ago), I can get quotes less than half of what direct line quote me using price comparison sites!

[Jeff123]

I am broadly the same as you in profile and mine was c£330 with LV last year. Coming up for renewal next month. It actually reduced from a 325d E90 to the current 330d F30 by £20 last year.

Try a "Go Compare" first and see where that leads you.

[Harryg]

Originally Posted by Alscoob

Have been with direct line for some while, but this year their premium has shot up. Any recommendations ?

I know it all depends you car, age, convictions etc, so-

It's a 330d no accidents, 3 points, wife & I only living in Norfolk & we're both the wrong side of 50 ! & they want £862 ! bonkers.

Try Go compare and then try confused.com most of the big companies come up but there is a difference on the Two sites.

[goodbyalfa]

I found it noticeably cheaper to insure the higher performance 440i than the previous 330d.
Just saying.. It's another option for you to consider... :-)

[jnismith]

Originally Posted by ByTheSea

Confused.com...

http://www.confused.com/

...I use them every year for the best quote. I am currently paying £198.74 for myself and my wife driving. We're with quotemehappy.com

Quotemehappy came out cheapest for mine as well, so I went with them. However, when I had a bang, they wouldn’t let me use a BMW body shop, had to use their own which was 50 miles away. In the end decided to get a local place to do it was less than the cost of the excess.

[Alscoob]

Thank for the comments guys i'll head off for a 'compare' to start with

[Quantox]

For me LV were miles cheaper on renewal in August and cheaper on the 440i GC than the previous 330d.

Q

[Rhino at Work]

Originally Posted by Alscoob

Have been with direct line for some while, but this year their premium has shot up. Any recommendations ?

I know it all depends you car, age, convictions etc, so-

It's a 330d no accidents, 3 points, wife & I only living in Norfolk & we're both the wrong side of 50 ! & they want £862 ! bonkers.

That's really high - I pay just over half that with Aviva on the 340i and my Leeds postcode must be much worse than Norfolk on the riskometer. Looks like you're being really caned for those 3 points.

[JD6]

Originally Posted by WalterMB

Our renewal on 340 Touring with Aviva is £254. Similar age, but no points.

That does sound cheap and I thought that £300 from Aviva wasn't bad for my car. What annual mileage have you covered? Mine is 15k currently.

That said, I doubt I'll use Aviva again, having not been at all impressed with the way they have dealt with a claim after someone reversed into me. They have been pretty useless, even when presented with pretty compelling evidence of the other driver being at fault. I certainly don't get the impression that they're fighting my corner, and if I want a BMW approved repairer I have to pay an additional £200 fee above the standard excess.

[lethbridge]

As has been said comparison sites are a good place to start - some say some insurers not on comparison sites like Direct Line can be cheaper but that has never been my experience - I guess it depends on your risk profile. I pay £450 on my new M3 CP which was around the same price as my 335d before that. LV came out cheapest on both my 335d & M3 and knocked a further £120 for autonomous braking (e.g. Driving Assistant and various other things BMW have added in recent years - check if yours has this - button by your right knee) and £20 for dashcam. I'm in a low risk area but have 3 points and full business cover for 20k miles.

[TodmordenLad]

Try Privilege
Can always be talked down on the phone when renewing, mod friendly and they always seem to beat the comparison sites
Handled my wife's recent car theft pretty quickly too

PS I paid less than half your quote living in London, car on drive, when I had my F31 330d with MPPK

[Kendo67]

Admiral for me , £260 FC for the 440 Coupe. I recently added the MPPSK and a Clio to the policy and it only added £80 (£20 of which was admin) to the premium.

Kenny

[WalterMB]

Originally Posted by JD6

That does sound cheap and I thought that £300 from Aviva wasn't bad for my car. What annual mileage have you covered? Mine is 15k currently.

That said, I doubt I'll use Aviva again, having not been at all impressed with the way they have dealt with a claim after someone reversed into me. They have been pretty useless, even when presented with pretty compelling evidence of the other driver being at fault. I certainly don't get the impression that they're fighting my corner, and if I want a BMW approved repairer I have to pay an additional £200 fee above the standard excess.

Its 10k pa. Its actually cheaper to insure than our R53 Mini Cooper S

[TodmordenLad]

Originally Posted by Kendo67

Admiral for me , £260 FC for the 440 Coupe. I recently added the MPPSK and a Clio to the policy and it only added £80 (£20 of which was admin) to the premium.

Kenny

Blimey, where do you live? Outer Hebrides? And what's your annual mileage? I'm paying 2x that for my 440i with MPPSK, 9k miles pa

[TodmordenLad]

Originally Posted by Kendo67

Admiral for me , £260 FC for the 440 Coupe. I recently added the MPPSK and a Clio to the policy and it only added £80 (£20 of which was admin) to the premium.

Kenny

Blimey, where do you live? Outer Hebrides? And what's your annual mileage? I'm paying 2x that for my 440i with MPPSK, 9k miles pa