When getting a car insurance quote, you’ll be asked if there are any other cars in your household. Among other reasons, this is so the insurance company can try to up-sell you to a multi-car policy. But is a multi-car policy good value? Well… not always.
If you have two or more cars in your household, you may be able to save by getting a multicar policy. However, as always, the best prices can only be found by shopping around.
Similar Circumstances
Generally, multi-car policies work out better value if all the cars and drivers insured have similar circumstances. For example, a married couple with two similar cars (roughly same age, performance and value) will likely find savings. But – if any car on the policy is high performance or a driver is young or with recent claim history, you can expect the premium to be higher than two individual policies.
Renewal Dates
You can synchronise renewal dates with a multi-car policy, meaning you only need to search around for insurance once a year. However, if one annual bill frightens you, you can choose to pay monthly. You can keep renewal dates if preferred, and the insurer will apply price changes as and when each vehicle comes up for renewal.
No-claims Discount
Check whether your no-claim discount (or bonus) is protected if another driver needs to claim. Some are, some aren’t.
“I saved by cancelling my multi-car”
Michael Ward, Managing Director of PayingTooMuch.com, comments: “I’ve had a multi-car policy for years. At this year’s renewal, I decided to get a quote for each car individually though our new car insurance service. By deconstructing my multi-car policy and insuring each car individually I managed to save £70.
“HOWEVER, the big scandal is that my insurer were instantly able to reduce my multi-car policy by 20% to make it competitive and try to keep my business. If I was elderly, or unable to shop around, they would have happily kept me paying 20% more than the going rate, just because I renewed.
“Once again – the only way to ensure you aren’t PayingTooMuch is to compare all insurance at every renewal!”
