Why Diamond Car Insurance are great...

[annwfyn]

• When they wrote off Pridwen, they didn't try and screw me for the lowest settlement price possible, but actually gave me the money it would take for me to buy an entirely equivalent car of equal age with all the same extras.



• They let me basically transfer my old policy (which was on the mini) to my new car, only charging me for the additional three months, plus a premium for changing my address to London, and a discount coz I was downgrading to a skoda from a mini. Therefore my insurance on the skoda only cost me £100.



• Even without all the credit from my old policy, the quote they gave me to insure the skoda was less than half the amount quoted by Tesco Insurance, and was £400 cheaper than the AA.



• When working out how much money to give me, after writing off poor Pridwen, they found out that I'd forgotten to mention the pepper pack, alloy wheels, and sports seats when originally insuring her. So they charged me £20 for a slightly higher insurance premium, and then factored the extras into the final settlement price.



• They've been repeatedly nice and cheerful to me on the phone, although their computer system does die with alarming regularity.



• They've got the easiest website to use of any of the major insurance companies.



• They let me add pierot to my policy for incredibly little cost.

As far as I can tell, the only way to get a nasty high quote out of them is to get points on your license (in which case apparently the premiums go right up - so says my li'l sis). So, women drivers (silverclear and wildrogue, I'm looking at you here!) - go insure with Diamond. They are fab.

This is my advice for the day.

Comments

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

If I were going to be the primary driver, we'd probably take a look at them - sadly Dave will very much be driving ours most of the time, so going through a laydeeez insurance company could potentially end up with us being considered to have invalid insurance, or something!

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm...

*ponders*

I think it depends on whether the car is in his name or not, rather than who drives most (coz there's no real way of checking that). I know I've always been asked who's name the car is in, and I think that if it's in both your names you'll either have to pay more, or maybe it might be harder to get the insurance as they mostly assume at that point that you won't be the primary driver.

Still maybe worth checking? They are honestly dramatically cheaper than any other insurance company I've found, especially without a recent no claims bonus.

[davedevil.livejournal.com]

Diamond, Elephant & Admiral are the same group with different underwriters for different key markets. Elephant as a company target city dwellers so for us they come out at least 60 cheaper than Admiral and over a 100 cheaper than Diamond (and 350 cheaper than direct line). Best not to mislead people on insurance details as any thing they could get you on they will.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Well, if Elephant are the cheapest for you, then totally go for it!

For me Elephant was £50 more expensive than Diamond (not sure why) and I couldn't carry over my old insurance policy. It's very random who does the best deals - it varies so much.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Personally I'd suggest a broker, such as my lovely Crosbie and Jack. They charge virtually nothing, it saves ringing round a thousand insurance agencies yourself, and they have repeatedly been lovely when I've been shit ;)

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

Jo's insured with Diamond, they're very good and barely charged her to add me to the insurance despite the fact I'm only a learner driver. They are dead cheap.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I entirely approve. I've always liked them before, but having gone through a complete car write off lately, I like them even more. They've just made this whole experience so much less painful.

[davedevil.livejournal.com]

On a complelty differnet note confused.con, as annoying as their advertt is is a good site for this as well it checks dozens of insururers for you and comes back with the cheapest price. Means you do not have to retype many details all the time!

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Ooooh...thank you for reminding me about them! I knew there was a website like that out there when insuring the skoda, but couldn't remember for the life of me what it was called.

Bit late now, obviously, but thanks for sticking it up here so I've got it written down somewhere.

[tooth-fairy.livejournal.com]

they sound fab

Congratulations!

[leahdarbyshire.livejournal.com]

That's cool!! She looks really lovely. Skodas are great cars too. I really considered getting a Fabia and lots of peope I know are now investing in them.

Re: Congratulations!

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

They are basically volkswagens at a budget price - Gertrude is pretty much a VW Golf with a different badge.

I have high hopes!

Re: Congratulations!

[windzswept.livejournal.com]

I looked at the Fabia when I was looking... but realised I could get more peugeot for the money :o) (and there were more than 1 peugeot garage in the area so we could play them off each other ;o) )

[anonymous-james.livejournal.com]

The one downside is that they like some others don't seem to have a problem being hideously sexist. I don't suggest people shouldn't use them for that reason, but it does seem to me to be somewhat unjust since
a) there isn't a male orientated, or male only car insurance company
b) if there was people would probably complain.

Maybe I'm just bitter.

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

To be brutal - there's unlikely to be a deliberately male-only insurance company, for the simple reason that it wouldn't be competitive. Women (in general) are viewed as a lower insurance risk than men, so a female-only insurance company can afford to drop its quoted premiums because of the gender restriction they place on clients.

Of course - if a sufficiently high proportion of female drivers were to switch to such schemes, the premiums offered by the 'mixed' companies would presumably rise in consequence, because they would have proportionately fewer female clients keeping the collective risk down.

In exactly the same way - if sufficient drivers with no-claims go off to the specialist companies (privelege, esure, etc), then the 'we serve everybody' types will end up increasnig their premiums, because they won't have the same proportion of low-risk drivers on their books.

I seem to remember that insurance companies have some sort of exclusion/loophole in the sex discrimination rules that allows them to do this (they're not solely offering it to women per-se, they're offering it to a certain risk-sector of the insdustry, or something) - but I wouldn't be surprised if someone did challenge it under the european human rights act or something at some point.

[windzswept.livejournal.com]

so I'm not a woman driver then?

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten that you own a car! You got it after I left Edinburgh.

Steph - use Diamond Insurance!

[windzswept.livejournal.com]

I've had two since I left Edinburgh.

First was a little L-reg red vauxhall astra. The one I got on April Fools Day is an 06 Peugeot 307 SE with cruise control :o)

You'll get to meet it when you come up to visit. Which reminds me, must sort out the spare room again (we cleared the spare computers from the study into there when we got the kittens).

And I'm already with Diamond ;o) Have been since I got the Astra.

[wildrogue.livejournal.com]

Wow, I'll have to try them next year. Although the AA have been remarkably wonderful to me, and worked out a good £200 cheaper for us than anyone else I checked.

I can't remember if I looked at Diamond or not though.

[silverclear.livejournal.com]

I took a gamble when I reinsured this year. Diamond was the second cheapest quote, but I paid (I think) ten squid less and went with a totally no frills policy from Kwik Fit. No legal costs or car hire or anything. I was a bit nervous doing that, basically gambling that I wouldn't need to make a claim. Several friends have had to test out their insurance this year and I'm starting to get nervous!

I also should admit a slight bias against Diamond on the basis of their horrible TV adverts.