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Take cover!
Martin: Car insurance prices are up a shocking 41%, home close behind. Check now if you can LOCK IN for a year to save £100s

My email-bag has been rapidly pinging with irate consumers reporting huge insurance renewal hikes. The latest stats back up the on-the-ground fury, showing shocking rises compared to this time last year...

- Car insurance is up 41% and more rises are predicted this year & next.
- Home insurance is up 26% and rises are predicted to continue.

These numbers from analyst firm Pearson Ham are the highest so far, others are more measured, but ALL show serious rises. Insurers say it's due to things including rising car repair costs, more subsidence housing claims and overall inflation. Whether that justifies it or not is moot, car insurance is a grudge purchase, you've no choice. So my clarion call is...

Take a few minutes to check if you're overpaying. If you are, even if you're not near renewal, you may be able to lock in a price to forestall future increases for a year.

Getting quotes three weeks before renewal may halve costs. We analysed 70m quotes to find the optimum time before you want cover to start to get quotes from new firms. As the graph above shows, it averages at 23 days for car. The pattern is similar but flatter for home insurance, where 21 days before is optimal (though the savings aren't as big). In both cases a few days either side doesn't matter much.

As Krishna emailed: "I was a non-believer till last week. My quote went down from £1,500 one month before insurance expiry to an unbelievable £650 exactly 21 days before. Thanks so much."

Why? Quite simply insurance is priced upon risk, and their actuarial charts show those who renew at the last minute are often a higher risk.

Not at renewal? It's still worth doing a check now. While prices usually get cheaper around three weeks before the sweet spot, there's no harm checking to see if you're currently overpaying.

As Jenny emailed: "OMG! Just saved a whopping £756/yr on my car insurance thanks to MSE! This was switching mid-policy. They even calculated there was no fee and paid me a £17 refund. So chuffed."

If you are switching mid-year, provided you haven't claimed this year, you can usually just cancel your policy and get a pro-rata refund if you paid upfront, minus a usually £30 to £50 admin fee (do factor that in). The main negative is you won't earn this year's no-claims bonus.

With prices likely to escalate, some may even consider if they can get a quote mid-year even only a touch less than currently, then to prevent possibly heavy price hikes, it's worth switching to lock for longer.

You may think that as since January 2022 car and home insurers have been banned from charging renewing customers more than they charge new customers, all this checking is a bit flaccid.

The rule changed to end the annual 'price-walk' of pushing up prices at each renewal, so that by year five you paid a massive loyalty premium. Yet while that's gone, auto-renewing is still likely to cost more...

- Some firms have simply boosted prices for all.
- The 'same price for both' rule is channel specific. Eg, if you got insurance direct, your renewal must cost the same as it would if you were a new direct customer. Yet they can charge you more than they would as a new customer via a comparison site (& can price each comparison differently).
- Pricing varies hugely by firm & by customer type they want to recruit.
- Many firms own more than one brand. They may aim to win new business via new brands, leaving existing brands at higher prices.

Of course, of the millions of readers of this email, some will find their renewal is cheapest. If so, fab. Yet the key is to never assume your renewal is the winner without checking.

If you can find a cheaper quote elsewhere, but like your current insurer, take your cheapest quote to your insurer and ask it to match it. There's full help in Car & home insurance haggling tips. Here's a few to start:

- Do it close to renewal so the threat of losing your custom is stronger.
- Get an actual quote as a benchmark to ask them to beat/match.
- Use charm, chutzpah, cheek & a smile (never aggression).
- Don't get rushed in to accepting the first offer.

As Alan emailed: "I saved £240 with your hints and tips when haggling with Direct Line. I've always been with them and they upped my car insurance to £570. Using your tips, I haggled them to £330!! Thanks :-)"