ANOTHER insurance thread... and my NEW car!

Ok... Two main points here... 1 -- to brag about my new car and 2 -- to talk about insurance.

1) Andrew and I decided we needed to buy a new car.... here is our saga....

We have been going to the car auction for... 5 weeks now?  (Every Monday (so once a week)).  

The very first week, we just went to watch... see what happens, you know?  

The second week I found an absolutely beautiful car I loved ... the Ford Escort Ghia.  Gorgeous!!!  We bid and won the bid at £700.  But it didn't meet the reserve price... so they had to call the owner.  Turns out he wanted £1,400 for it (WAY overpriced) so we didn't get it.  

The third and fourth week we didn't get anything.  We usually have about 2 cars we'd LOVE to own, and a couple that we'd be happy with.   We'd usually skip the "ok" cars in the hopes of waiting for the "LOVE IT!" cars... however, when they came around, they got out of our £750 price range, so we would end up with no car.

This last week, we decided that enough was enough.  First, we upped our limit to £950.  Everything was either really cheap (like £200/£300) or expensive (like £1,000).  There was no in between... (hence the problems we were having)  Secondly, we decided we would pick out cars we liked and we'd just go straight for them.  We had (again) two cars we'd LOVE to own, but we weren't going to skip others in the hope we'd get one of the GREAT ones.  So lot number 703 comes up and it's one of the cars we'd be ok with... it's a 1993 Citroen Xantia and we WIN. (BUT it didn't hit the reserve price, so AGAIN we have to go to the office so they can call the owner.) As we're walking out we see the next car is one of the cars we REALLY wanted. It's a 1997 Renault Laguna.  We decide we have enough in savings, so we are going to go back in and bid on this one TOO.  IF we get both cars, we'll just sell the cheaper one. (But with our luck, we'd get neither.) So we go back in and bid and WIN at £950!!  AGAIN[/u]... doesn't meet the reserve.  So we head down to the office with BOTH slips in hand waiting to see if either owner will sell us their car.  They still don't know and tell us to wait 10 more minutes.  I head back to the auction bay to keep an eye on the auctions (that way if we get neither, I can say "Lot 69 hasn't come up yet, so we can try to bid on that one still.")  Andrew finally comes back and it turns out we got BOTH cars.  *LAUGH*  So now, sitting in our driveway are BOTH of the cars... which means that 16a Rowe Avenue now has 6 cars registered there -- one for each occupant.  It's nuts.  We're going to sell the Xantia and we MAY be able to make a profit.  I don't care as long as we break even.  

(Anyone want a Xantia?  Power everything, drives nice, no MOT or tax.)  

2)  Not that I didn’t trust everyone, but just being me, I felt the need to call ALL the insurance companies to get quotes.  Here’s what I found….

AA -- £1543 (!!!!!!)
Tesco -- £746.55
Norwich Union -- £598.57 (£601.95 with rescue service or £636.33 with the breakdown assistance)

(These prices don’t include any sort of no-claims discount.  Andrew and I lived in the states for over three years before we got here, so he lost his British no-claims bonus, and right before we moved back over here, BOTH our cars got broken into and we made a claim so we couldn’t use that to help bring the price down.)

Companies that wouldn’t TOUCH me with a 10-foot pole (at least until I had my British license for one full year:)

Saninsury’s
Lloyds
Morethan
Churchill

Just thought this might help someone else out in their quest.  Don't waste your time with those four companies.  The thing that gets me, is they're almost done getting all the information before they realize they can't insure me... so I'd waste like 20 mins with each call giving them details only to find out at the end.  Grrrr.

Oh well... Norwich Union it is... just like everyone else.    I feel like I'm part of a little club now.

-Lisa-  

Norwich Union it is... just like everyone else.

Welcome to the Norwich Union Club...AND the joys of car ownership!

Congrats on your new cars!  We have my car insurance w/ Norwich Union too - we didn't call any other places - Norwich was recommended to us by the place we were going to get our car from - they are used to dealing with newly arrived non-Brits, so knew which company would accept our application.

Stephanie

Hi,

Glad you found a car!  We also have Norwich.  They were the cheapest and did not even bat an eye when dealing with my USA driver's license.  I have to say I think Norwich is a good company.  H and I were discussing them.  Seems they have been around for ages and when we had our window screen fixed due to a couple little gravel pits they were so accomedating in everyone.

I have a question for you though.  Where did you go to the action and how did you find out about it?

Cheers,

The auction was in Lancing (near Shoreham/Worthing (down here near me).

www.sv-auctions.co.uk

We found out through a friend who got a couple cars there.  I've also heard there is one in/near Eastborne though I know nothing about it.  

This MIGHT help you:  http://www.carprices.co.uk/auction

We had a lot of fun going!  But I'm very glad to have the car now.  :-)  

Hello Collington,

Thank you very much for the information.  We might take a look at this information for the next car we purchase.  I am a big believe in not buying a new one due to the depreciation factor.  

Cheers,