After kerbing an alloy on my roadster I'm giving some serious thought to getting a banger to drive to work. I've only ever had one car and haven't a clue about the in's and out's of having two cars namely insurance. How does no-claims apply, etc. Tax and MOT should be straightforward.

I know this is probably simple to answer and I would normally ask my Dad or my bro, but it's quarter to 2 in the morning and I'm on lates all this week.

On a side note, anyone recommend a alloy refinisher in the north/northwest?

Mostly you don't get any no-claims and you need to start from scratch, but some specialist policies will apply an existing NCD onto a policy (but not let the policy accrue any in it's own right). I did read about a large mainstream insurer who did this too, but I can't remember who there were now... Pistonheads might have something about it.

PH might be a place to ask/search for alloy refurbishers too - it's quite a common problem.

Not to hijack your thread, but it amazes me that you Brits can ask questions like this and actually expect a reasonable answer. Here in the US, car insurance seems more like buying an airline ticket: you check as many outlets as possible and just hope you aren't being screwed.

I don't know the intricacies of multiple insurance policies but you've surely got to be looking at a minimum of £100PA there (+DLP and protected no-claims), say £130PA? Added to that there's at least £160 in road tax. Aren't you better off setting that cash aside into a contingency fund to cover the occasional scrape on the roadster?

It's not YOUR driving you have to worry about. It's the asshole behind you that doesn't see you that makes you need insurance.

It's no different over here TBH. Although there are brokers (and broker websites) that will poll a number of major insurers for their best prices, there are always great deals that you only hear about after the event. I could be wrong but I think that the insurer's "risk" parameters change regularly and it's pretty much a lottery at renewal time as to how they assess the risk that you present them.

At 43, and with a full NCD, I thought that I was (give or take) pretty much at my full discount level no matter where I took my business but I've noticed much younger drivers driving faster cars for the same money! Having said that, I suppose that their excess penalty could be a lot higher than mine, I don't know.

Yeah, but you seem to have these defined terms that don't vary from company to company. Here, it seems, every company has a different product, and you might qualify for different discounts, all of which have different names.

I'm pretty sure that DirectLine will let you take your no-claim to the other car: I don't insure with them, but when you're retired you have stuff like that pushed at you on afternoon satellite!

If you put a banger on TPFT the lack of a NCB probably won't be much of an issue. I insure four vehicles right now and apart from my main fully comp policy the others cost bugger all. Each policy accrues a NCB which might come in handy in future should I ever want a second decent car.

As for your wheels, these guys do an amazing job: www.elitewheels.co.uk - however they're in Reading so perhaps not useful to you. They will courier wheels though.

Rob

Some insurers will start you on 1-3 years NCD on the second car if you insure the second car with them. The ammount of start-up NCD they give you tends to depend on your recent accident/speeding record. When I added my second car Admiral were going to give me 3 years NCD on the second car (I had 7 on the first), until they spotted my recent claims and 3 points. In the end they gave me 1 year.

Some insurers have started doing multi car discounts as well. My individual renewal quotes from Admiral this year were £900 and £500 (Impreza and MX5). After requesting to move onto their multi car scheme it dropped to £1070 (though I had got separate quotes from other insurers that matched that anyway).

It still annoys me that the second car isn't just some nominal payment though. Eryl owns her own car, we are the only two drivers of our three cars, so why should the third car still be costing £400+ in premiums. We can only drive two of them at once...

I dread insurance renewal time, the hassle of phoning round for multiple cars is a pain. When I get round to building my Ultima I'll have three cars to do it for, though the Ultima will no doubt be with a specialist (and may well end up being cheaper that the Impreza, oddly).

Places like confused.com don't help me much either. As soon as you start listing even simple modifications most of the insurers refuse to quote via confused.com

I have tried the broker route before, but that wasn't very satisfactory either. It saves you giving the same details to lots of people in the first year, when they bother to find you a good price. Come renewal time however you end up phoning around again, to discover that they haven't bothered to get you a good price on the renewal.

What we need are insurance brokers that charge fee for finding the cheapest quote, rather that brokers that get paid by the insurers.

Hmm, turned into a bit of a rant didn't it

Andy - that seems high for an Impreza. I'm 35, currently am down to 3 points on my licence and have 5 years NCB (I think) and after a minor collision with a bollard (while avoiding a very large dog) my insurance is only £500-odd for me and SWMBO. For us both on her Punto is about £280 I think.

Mine is through Subaru insured, hers through the AA - we couldn't get a cheaper single quote from one company.

Gah. After lots of shopping around I'm paying more than you guys with Subarus for a little uncool hatchback! I guess that is what happens when you have only been driving for a couple of years, live in London and are less than 25 years old.

Just annoying really.

Oddly my cheapest year for insurance was in my first year of car ownership, with zero years NCD, on a brand new MX5...

Mazda were doing a deal on insurance, so my premium for the first year was only £399. It jumped up a bit on the second year and has never been as cheap since

Admiral do a "multicar" policy, and they also copy your NCD from one car to the other so both cars are fully covered. Others may do the same also.

I got my 2 car insurance with Admiral before they did the multicar thing and they just replicated my NCD from one car to the other.

They also advised me to put the 2nd car in my wifes name to reduce my premium, and then copied the NCD to her too