Direct Line car insurance

I will never leave Direct line! I think they are brilliant.

I use them for car insurance, contents insurance and soon will have them for building insurance.

When I had water damage last year, they paid up quickly and with a smile, offered helpfull advice and took most of the stress out of it. The building insurance company dragged their feet and fought every penny and took 7 months to pay so I am now switching to Direct line for building insurance as well.

They are loads cheaper for me on the car insurance as well, Ive gone from paying 1200 with another insurer to 500 a year with direct line and I get better cover

No-one could touch Direct Line for my car insurance renewal.They have just recently begun to do business in Northern Ireland,and they cut the tripe out of anyone elses quote I could find.

The net prices are cheaper as you are doing it yourself and do not need the help of an agent meaning they are free to take other calls. If you call and ask them to match the net price they wont as that kinda defeats the purpose in being cheaper for net sales. You should write in to the Customer Relationship dept and I'm sure they will give you a full explanation. Some people are indeed cheaper but oDL's policies and reputation is excellent and you know exactly whom you are dealing with should you have the misfortune to need to make a claim. Some other companies are just brokers meaning they take your cash for the premium but pass you on to another company you've never even spoken to before to make your claim (as this is the company you're policy is actually through)

I'm not putting Direct Line down as Ive heard some good reviews about them but i can sympathies with the OP. I can see Laura's point about Internet prices being cheaper as you do the work yourself but how can it cost £60 extra with increased excess of £75 for an automated renewal notice.
Personally i have been with the AA for over 20 years and with them i get the renewal with the original insurer and another quote cheaper with the same cover. I sometimes do a comparison on-line and the most i could save was £8 and that involved higher excess.
As far as claims go i cant fault them on that as well. I had a guy pull out on me from a side road and damaged the front wing. This was at 7.30 in the morning. I got the car home and rang them. By 9 I had a transporter outside with a courtesy car on and mine being put on. When mine was done it was delivered 30 miles away to where i work.

My point exactly I appreciate that if I were to call DL and have to spend 10/15 mins of their operators time going through my details.But this inflated quote came as an automatic renewal ie a press of a button and I find it hard to understand why someone with no claims in over 9 years suddendly has the excess increased when a new customer is given a very attractive excess £75 less.
We may very well stay with DL as a"new" customer via their website and probably be a "new" customer every year if thats what it takes to get the best deal.
I guess we just assumed we were getting the best price on the renewal but now realise that as we have been with them for years they chanced a hike in the price and excess hoping we would renew without question,I guess someone has support all the "new" customers and the special deals.
We have breakdown with DL ie Green Flag (I believe DL owns GF) and the service we have costs £85 from Green Flag VIA THEIR WEBSITE on our policy renewal it was quoted at £129,the press of that button sure does cost!!!!!

Copeswell you're totally right. Thats why I suggested you write in to the customer relationship department to complain as they will either be able to sort this out for you if there has been some error or will be able to explain in depth why this has happened. I hope you get this rectified

We have already questioned the renewal over the phone they would match/reduce/alter the quote--- It was a blanket no end of.
I need to start a correspondece by letter to get a better quote thats what you are saying?

It comes to something when you have to get into a long drawn out letter writing/phone call making saga to get the best price.HELLO how about the best price from the get go.!!!!!!

We are at the point of contacting the insurance ombudsman to see if this practice is aceptable within the industry.We have asked DL to adjust they wont I see no point in contacting them further to be told the same again.

I've asked about this and it appears that the online discounted prices are to attract new customers. Its an introductory offer only for the first year and the renewal will be based on on the actual price and not the introductory price as that was a one off offer. Therefore this is an acceptable practice as it is simply an offer. I understand that if you are an existing customer you will be annoyed that new customers can get the quote cheaper but the same could be said about a lot of things for example, some banks offer you £100 if you open a new account with them, well I'm an existing customer with the same account but they're not putting £100 in to my bank are they?. Arnold Clark offer free insurance to anyone buying a Ford from them, well I have a Ford bought from Arnold Clark and they're not writing out to me to give me free insurance. Its simply an offer to attract new business and thats normal practice.

I will accept that it is acceptable practice if told by an independent body, I accept that companies offer "offers" but you have just renforced what I said at the beginning loyalty to Direct Line gets you nothing.If they had reduced the excess and halved the increase we would have been fine with that blanket no attitude it made us realised that they were not interested in keeping customers just gaining new ones,well the risk is theirs we havent made a motoring claim in 19 years (9 with DL 10 with other companies) how many of these new claimants have that history DL have lost out on us and when our daughters renewals are due both with DL they will look elsewhere, our pet (2 dogs) and house (building and contents) insurance are both with DL and due for renewal by November.Knock on effect will be several hundred pounds going elsewhere.

For some reason DL have always quoted substantially more for me than just about any other insurer, except the AA.

Before renewing / taking out a policy with DL I would recommend a quick scan of the insurance section of this site.

My experience is that their claims handling is diabolically bad and I am not the only one who has experienced this. Even if they are cheap (and they are not) you don't want an insurance company that starts messing you around just when you need their help

Well if the way they treat customers who are loyal and havent claimed in 9 years is anything to go by if you make a claim I suspect it would be hell.
Afraid I have little faith in DL with regards to price or customer service.

We use DL but I'd recommend not to use TPTF cover and pay extra to go fully comp. If TPFT there is absolutely no help in the event of a non fault accident claim leaving the injured party to make all the running.
Doesn't seem fair that they won't even write to the TP does it?

We use DL and all we have done in the past if a premium has gone up at renewal, is use the net, take the policy out there, that way we always get the "new introductory rate" nothing has ever been said before. they know we do it because we have to send our renewal notice to prove the NCD.

They always seem to put their prices up at renewal. That isn't fair to the loyal customer, but it seems to be how they operate. Are there many other insurers out there that don't operate on the same principles? Car insurances can seem like a bugger of a hassle at times