5 Of The Best Cheap Insurance Cars

With car insurance being one of the most expensive costs you incur when running a car it's important that you try and get covered for as cheap as possible. Cheap insurance cars usually all have one thing in common, a small engine. This means they are not the fastest thing on the road but in most cases they are very fuel efficient. With the way the economy is right now things are pretty unpredictable so it makes sense to have a small car that's cheap to run and cheap to insure. Obviously, the cost of a persons Insurance is not only about the car. Although a low insurance group car certainly helps. There is a long list of other factors that are taken into consideration.


Some of the most important are things like does the driver have any penalty points on their license, does the car have modifications, where's the car parked overnight, do you use the car at peak times, and the age of the driver. Of course, accidents and no claims bonuses are also top of the list. One factor that some people might not be aware is of importance is what type of job you have. Here's what the insurance industry does. Let's say that you are an office worker, and within the year office workers have been involved in a high number of accidents or claims. As a result of those statistics your insurance price would be higher if you were in the market for new car insurance because they then see office workers as a higher risk. Very unfair.

Believe it or not, if you are unemployed your car insurance will cost more. This is because they think that being unemployed means you will be driving your car more throughout the day. It's a bit sad really because if someones unemployed they usually have less money to spend on car insurance, not more.

In order of lowest Insurance group first here are 5 of the best little cars that are cheap on Insurance. The choices were also made with reliability in mind. It's no use having a car that's super cheap to insure but is always in the garage being repaired costing you a fortune. All cars mentioned here are the older models which are very cheap to buy.


5 Of The Best Cheap Insurance Cars


Vauxhall Corsa 1.0L 12v 


Very cheap to buy, good on petrol, reasonably reliable, and the cheapest you are going to find to insure being insurance group 1. The 1.2L versions are mostly insurance group 2 so still very cheap to insure.

Toyota Yaris 1.0L


Great on petrol, very reliable, and very cheap to insure being only Insurance Group 2. *Best Choice*

Seat Arosa 1.0 MPi 


Insurance group 2, great little reliable city car. Excellent on petrol returning around 50mpg. You don't see that many of these cars on the road all that often so a good choice if you want something a bit different from what everyone else is driving.

Ford KA 1.3 


Apart from the rust issues Ford KA's are great little cars. There engines are really reliable and they are pretty good in terms of petrol consumption. 1.3 Ford KA's are an insurance group 2 so cheap to insure.

Nissan Micra 1.0L 


The ugly duckling of the bunch, with close to zero street cred. But make no mistake about it, Nissan Micra's are basically bomb proof. Their reliability is only rivalled by some of the old Honda's and Toyota's. And some of the newer ones! Nissan Micra's are very cheap to buy and maintain. Also cheap to Insure at insurance group 3. Definitely a smart choice for new drivers.

Bell Car Insurance Saves The Day

Bell-Car-Insurance-Post-TalkIn a previous post I talked about getting my car insurance renewal quote, and it being more expensive than last years even though I now had another years no claims bonus. Which now takes it up to 7 years No Claims Bonus. After looking at reviews for other car insurance company's I was left horrified at what people had to say. This made me hesitant to go with a new insurance company just in case I ran into the same problems which other people had been unfortunate enough to encounter.

So I thought I'd phone the car insurance company (Bell Insurance) who I have been with for Seven years and see what they had to say about lowering the price of my insurance. This would be about the third time in seven years that I had actually needed to talk to someone about my policy. So I rang them up and straight away I had a problem, I was on hold for so long that I actually ended up putting the phone down and calling back later. The second attempt at talking to a real person also failed so I went Online to see if emailing them and asking for a callback might be more effective.

Numerous emails down the line and I was starting to get annoyed. I would receive their automated response telling me that someone will be in contact soon but no one got back to me. To cut a long story short a week went by with me receiving no reply at all despite loads of emails and phone calls. I was starting to get concerned because I only had like 5 days left to go before my cooling off period was over. I started to think, is this a tactic they use. You can't contact anyone throughout the cooling off period, so the time runs out and the policy holder is then automatically signed up for another year, and if they want to cancel their contract they are charged a fee. In my case the fee would be £50 to cancel my car insurance once the cooling off period had finished.

I ended up ringing them back again and this time I did get through, to a call centre in Canada. Bell have a call centre in Canada! The guy was really helpful when I told him I was not happy being treated like this. I mean, Ive been trying to talk to someone about my policy for over a week, and with no reply at all, it just felt like I was deliberately being ignored. So I let him know I wasn't happy. I pay them more than enough money every year and I can't even speak to someone.

The Canadian representative had a talk to his manager who said that treatment was not acceptable and told me that this time I would definitely be getting a call back. He said if I don't get a call back there will be hell to pay for the people in the UK call centre I was trying to make contact with. I got the feeling that this guy called the shots.  I think I got lucky and talked to someone high enough up the chain of command to actually get things done in a hurry. Well it worked. 

Within 10 minutes of putting the phone down I was called back by the Bell UK call centre. They were very apologetic, but to be honest I was in no mood to hear it. I went through some of the things I wasn't happy about, like being ignored for over a week etc, and then I asked about why my insurance was so high even though I now had 7 years no claims bonus that had been built up with them from the very start. He just said insurance is rising for most people.

Car Insurers Can See Your Quote History


But then I went on to tell him about some quotes I had done, which came back really cheap, and I'm thinking of leaving if they (Bell) can't knock some money off the renewal price. Somehow, the representative actually had access to my quotes at his computer and he said yes, I can see you have gotten back some seriously low quotes and because you have been with us for such a long time, I can give you a discount on your renewal price. He said, I can give you a discount of £100.

I didn't really say much when he said that because the quotes were considerably lower even with £100 off. He then continued, telling me he would go and speak to his manager about getting some more money knocked off because of how long I have been a customer and with all the inconvenience I had gone through trying to talk to someone. He came back from speaking to his manager and said, we can give you another £30 off. So they were offering a total £130 discount.

Even though £130 off my current car insurance renewal price wasn't cheaper than the quotes I had got back, I still thought to myself that's a great discount. Because in all honesty I didn't want to change insurers anyway. After reading through the horror story's (reviews) from customers who were with the insurance companies I was thinking about joining just to save some money, I would rather stay with Bell. It may have been hard to contact Bell but in the end they showed that loyalty does still count for something at least and I saved £130. So I guess it's always worth ringing your insurers first to see if they will consider lowering the price before changing car insurers and wishing you didn't.

Car Insurance Reviews Have Me Spooked

cars-on-the-freeway-all-need-insuranceThat times come again. You know, when your insurance renewal has just come in the post and even though you now have another years no claims bonus they still have the cheek to raise your insurance premium by a few hundred quid. If this wasn't offensive enough they even add a little flyer mixed in with your quote saying "Simply do nothing" "Renewing couldn't be easier". Yeah OK, I'll do nothing, let the cooling off period run out, and let you rob me for another year. So off I went in search of a cheaper renewal price. Every quote I completed where I went direct to the insurance company's website like Direct Line, Aviva, and Churchill they all came back with prices that were so high it made me laugh. I thought these companies said if you go direct to them you can save money!

So the only place left was the comparison websites. I generally use confused.com if I want to check new insurance quotes but this time I thought I'd try the other two comparison websites, Compare the market and Go Compare. Sadly, all three comparison websites return the exact same results..All after one thing and one thing only, the commission for making a sale in the form of you signing up for insurance through them. So after seeing that they just use the same results I stuck with Confused.

Some of the quotes that came back for me seemed a little too good to be true. ASDA came back as the cheapest for every quote. And I was very close to changing my insurance over to them but my instincts told me to do a little research first. But when you are desperate, and your dazzled by the cheap price, it's easy to just change insurers without checking them out first. I'm relieved that I did. I did email ASDA about my quote but have not yet received a reply (A week down the line).

If you are anything like me and you go and read the customer reviews on car insurance companies before committing to buy car insurance the chances are that you have been left as confused as me. Throughout all my research I did not come across one insurance company, offering a decent quote, that had a good rating. All of them had very bad reviews. In fact, the reviews weren't just bad they were absolutely terrible. And you guessed it, ASDA was the worst I came across.

Closely followed by Igo4, Zenith, and Swinton. Some of the reviews from customers were frightening! I won't mention specific company names but issues like, The insurance company cancelled a policy holders insurance for no reason, without informing them, and it resulted in the person being pulled over by the Police and arrested for having no insurance. Resulting in their car being seized and they are now awaiting a court appearance! This was not a one off that I read either, it was written by more than five separate reviewers.

Issues when changing insurers


Other problems that were consistent in my research were insurance companies asking for proof of drivers license and no claims bonus and then claiming they had never received the documentation, even though on many occasions the documents were sent by recorded delivery. Another problem that stuck out was insurance company's going back on their agreement after the policy holder had took the plunge and bought the premium, resulting in void insurance.

This only means one thing for the policy holder, as do most of the issues talked about here - Fees - Extra Charges! Upon reading the small print of some the insurance company's it's shocking to see some of the fee's and charges they demand for little changes to a policy. Cancelling a policy for no reason seems to be another problem high on the reviewers list. This of course results in the policy holder having to pay even more charges.

Better the devil you know


One word of advice: Always read the small print of any insurance company you are thinking of joining. The quote may seem low and attractive but there is a reason why it is so low. The Terms Of Services that I read for various companies were hiding some hefty charges. So in the end your not actually getting the cheap insurance you thought you were. It's like these insurance company's just make up whatever charges they think are right. The car insurance industry as a whole needs to have tighter regulations in place. As it stands right now, car insurance is a real rip-off. And I can't help but think that the insurance industry must be laughing their socks off at just how good they have got it. They are raking in some serious money.

No wonder some company's that previously had nothing at all to do with car insurance are using their brand names as a front for real car insurance company's that want to use a highly regarded company name as a disguise. Credit where it's due, It's a great tactic. But it's very misleading. And when you find out the truth it makes the companies in question look a bit sinister.

Going on all the reviews I have read on various review websites, they are all just as bad as each other. Is it worth changing insurers and risk encountering these sorts of problems to save a few quid. It seems like more trouble than it's worth. I know my current insurers might be asking a higher premium but at least I don't get any hassle from them. I pay my money and I'm left alone. Saying that, I haven't really needed to contact my insurance company for anything, and you usually only find out how good a company is when you have a problem.

And to be honest, Bell (Part of the Admiral Group), the insurance company I have been with for 7 years, had terrible reviews also. However, I have to be honest and say that I have never really had a problem with them. Rather than risking going with another company, and encountering some of these costly problems I think it might be worth giving Bell a ring and seeing if they can sort out the price a little. Hopefully loyalty still means something in this day and age. After reading all the reviews and being scared to change insurers, I think it's better the devil you know rather than the one you don't.

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