Car Insurance .. a crash-course!

It's been an interesting start to my day ..

I needed to renew my car insurance, so rang for a chat with the company who currently insure me. A new policy, they said, would be £205 more than it was last year.  "What?" .. I said, er .. politely "How come?" ..

"Well .." said the lovely chap in the call centre "It seems that, last year, your insurance was underwritten by the Co-op, and they don't seem to want you any more!" When I asked why not he said it could be because of my job.
"My job?" .. I said, protectively.
"Well, yes .." he said "They've probably seen 'Freelance Photographer' and lumped you in with all the "Lady Di paparazzi" types! Your occupation is right up there with the most risky types like .. journalists!"
"What?" I gasped "Not that crazy bastard loony driver bunch. No way .."

He chuckled and I heard his keyboard tapping again "There's something else .." he said, and I gulped."You have the highest risk car on the entire list!"

(At this point he must have felt a bit sorry for me, as he added "You're not having much luck here, are you?")

"What do you mean, the highest risk car?" I asked.
"Well .." he said "You have your Ford Ka kind of thing .. that's down at level one for risk. A BMW 5 Series is at level 50. Your car .." he said, building up the tension " .. is level 61 !!!"

I thanked him for his time and went to an online comparison site, putting in exactly the same details as he had on the old policy. I've got a great new policy now, for £10 less than I paid last year.

It's with .. the Co-op! 

Future policy ..

Time to renew my car insurance, and my current insurer has quoted me a renewal rate of £339 and very kindly told me that I don't need to do a thing to carry on being insured, as they'll take my money out of my bank account all by their clever little selves and send me a new certificate on the due date. Now nowbody these days just allows an insurance company to roll over its policy - do you? - so, of course, the first thing I did was to get online and get some comparison prices. Cheapest equivalent?  £207 !! I rang my company and told them. "Oh .." they said "Did we say £339? Sorry, we meant £240 !!.." Cheeky little ratbags! Chucking a hundred quid onto my policy and hoping I just didn't notice! Nice! Anyway, couldn't resist showing you this picture from my archive! Drama on the high streets of Birmingham when this learner driver reversed into me in 1979! I think the insurers have paid up!.. 

I'm off to Sandbach today to shoot some baby portraits. This will probably be the last time I shoot an individual's portrait on location. After this they can come to me at my new studio! That's my future policy!..