Money Guide Ireland

As always – “shop around ” is the best advice when buying or renewing car insurance. You could save hundreds of euros by going with one insurance company instead of another. In one example in a recent price comparison on Irish car insurance by the Financial Regulator – one car insurance quote was almost  3 times more expensive than the cheapest quote for the same client.

In the October 2009  survey – quotes were obtained for car insurance for a female 22 year old student  with 2 penalty points , 4 years full license and 2 years no claims bonus. She was driving a 2002 Nissan Almera . The quote also included a named driver – her 22 year old male partner with a provisional licence.

The cheapest insurance quote for this young driver was from Hibernian Aviva at €873 a year.  The highest quote for the same criteria was  €2506 from Axa Insurance .  The Axa price was 287% more than the Aviva price. (A difference of  €1633)
Note- The  Aviva price was subject to the driver taking and passing a  free 1 hour driving assessment to qualify for a special Ignition discount.

Other quotes in this example were €1418 from Quinn , €1652 from FBD , €1695 fom Allianz, €2153 from RSA via a broker and €2033 from Zurich.

In another quote comparison – for a 55 year old female driving a 2007 1.8l Ford Mondeo with a full clean licence. The cheapest cover was from Hibernian Aviva at €417 a year – with Quinn and Axa close behind at €421. The highest quote in this example was from Chartis at €579 – an increase of €162 compared to the lowest quote.

Comparing car insurance quotes for a 32 year old male social worker from Lucan, Co. Dublin with a full 10 year old clean licence and 5 years no claims bonus  – driving a  2006 VW Polo worth €10k.  The lowest premium found was €468 from Aviva and FBD . Next best was from Quinn at €496 with the most expensive quote being from Alllianz at €793. Again – a considerable difference of €297 between the cheapest and the most expensive quotes.

It could take a couple of hours to check out quotes from several companies – but if you can save up as much as €1633 – it will be time well spent.

Until March 2010 – you will be entered into a free draw to win an Opel Corsa if you get a full quote online at Aviva

Ref:  http://www.itsyourmoney.ie/cs_group_motor_insurance.htm

Tesco no longer offer car insurance in Ireland through Hibernian Aviva. In February 2010 – Tesco stopped working with Hibernian Aviva and have now started offering car insurance in conjunction with RSA (Royal Sun Alliance).  Tesco car insurance customers who get renewal notices from Tesco in the next few months will be getting them from RSA instead of Hibernian Aviva.
If you want to stay with Hibernian Aviva – you may well find that they will give you a cheaper quote.  If you buy online from Aviva – you get a 10% discount. Get a quote Here
Hibernian Aviva will have to treat old Tesco insurance policy holders as new customers – because they were just the underwriters for the car insurance policy. Also – be aware that if you have made a claim in the past 3 years – Hibernian Aviva will not give you a car insurance quote.

There are three main  health insurance providers in Ireland – VHI , Quinn Direct and  Aviva. The health insurance market in Ireland is estimated to be worth over €1 billion in premiums each year.

The Health Insurance Authority has set  up a price comparison site for Private Health Insurance in Ireland.

An initial search on the  HIA comparison site -  shows up no less than 182 different health insurance price plans available in Ireland – ranging from the cheapest at €144 per adult per year to the most expensive at €2640 per adult per year. The amount of different plans and variations in levels of cover provided is mind boggling – it must be easy for people to get confused by all the options available.
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Travel Insurance – is one of those last minute purchases that we don’t do too much research on. Is there really that much difference in the cost of travel insurance in Ireland? Is it worth shopping around to save money?
We obtained some online quotes for a 9 day trip in Europe for a family of 5 (2 adults and 3 children aged 6, 15 and 19). Some sites allowed us to treat the 19 year old as a child if they are in full time education. Other sites made us treat them as adults.

Quotes for the single trip travel insurance cover ranged from  €30 at  Aceinsure.ie  up to €69.20 at CoverMe.ie  (They wouldn’t treat the 19 yearold as a child).
These are the prices we were quoted for single trip travel insurance. (No cover for winter sports or golf ). The most expensive we found was more than twice the price of the cheapest policy.

Aceinsure.ie  €30
Justcover  €34.24
Insurancebookers.ie  €35.80
Hibernian Aviva €36
AIB  €38
Getcover.com €60.59
Quoteme.ie  €69.20

If you think you will be going abroad more than once in the next 12 months – it is worth taking out a multitrip anual travel cover instead of buying separate insurance cover for the two trips. It will almost always work out cheaper.
We were quoted the following prices for annual travel cover.

Justcover.ie €69.50
Allianz  €71.70
Aceinsure.ie   €73
Hibernian   €80
Getcover.com €91.89
AIB €92
Insurancebookers.ie   €154.80

None of the party being insured had existing health insurance. The prices may have been lower if we had private health insurance because that would cover most of the medical costs.