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

The carbon tax on heating oil will come into effect in Ireland on May 1st 2010. The new tax will result in the price of 1000 litres of kerosene rising by around €43 Euro. If you are going to be ordering heating oil or bulk LPG in the Spring – you can save yourself a few Euro by ordering before the end of April. The current price (Feb 2010) of kerosene is around 62 cent per litre. The Carbon Tax will add 4.3 cent to the price from May 2010. The price of LPG will be rising by about €30 per 1000 litres.

As we mentioned here last December – the new Carbon Tax in Ireland has already been applied to petrol and deisel – and will also be added to Natural Gas in May – adding about €48 a year extra on the bills of a household using 14000 KwH a year. (Around  a 6% increase.)  Gas prices were just reduced in February – but those reductions will be almost wiped out in May.

It might be worthwhile considering upgrading your gas or oil boiler to a higher efficiency one that uses less fuel. Grants are available for boiler upgrades as long as you upgrade the heating contols at the same time. See more about Grants for Boilers here.

Once  children hit 17 – many  of them are keen to learn how to drive – but the high price of insurance for learner drivers can be a problem. Once they have their provisional licence – you can add them as a named driver on your own insurance policy. Adding a learner driver to your policy will increase the premiums by quite a lot -  around €800 a year in some cases .

We did a small online price comparison to see where we could find the cheapest car insurance for a 19 year old learner driver as a named driver on his mother’s policy. The quotes were obtained on February 20th and 21st 2010.

Car insurance quotes were requested for a 45 year old female with a full clean licence driving a 2004 Fiat Panda 1.2l  in the Galway area.
Her son was added as a named driver – he is 19 , a student with a provisional licence that he has held for a year. These are the online insurance quotes we obtained for comprehensive insurance with breakdown cover included. (Cheapest price first)

Aviva €1210.48 -  with a €600 excess
123.ie €1221.41   with €500 excess and windscreen cover
Quinn €1284.54   300 excess  incl breakdown
Chill.ie €1412      with a €250 excess and windscreen cover
Quoteme.ie €1624.20
Insure.ie €1612.23 -   €600 excess amd breakdown NOT incl
AA €1855.39  windscreen ncb protection (No  breakdown cover)
FBD  – no quote could be provided online

Surprisingly – Aviva  – (formerly known as Hibernian) came out with the lowest price – some €645 cheaper than the highest price in the small survey. The next cheapest was from 123.ie  – which  did include windscreen cover and a lower excess.

One extra financial advantage we discovered with Aviva insurance for provisional licence holders – is that they offer 6 months FREE accompanied learner driver insurance if you buy 10 driving lessons from them.
The cost of insurance cover with Aviva for the mother alone was €323.61 – so the 6 months free cover for the provisional licence holder is worth €443.43 in this example.  The Aviva driving school say lessons cost from €42 an hour – so basically the lessons end up costing you nothing.

Halifax – the retail banking arm of  Bank of Scotland (Ireland) – is closing all it’s 44 branches in Ireland. Halifax is pulling out of the Irish market and is no longer taking on any new customers as from 10th February 2010 . Branch closures will begin  from May 2010. All Halifax branches in Ireland are expected to be closed by the end  June 2010. About 750 jobs will be lost.
These closures were predicted in the Sunday Tribune as far back as July 2009.

Mortgages, personal loans and fixed rate savings with Halifax will  still operate to maturity – but deposits in Halifax that are not fixed term will have to be taken elsewhere.
See our list of the Best Savings Rates here for alternatives.

Halifax – as recently as April 2009 had the lowest mortgage rate in Ireland - but a sudden increase in May was probably a result of problems at parent group Lloyds. They are often credited with the introduction of tracker mortgages to Ireland  -  which other lenders soon copied.
Lloyds took over Halifax Bank Of Scotland (HBOS)  in January 2009  and was “bailed out” by the UK government – which now owns  43% of Lloyds.

The closure of Halifax means that their Flexisaver account will be replaced at the top of our  Instant Access Best Buys by another UK bank – Nationwide UK (Ireland) .

Halifax customers are being told that they  “do not need to do anything at this stage and all their savings and investments remain secure. All affected customers will be contacted shortly on what the next steps are, if any.”

Bank of Scotland (Ireland) are also withdrawing from the Irish mortgage market but they say they are “  committed to maintaining a strong presence in the commercial and corporate banking markets in Ireland.”

The Bank of Scotland (Ireland) intermediary business, which provides residential mortgages through brokers, motor finance and commercial asset finance, will  close to new business but  will continue serving existing customers.

We are regularly checking and comparing  broadband prices in Ireland.

If you are looking for a nationally available home phone (landline) and broadband package with up to 3Mb speed as well as free landline calls in Ireland at any time of day – The cheapest is currently from Vodafone at €45 per month.

A discount is available if you are a Vodafone Mobile Pay Monthly customer – so you can get this bundle for as little as €40 a month.

This Vodafone  at Home package comes with a 40Gb download limit. An added bonus is that you also get 200 anytime minutes free to three selected Vodafone mobiles. (Worth about €40 Euro )

Vodafone also have 3Mb broadband bundled with free off  peak calls to landlines  for just €40 a month  – which is also the cheapest off peak calls and broadband bundle available nationwide. (You can get it for  just €35 if you are a Vodafone mobile Pay Monthly subscriber.)

Visit Vodafone Ireland Here for more details and other options.

Perlico’s   Freedom Bundle is  still the next cheapest  at €46 a month for  unlimited  local and national landline calls and  3Mb broadband with a 36Gb download limit . It also includes 30 minutes a month of free calls to Irish mobiles.   It isn’t clear what will happen to Perlico now that Vodafone have taken them over .

The price of a 3Mb bundle with free anytime calls from Eircom has actually risen in 2010 to  €56.75 Even with their offer of €10 a month off for 3 months – the price over 12 months works out at €54.25 a month

In some parts of Dublin  Homevision are offering a 3Mb bundle for €45.62  with a 30Gb download limit – - otherwise it’s €51.63 a month

Other monthly prices for similar 3Mb anytime  bundles include:

Imagine – €50 plus €29 connection fee

(Imagine are offering a Wimax bundle for €43.61 Euro a month with 3Mb broadband and unlimited Irish and UK calls – but availability is currently very limited.)

Smart – €54.93

All Prices shown are correct as at January  26th 2010

With ECB rates still at an all time low – and with hints of a possible rise on the way because of EU inflation – is now a good time to fix your mortgage rate ?
Variable mortgage rates are still as low as as they have ever been – and some of the lowest  fixed rate mortgages are looking attractive if you can get them.

The lowest  3 year fixed rate available in Ireland now is  3.19% from AIB.
AIB also offer the best  5 Year fixed rate of  3.86% .
See the lowest 3 year fixed rates here – Lowest 5 Year fixed Rates here

If you are already with AIB on a variable rate mortgage  -  it should be just a matter of asking to go on to the fixed rate. There should be no fees to switch from variable to fixed with the same lender . Fixing your rate is not definitely going to be a better option for all borrowers – especially those already on a low variable rate or tracker rate.
If you need to switch lenders to get a good fixed rate – it might be more difficult and costly. Most lenders will only lend up to 92% of the value  of the property – so if the value of your house has fallen a lot – you may not be able to switch to a new lender. (more…)

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.
(more…)

One of the best purchases I made in 2009 was the iRobot Roomba - a robotic vacuum cleaner.
The Roomba 560 is a great little machine that can vacuum while I get on with updating this website – or cooking the dinner or go shopping or for a swim.
Paying for a cleaner is a “luxury” that I have never felt justified the cost  – but the Roomba can save me hours of boring vacuuming every week for a lot less than paying someone else to do it.  In these “credit crunch” times – many people who do employ a cleaner might be thinking of cutting costs – well the Roomba will help.
With it’s recharging dock – I  just set the Roomba cleaner  going in a room and it cleans the floor better than I do – under beds a speciality never misses a spot. No need to move furniture – it is clever enough to work around that too. The odd rug needs taking up and shaking because sometimes it can lift the corners and get stuck.
The Roomba seems to have been hard to find in Ireland in the last few months. It seems there were problems with the distributor – but those problems seem to have been sorted out and they are now back in stock and available for delivery to Ireland again.
The Roomba 560 is the top of the range model – with the ability to preset when it runs . The Rooomba 530 is a bit cheaper and is missing this timer facility -

Both Roomba models are available here online with delivery to Ireland with prices from around €290 Euro for the 530