Insurance savings are easy to advertise and harder to judge. Here is how to challenge a renewal, spot duplicate cover and avoid an excess you cannot afford.
Your car insurance renewal arrives. The price has gone up, the documents run to several pages, and the easiest option is to do nothing. Your home policy is due next month. Somewhere in a drawer, there may also be cover you bought with a mortgage years ago.
There are sensible ways to spend less. The trick is to cut the cost of protection you need, rather than discover what you gave up when you come to claim.
Since 1 January 2022, UK rules have stopped firms charging an existing home or motor customer more at renewal than an equivalent new customer buying through the same channel. That is not a price freeze. Your premium can still rise, and another insurer may still offer you a better deal. The rule does not mean a quote on one website must match a quote through every other sales route.
Start with the renewal notice. It should show last year’s premium as well as the new one. Check the details behind the price: your annual mileage, who drives the car, where it is kept, the people living at home and any changes to the property. Give accurate answers. Shaving a few miles off a figure or describing someone else as the main driver is not a saving worth having if it causes trouble with a claim.
Compare policies before renewal rather than treating the insurer’s first offer as the final word. MoneyHelper suggests looking for car insurance around three to four weeks before the new policy starts. Try more than one comparison route, and look at the insurer’s own quote if you wish. Then compare the cover, not just the number in large type. Check the compulsory and voluntary excesses, exclusions, claim limits and extras.
Ask your current insurer whether it can improve the price for the cover you actually want. If you switch, arrange the start and end dates so you have no gap. You can stop a policy automatically renewing, but that is a reminder to make another plan, not permission to leave a car uninsured.
An excess is the part of a claim you pay yourself. Some policies have a compulsory excess; a voluntary excess sits on top. Raising the voluntary amount can reduce your premium, but it also increases the cash you need if something goes wrong.
Do the arithmetic with the quotes in front of you. Suppose increasing your voluntary excess by £200 cuts the annual premium by £50. You save £50 if you do not claim. If you make one claim on which the extra excess applies, you pay £200 more towards it: £150 more than you saved that year. Those figures are an illustration, not a typical insurer’s quote. Your actual excess may also differ by claim type, so check the policy schedule.
A cheaper premium is not a saving if the claim leaves you with a bill you cannot pay.
The same test applies to monthly payments. Insurers may charge interest for paying by instalments. Compare the total payable over the year with the annual price, rather than comparing one month’s direct debit with a year’s bill. Paying annually can cost less if you have the money available; it is not a bargain if it means taking on expensive debt or emptying the cash you would need for an excess.
Insurance Premium Tax is normally included in the quoted price. In the 2026/27 tax year, the standard UK rate is 12% for most home and car insurance; travel insurance generally attracts the higher 20% rate. These rates do not change the basic comparison: look at the full amount you will pay.
Before you untick an extra, find out what it does. Breakdown assistance, legal expenses cover, home emergency help and cover for belongings away from home can be useful. They can also overlap with a packaged bank account, another household policy or cover you bought separately. Compare limits, exclusions, excesses and who is insured before deciding that two things with similar names are duplicates.
A packaged account may, for instance, include breakdown assistance, but it might cover a person, a vehicle or a particular level of call-out. The add-on with your car policy may work differently. If both would do the job you need, dropping one could save money. If neither covers the journey you make regularly, having two policies is not much comfort.
Travel cover deserves its own check. If you take several trips, compare the total cost of single-trip policies with an annual policy. Read the maximum length of each trip and the medical, cancellation and repatriation terms. Tell a prospective insurer about the health conditions it asks about; a cheaper policy that will not cover a claim connected to your condition is a poor exchange. If you have already booked a holiday, check when cancellation cover begins before replacing an existing policy.
Look at work benefits too. Death-in-service cover, employer sick pay and a personal life or income protection policy may all appear to protect your family, but they pay out in different circumstances. Employer cover may end when you leave your job. Income protection can have a waiting period before payments start. Put each policy beside the mortgage balance, household bills and benefits you could actually rely on. That tells you more than the number of direct debits does.
Start with losses you could not comfortably meet yourself. Buildings insurance should reflect the cost of clearing and rebuilding your home, not simply its sale price. Insuring for too little can affect even a partial claim. Check contents limits as well, particularly for valuable items. Removing cover for a modest premium reduction is a different decision when a serious fire, flood or theft would leave you paying the rest.
Be especially cautious about cancelling life or income protection to buy a new policy later. Your age or health may make replacement cover more expensive, and a condition that developed since you took out the original policy may not be covered on the same terms. Check the old and proposed cover before ending anything. For a decision that affects how your family would manage a death or years without your earnings, MoneyHelper or an FCA-regulated financial adviser can help you work through the trade-offs.
Finally, keep the review manageable. Write down each policy’s renewal date, annual cost, excess and main reason for having it. At renewal, get comparable quotes, question overlaps and check that the cover still fits your life. You are not trying to win a competition for the smallest premium. You are deciding which risks you can carry yourself and which ones you cannot.
To cut an insurance bill safely, compare like-for-like quotes at renewal, check for duplicate cover and weigh any premium saving against the extra excess you might pay. Do not cancel essential cover, misstate your circumstances or replace an older protection policy without checking what you would lose.
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