Which? advises insurance customers to haggle and switch to save money

In a survey of 14,000 Which? members they found that 51% of those with home insurance and 43% with car insurance were paying higher premiums than they had in the year prior.

The average increase among those seeing a rise was £35 for car insurance customers and £41 for home insurance customers.

Out of those customers paying more, half (50%) were renewing with their current car or home insurer.

Decent savings were to be found among the Which? members who tried haggling or switched (PA) (Image: PA)

The benefits of haggling and switching were also found by Which? in this survey, as 25% of those surveyed discussed the price with their insurer, with 48% of those people managing to reduce their premiums.

This equated to an average saving of £56 for car insurance and £54 for home insurance.

Additionally, those who switched insurers also made decent savings, at an average of £43 for car insurance and £103 for home insurance.

These findings were made despite a “loyalty penalty” ban having been introduced at the start of this year.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) put the ban in place after finding that millions of home and motor insurance customers were losing out by renewing repeatedly with their existing providers.

In January, the FCA implemented new rules which banned car and home insurers from offering different prices to equivalent new and renewing customers.

Jenny Ross, Which? Money editor said: “With household budgets under huge strain at the moment, it’s important not to renew your insurance without first checking if you could pay less.

“Our research shows it’s still the case that the price quoted by your insurer is not necessarily the best price you can get.

“Doing your research on comparison sites, haggling and switching remain effective ways of bringing down the cost of home and car insurance.”