Car insurance - Job title, business use etc.

[zazou]

I'm playing around with the Go Compare engine as I am buying a car soon.
Many of you may be familiar with the questions asked and I've heard somewhere that things like job titles do affect insurance rates (i.e. director vs software developer / engineer).

Before spending my Friday night trying out all the possibilities, do people here have experience with or know what is best to put in?

Main areas are Occupation status (Employed vs Self employed), Occupation & Type of business, Usage (social, social & business, peak hours), voluntary excess, cover, mileage...

I'm a software developer and a director of my own company. In my current contract I have the no need for the car apart for perhaps driving home for weekends. That said, might be in a contract soon where I'd have to commute.

I have no interest not telling the truth or hiding something - just like a fair treatment.

[TheLordDave]

I coded a lot of the rewritten GoCompare site a couple of contracts ago . It seems fairly arbitrary, some insurers won't quite for certain jobs or will load the quote. Can't remember which ones but it was something like 'software developer' would quote, 'web designer' wouldn't. It seemed quite odd at the time.

[SueEllen]

Go to moneysavingexpert.com
and play around with their job title generator in their insurance section. (It's easy to find.) Choose the job title that gives the cheapest quotes that can legally apply.

Director tends to be more expensive than anything else so it's better to use Software Developer or similar.

In regards to the others you can put "employed" in, choose "social, domestic and commuting" and choose "business use".

The reasons to have business use are:
1. Your permanent place of work is your home so everywhere else is business travel. So it's a legal requirement.
2. If you leave it in a different town during the week it's automatically insured and you don't have to give the insurer an additional postcode.
3. It doesn't cost extra if you buy it when you take out a policy.
4. Some insurers will upgrade your courtesy car if you have an accident and drive on motorways for business.

[zazou]

Interesting, Voluntary excess zero or £500 doesn't affect the price - a no brainer!

[kingcook]

If you're going to put in multiple quotes, use a different name/address/postcode/email address slightly each time. Otherwise they thing you're trying to massage the figures and increase the premiums.

[BolshieBastard]

Cant say Ive ever had a problem.

Although I have a limited co I always describe myself as IT Contractor and select something as close as possible to what I do from the second list of options ie Computer Systems. Ive never put myself down as self employed director and my quotes arent what I call large.

[TheLordDave]

Don't worry about using different details, the quotes don't get loaded if you use the same ones and play with the figures. The comparison sites, well GoCompare at least don't track those changes and he third party integration doesn't pass your personal details through at the quote stage.

I am however several glasses of wine into the evening so if thy doesn't make any sense excuse me