In the last article (or next, depending whether you’re a ‘start at the back and work your way forward‘ sports fan or prefer the titilations at the front of your newspaper and then progress in a more hardy fashion), we looked at how using a combination of variable, static and fixed variable factors (sliders, to you and me) could help you detract from the anticipated remunerable outlay for the LCV fleet at the beginning of a fiscal calendar (or: get cheap van insurance every year).
One other key strategy when searching for online van insurance is whether to choose approaching an insurer direct or going through a broker. Both have advantages, but the one option is a lot more equal than the other.
You can go to an insurance company direct – there are plenty who deal with both the public and business sector. But their service can be limited, and you’re often expected to know which of their products you want or is best for you beforehand.
For one, they are only drawing from their own portfolio of product and you may be tempted to take out van cover because it’s cheap, but not quite right for your business, yet it is the closest match; for two, that’s a bit like putting all your loot on ‘black/even’ at the casino – yep, you might need to claim, 3/1 on you’re not going to be covered. That, my friends, is the law of the sod – we have acquiesced more oft than I care to recount, herein (gets me every time). Also, the minute you pick up the phone to query an anomoly with a direct insurer, you may lose the online discount that you’d otherwise save going through a van insurance comparison site and booking online through their cheap insurance facility.
Which leads us nicely on to the broker, who can pull in quotes to match your credentials from a whole host of insurance companies. Yes, you pay the broker a premium for the service, but for a one-off fee that can save you traipsing the Internet entering the same old van insurance criteria seventy times, which can become a bit repetitive after the first, ooh, once, it is definitely worth the sacrifice.
You’d be surprised at how little that premium is, too. Online brokers, those at the top of the rankings, anyway, can work on volume, rather than large margins, preferring to make a tenner ten times than £100 once (figures purely for illustration, like a ‘serving suggestion’ on your fish-finger packet) because ten hits on their site keeps them closer to the top of Google, whereas one hit would hardly count as a splash. It’s all good stuff, y’know.
Do carry out your research using your slider and, once you’ve tried one broker, I’d be very surprised if you saved a vast amount by going to another – the closest result to your search-criteria will always be the closest (you may never get an exact match, no matter how hard you try) – so, waste no further ado, my cheap van insurance hunter: compare cheap van insurance quotes to save a packet in minutes.