Archive for May, 2009
Who is the Cheapest Car Insurance Company?
The answer to the question, ‘who is the cheapest car insurance company?’ is almost impossible to answer.
The reason is because the offers are always changing and different people with different circumstances will pay different amounts for their car insurance.
For example, people with less no-claims discount will pay more for insurance than someone with many years no-claims discount and people with performance cars will pay more than people with small family cars.
It is slightly easier to categorise insurance companies differently to find out who is the cheapest insurance company for new drivers? or who is the cheapest insurance company for women?
Thankfully car insurance comparison websites make this task quite straightforward.
Compare Car Insurance with:
The online car insurance world is HUGE. There are millions of people searching for car insurance online so any insurance company wanting access to all those potential customers has to have some kind of ‘web presence’ or be included in an online car insurance comparison website.
Customers can save money by comparing online and there are lots of offers available including cashback and vouchers.
Although there are more online car insurance comparison websites than ever before it is still worth spending an hour obtaining several quotes from several sources. If you save £100 by doing so that works out at a rate of £100 per hour. Imagine if you could save £100 every hour?
Of course not everyone will save as much as £100 but according to television advertising it appears to be entirely possible.
So the question ‘who is the cheapest car insurance company’ should actually be ‘who is the cheapest car insurance company – for me?’
Low Loan to Value (LTV) Mortgage – Compare Mortgages
With falling house prices and mortgage lenders concerned about their exposure to risk the most competitive mortgage rates are currently being offered to applicants with low loan to value mortgages.
Gone are the days of 125% mortgages and free and easy lending criteria with house prices climbing month on month.
Now to qualify for the best mortgage rates available customers are required to meet lower risk criteria.
It makes bad business sense for a mortgage lender to offer mortgages in excess of the value of a home if the property is likely to be worth less in just a few months.
That would put the mortgage holder into a negative equity situation and expose the lender to more risk because if they have to repossess the property they would certainly lose money.
Lenders are therefore playing it nice and safe by offering the best market rates to people with low loan to value mortgages.
Borrowers with more than 40% equity (that’s 60% loan-to-value) will find themselves welcomed by any lender with virtually open arms (provided there is no adverse credit history).
> Get in touch with a ‘whole of market’ mortgage adviser.
Even borrowers with 25% Equity (75% loan-to-value) are able to find favourable rates but with falling house prices there are many people who through no fault of their own now have less equity than before.
Borrowers with less than 25% equity are now finding it harder to secure a mortgage with a competitive rate just because the banks have changed the way they lend.
Because of falling house prices there are more borrowers now who are unable to secure any kind of mortgage offer. Some lenders have 90% loan to value offers available but clients need to be ‘squeaky clean’ and even then rates are above 6.5%.
Any borrower with less than 10% equity will be struggling to find any deals available and will find themselves in the same situation as anyone with negative equity.
One saving grace is the Bank of England base rate cuts which many lenders have passed on to their customers.