Mine had jumped from £515.50 last year to £697 something on renewal. Which was odd because the same insurer was comming up as £633 on go compare (for the standard policy/5 stars defaqto rated, not the cut down esstentials range that cuts things like hire cars and legal cover out etc), some other insurers were comming up similar price to what I paid last year, but I think legal cover was probably a bit of an add on price to that. Anyway called the original insurer up, asked them what they could do and they came back with £604 which while probably not the best I could have done, was is close enough, espeically as it includes hire car plus (which means I get something similar size and wouldnt have to try and squeeze 6'4" me into a some poxy city car!) and still includes DOC cover, which you cant see whether they do or not on the comparison sites. Asked them how much to add occasional busniness use on it, which only put it upto £613 which I went for as occasionaly the missus is asked to do a day at some sort of business event and its probably her turn to drive this year, stops any issues of "Ah but actually even though, you still commuted to a single place for the day within the local city, its not the same one you usually go to...."
I could have probably saved maybe £50 more if I'd tried and shopped around, but then I might be faffing around on internet and phone for another few hours, then making sure they can pull the NCB through, or otherwise receiving and then submitting it, ringing previous insurer to turn off auto renew etc.
Still think all the prices I was looking at are a bit on the dear side, but the cost of everything has gone up a lot, I'm just glad that Its no where near what the apprentices at work have to pay for theirs and glad those days are behind me now (and even when I was their age, it wasn't anywhere near as high as it is now - but seemed high at the time!)
