Tag: Car Insurance

bookmark_borderRandom

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Why buy a domain name if you have no plans to do ANYTHING with it and, as it’s been sitting there for over four years now, it should be obvious that no-one is going to come along and offer you a fortune for it. I want www.mclean.co.uk goddammit!! (and yes I’ve asked what the price would be, still no movement).

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Car Insurance time again, and if my current insurers — Direct Line — give me a competitive quote I’ll probably stick with them. Just can’t be arsed with all the faffing about to save £12 … ohh and that reminds me, need to get the road tax renewed. How much is a year again? Brilliant, not even June and I’m spending that months wage already! grumble grumble

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In other news, I’m looking for a good Windows font application that will print out a nicely formatted font sample sheet. Typograf might do it but it costs and I’m cheap. Anyone know of a good freeware alternative?

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Red Hot Chili Peppers new album, Stadium Arcadium. Meh. Disappointing. I think they’ve had their ‘moment’.

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And finally, I’m in a meeting all day today (offsite, so at least I’ll get lunch on the company), so don’t expect much in the way of posting. Not that that will make much of a change.

bookmark_borderWrinkles

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As a very old and very wise man once said: “Problems will only occur if someone else fucks up”.

Well I’m not sure if he was particularly wise but he was very VERY old.

Anyway, it turns out you can’t rename your Car Tax online if you don’t have an electronic MOT. You also can’t do it by phone. This is doubly frustrating as our car DOESN’T NEED A MOT!!!!!!

So having been through their online system once more last night, where it states that “where applicable” you may be asked for electronic MOT details, and through their phone system which states the same, and both times the application process just stops with no explanation, I now find myself typing up a blog entry whilst waiting to speak to a human being.

I’m currently pondering if the system is screwed up deliberately to make it impossible for people to get the Car Tax and so incurring a fine. I’m also pondering that I should have done this last week. I’m also pondering that we are currently without a valid car insurance certificate (it’s in the post) as I’ve only just renewed it. Maybe I’d better organise that first…

Ahhh yes, but a fax cover letter won’t be accepted, will it? Arse.

Yup, DVLA have confirmed that it needs to be an original cover letter. Which we don’t have as “it was a bank holiday on Monday” which means the letter wasn’t sent out until yesterday. Clever online system that, knows when it’s a bank holiday…

So, no Car Tax, no proof of Car Insurance, and the advice from the DVLA is “to keep the car off the road”. That’ll be the car that Louise has at work, that she needs to use to get to work as there aren’t any buses.

So now is where I hold up my hands and say I should have organised all this last week.

Won’t stop me emailing the DVLA to tell them their online Car Tax system is crap though (that bit most certainly ISN’T my fault).

God, I hope today gets better. Thoroughly fucked off now.

bookmark_borderBeep Beep

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Car Insurance, always such a joy when it comes up for renewal and we are coming to the end of the free year of insurance we got when we bought the car. So time to change, but to who?

Previously we’ve been well served by Admiral, but I’m open to suggestions. I’m sure I’ve used an online searching service before by my Google-fu is failing me, so are you happy with your car insurance? If so, who’s it with?

bookmark_borderCar Insurance update

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Yes, the next riveting episode in the saga.

is it a saga if it’s only two entries long?

Clarification first: Elephant are owned by Admiral. The main difference is that, with Elephant you have to pay your premium in one go.

Direct Line were the most expensive, topping Churchill by a further £80, More Th>n (I hate typing that, and that’s only the first time I’ve done it) were there or thereabouts. Tesco, Norwich Union, Eagle Star, Budget, Nationwide and a few others, all came in at a similar price, but all were more expensive than my renewal quote with Admiral, and only a few offered the same level of legal cover (up to £100,000) that Admiral offer.

Having clocked the fact that Elephant and Admiral are the ‘same’ company – the big hint being the online form which is identical bar the colour scheme – I thought I’d phone Admiral and play dumb. I told the renewals department that I’d had a cheaper quote from Elephant. He quickly, and correctly, pointed out that Admiral owned Elephant, and that if I took the Elephant quote I’d have to pay it all in one go (something I’ve never been inclined to do). I hummmed and hawwwed a bit, and he said he would speak to his boss and see if he could match the Elephant quote but allow me to pay for 12 months.

He did, and I’ve managed to knock over £200 off my car insurance (works out at about £20-something quid a month cheaper).

Thanks for the tips folks!