van insurance

[clm]

Im buying a van to use as my regular vehicle and have found it to cost almost double to insure than my D turbo (though it will be worth more than twice as much).
Quotes are coming in close to £1000.

I know there are some van users on here (b.joy and NCB) disseminate your knowledge please.

One insurer asked me to sit down before giving me the quoute (fer reel)

[Paul B]

I think you should look at some specialist insurers, people like adrian flux and footman james are good. When I was looking for my first vehicle the cheapest things I could find to insure were VW transporter t4's, I was getting quotes somewhere near the 250 mark for an 18yr old on 2.5 Tdi vans compared to £999 on a cetroen 0.9L AX.

[mini]

I'm guessing its for personal, not commercial use?

I had a similar instance when I tried to insure a citreon C15 van for personal use (thinking it would be cheaper than commercial). In the end I didn't tell them it was for personal use and started getting sensible quotes.

Talking to my sister, whose an insurance underwriter, said its due to vans normally being used for commercial uses. Vans being used for personal use is an 'unknown quantity', therefore the premium is high!

[Bonjoy]

 Mine is insured as a self build through Shield, but you wouldn't be able to get this unless you intend to fully convert it. If you do go down this route you can get a 10% discount by joining SBMCC.co.uk for a tenner

[widdop]

try the NFU  realy good rates,  no need to be a farmer ,     tell them its to take your pet sheep for a romantic run out.

[a dense loner]

have heard good things about nfu clm, and yet more letters

[Duma]

I drove a Citroen Relay 2.5D (1997) as my first vehicle after passing my test (2003) (I was 27 though!) IIRC it was £800-£900 the first time (ie no no claims) and was £500-and-something by the time I sold it last year (sniff). I did a basic conversion on it but never bothered the insurance co with that info.
Was with CIS, and the price included up to 9 months euro cover and european wide breakdown cover (Happily I never had the opportunity to test the service, but a friend has and was very positive)

[LL55]

Check out http://www.budgetinsurance.com/, they may be well advertised, but my insurance went from near a grand third party to five hundred fully comp. I spent a good day shopping around, calling people, and couldn't get anywhere near as good as Budget could.

They're agents for smaller brokers, but trying to get cheap van insurance when you're not running it as a commercial vehicle is vdiff.

If you are running it on a commercial basis - check out http://www.vannetinsurance.co.uk which for me worked out about £100 cheaper.

Good luck dude,

[clm]

i went with budget in the end.  not cheap but then it is parked overnight in moss side.

[KH]

For others looking for van insurance, firstly try www.gocompare.com and compare quotes from quite a few providers.  Then to complete your search you should try the main van brokers such as gladiator.co.uk, budget.com (lime clm), evan.com and a couple of direct writers like norwich union and more than.  This should get you the best quote.