Martin Lewis has shared an important car insurance “warning” to every motorist in the UK with road users likely overpaying for cover. The Money Saving Expert founder said motorists had been “programmed” to believe annual price hikes were acceptable, when average fees were really coming down.
He stressed that average car insurance fees are down 11% across the last 12 months after peaking back in 2023. It means motorists may be paying a lot more than they should for basic coverage simply because they were unaware.
Speaking on ITV’s Martin Lewis Money Show, he said: “This is actually what’s been happening to car and home insurance prices.
“There we go, you’ll see from about three years ago we had this massive ramp in prices, up nearly 60% on car, up nearly 50% on home. But then that started to smooth off and on car, it’s come down. So when you actually look at what’s happened over the last year, home is down 3% and car is down 11%.”
On the screen, Martin’s slide branded the problem the “big insurance renewal warning” before claiming that “no rise isn’t a good deal”. The chart then showed car insurance prices slowly increasing from 2022 before peaking around October 2023.
Martin added: “We’ve been programmed to think each year it’s going to go up and up and up. And the problem with that is this, you get your renewal quite and you go ‘oh it’s only gone up 5% this year, winner winner chicken dinner’.
“But no, what should be happening to you right now is it should be coming down, So my big warning today is when you get your renewal if nothing else has changed, you want to expect to be see your piece be even cheaper than last year. Even if it’s the same as last year, that’s actually paying too much.
“My aim today is to reprogramme you to expect cheaper prices, not higher prices, from this point onwards.”