The same applies to car insurance. I saved £234....from my current insurance quote, on the same company when I said I'd got a cheaper one online--from themselves. LV.

I did the same again today.

At her first offer I said I'd still got a much cheaper quote. She put me on hold then came back with another offer which was within £3 of my best quote, and £8 cheaper than they charged me last year! As I couldn't be bothered filling in forms, I happily took it.

It's a tactic I use as well, Rebbonk. The insurer I use in one year is never able to match the cheapest quote I get at renewal (one renewal I was offered was twice the price of the cheapest quote!), so I tend to hop around insurers from year to year.

Just had my buildings insurance come through. To be honest, I thought it on the high side so ran a quick check via confused.com which confirmed my suspicions. In fact, it was almost 40% higher than the cheapest quote.

So today I gave them a ring and politely said that I thought they were expensive and asked if they could do anything about it. Without even asking me about any other quotes, they offered me the exact same price as confused had thrown up! Not being one to bother filling in more forms, I accepted: though I did make a comment about what I thought was sharp practice.

All in all, not a bad result for a 5 minute phone call!