Advantages: Great prices for women, Bonus Accelerator Programme, Good service, Easy to access quotes online or freephone
Disadvantages: Foreign call centre 'out of hours'
Background Information and Some Interesting Statistics...
In many instances, with all insurance companies, women can often receive cheaper insurance quotes than men... the reason for this? Well, according to information Diamond have collected women tend to be involved in the same number of accidents as men, but those accidents don't tend to be quite as serious. Because of this, when a man makes a claim the insurance company normally has to pay out more than they would if a woman was making a claim.
Information on Diamond's website suggests that women also tend to drive shorter distances and tend to drive more slowly (remember - this is in general!). Apparantly men are convicted for 92% of driving offences and 98% of all convictions for dangerous driving.
It's because of these reasons that insurance companies tend to generalise and say that women drivers are typically "safer". However, this difference is more prominent during late teens and twenties. By the time a driver reaches 30+ it tends to even out more... and by the time a driver reaches 75 it's the men that are considered "safer".
Diamond make a suggestion that they feel this trend is likely to change (and is probably changing now), but they confirm that "until the statistical evidence shows that there has been a swing insurance companies will still rate women differently from men".
Good news for women then!
About Diamond
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Diamond offer car insurance to women... This isn't to say they offer insurance soley to women, men can appear as named drivers on a woman's policy, but their quoting system is based around the woman being the main driver and the owner of the car in question.
Diamond is part of the Admiral Insurance Services Ltd group which means there's no middleman involved - they're not brokers looking
for another company to insure you, they offer the insurance direct to you.
Getting a Quote
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Diamond are able to offer insurance quotes over the phone and also over the internet. In terms of the things they need to know to offer a quote it's pretty much the same as any insurance company, however one thing that came in particularly useful in my situation is that they only take consideration of claims and convictions that have happened in the last 3 years - many insurance companies want to know details of claims and convictions within the last 5 years, therefore if something has gone wrong in your past you have to suffer the consequences for 2 years longer than you do by getting a quote with Diamond!
To get a quote by phone they have a freephone number (0800 36 24 36) Monday to Friday 8am to 8pm and Saturday & Sunday 10am to 4pm, or to get a quote online you should visit www.diamond.co.uk where you can get a quote 24 hours a day. If you opt for the online option there will be instances where you may need to call them and you won't be able to get a quote online, however this is very rare and is normally only in circumstances such as an unusual car. When trying to get a car for a Subaru Impreza STI that had been imported from Japan but not yet registered in the UK I found I was unable to get a quote online, so had to make a call to their call centre...
One of my majoe gripes is companies that switch to call centres abroad during 'anti-social' hours... Diamond's call centre is open 8am - 8pm during the week, but I found that calling after 6.00 pm meant a call to a foreign call centre. The call centre seems to be based in India, and, whilst I'm sure these people try very hard (to read their scripts), if you've got anything more than a straight-forward question they will struggle. Also, no matter how good some people's grasp of the English language is, a foreign accent over the tele
phone
is sometimes extremely difficult to understand. When trying to get a quote for the car that was a Japanese Import I had the "cutomer service" representative repeatedly telling me that there was no such car made in the year I was telling her that the car was made in. This was very frustrating! In particular as I knew I was right - I'd already seen the car! This lead to me having to wait and make additional calls during 'office hours'.
Types of Cover
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As you'd expect, Diamond offer both Comprehensive and Third Party, Fire and Theft types of insurance.
One advantage, in particular for younger or not so experienced drivers or those that have lost their no-claims-bonus is that Diamond offer a Bonus Accelerator Scheme. By taking insurance using the Bonus Accelerator Scheme you pay for 10 months insurance, and at the end of those 10 months Diamond give you 1 year's no claims bonus. This helps you to build up no claims bonuses much quicker. This is only offered to drivers with less than 5 years no claims bonus, and I can certainly say it has been of advantage to me. Taking this option costs no more than it would to take the full twelve months cover (as far as I'm aware you just pay for 10 months cover instead of a full 12).
Diamond offer the usual benefits, including legal expenses cover, a guaranteed replacement car (though this is subject to conditions - for example, they don't guarantee a replacement car if you're insuring an imported vehicle), and a 24 hour accident and glass repair helpline.
The Expense
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According to their website their motor insurance quotes are particularly good if you live in Scotland, London or the South East. I don't live in any of those areas, but I have consistently found them able to give me the best quote for the last few years. Obviously a company that's cheaper for one person is not going to
be cheape
r for everyone - at the end of the day to get the best price you do need to ring around a good few companies.
I was concerned when insuring my car with them that I would have problems adding my boyfriend as a named driver (with Diamond being a specialist in womens car insurance), I thought that they would either not do it or it would cost a fortune, however this was not a problem and only cost a relatively small amount.
The Verdict
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In general their customer service is good, though I would recommend that if possible you use the internet to communicate with them or call during the day, not the early evening.
Diamond are very prompt in sending out paperwork and are keen to get feedback from their customers - almost every time they've posted something to me (e.g. when I've rung to change my payment details at the time of renewal) they've always sent out a brief questionnaire for comments on how well they dealt with my query. (Hopefully they take notice of what customers say to them!)
If you a female driver, in particular if you're young, have had claims in the past and drive a fast car (like myself!) then I would certainly suggest giving Diamond a try. If you're reading this, then you're already online, so why not go to diamond.co.uk to see what quote they could offer you. You're not tied in to anything by getting a quote.
Four stars * * * * (one knocked off for the foreign call centre)
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