Here in the UK we are still in the throes of difficult economic conditions. Whether you are concerned at being able to pay the mortgage or rent on the family home this month and/or pay your creditors if you also happen to be running your own business, these are tough times financially for many people and businesses.

You probably shopped around for mortgage deals when your existing mortgage package finished so you should consider doing the same thing when your existing van insurance comes up for renewal. Whilst loyalty to your present van insurance provider is commendable perhaps you cannot afford to be.

So what should you consider doing when you receive your van insurance renewal notice?

Firstly, check to see if the premium is to increase for the next 12 months – it usually does but even if it has remained the same you may still wish to read on.

Consider picking up the phone to the business retention unit of your existing van insurer and ask them if they are prepared to negotiate on the price as you are going to shop around – you may be pleasantly surprised at the response.  They may tell you to come back to them once you have obtained some van insurance quotes from other insurers to see if they can “price match”.

So, how do you contact other van insurance companies?

You could do a number of things such as get the Yellow Pages out and contact a few insurance companies who provide van insurance. You could call into your local insurance broker’s office in the high street and get them to do the work for you and get some van insurance quotes. You may wish to go on the Internet and key “van insurance quotes” into the Google search box following which you will be presented with numerous websites offering van insurance quotes.

You could contact individual insurance companies offering van insurance but some of those sites will be van insurance price comparison websites that will allow you to key in the required information to provide you with a number of quotes from several van insurance providers for your perusal. Not all van insurance companies use price comparison sites. You could also look at the additional information each of them provide about the van insurance cover and make sure that you are comparing like with like.

You could contact your existing insurer again but if they will not match or better the quote that you favour then you may be able to go back on line and accept the quotation and even set up the van insurance policy to start when your existing cover ends-make sure you tell your existing van insurer that you do not wish to renew the policy when the current year’s cover ends.

Hopefully you have been able to reduce your premium or, at very least, contain the increase to as little as possible.