My usual Process, which may or maynot help the novice insurance shopper
Step 1 - Recieve renewal - swear a few times then leave on desk.
step 2 - log on to go compare; pull up quote from last year, change things like the date etc resubmit
step 3 - same as step 2 but this time on comparethemarket.com
step 4 - same as step 2 and 3 but this time on gocompare.com
step 5 - find the lowest possible quote from all 3 websites,
step 6 - ring up original insurer mention new price; get them to match it, and sometimes they even drop by another £40 as well. tell them i'll think about it.
step 7 - go direct to company that gave lowest quote tell them the renewal price see if they will beat or match, if not go back to step 6
step 8 - take this new figure which should be roughly the lowest quote available at this point. then ring round the independents. as a guide line i would suggest the following.
Sky Insurance
Prestige keep moving Insurance
A plan
Adrian Flux
Chris Knott
step 9 - decide on best policy. in most cases this might be the cheapest. but not always. you may need to take into consideration, like for like cover of mods, agreed value cover, and other addons like RSA and courtesy car etc.
step 10 - ring chosen company to confirm new policy
step 11 - if it is a new insurer remember to cancel old policy, especially if its set up on a direct debit.
step 12 - relax for the next 11 months.