It Just Doesn't Pay To Be A Loyal Customer Any More

Business Studies 101 teaches the young business leaders of tomorrow that acquiring new customers is a costly process involving elaborate marketing campaigns, whereas retaining the custom of existing customers is cheaper and easy, so in theory it should be worthwhile keeping existing customers happy.

Assuming that axiom still holds true, nobody told the insurance companies, given my recent experiences.  They are fighting tooth and nail on the web to sign up new customers, offering deep discounts and huge cashback, whilst sending offensively high renewal notices to existing customers.  Maybe they're hoping that existing customers will be too lazy to shop around, but with online comparison websites making the task so easy, why wouldn't they?

I've just received my home insurance renewal quote from More Than, for £261.33 (a 9.5% increase on last year). Did a quick search on MoneySupermaket.com, and the quotes for similar cover were coming out at around £40-60 below that, including More Than themselves who were quoting around £212 for new customers - cheeky buggers!

Wandered over to QuidCo.com.  Barclays offering £80 cashback.  Got a quote - £210.00, i.e. £130 after cashback for similar cover to my current policy.

Took me about 15-20 minutes effort, and saved myself over 50% compared to my renewal price.

Loyalty just doesn't pay any more, does it?