UKH

For years I've been over paying as I've over estimated my mileage by quite a bit! Only this year did the penny drop when I called my insurance company to query why my policy costs are always going up (another story - no claims etc) and when we discussed how much mileage I'm actually doing compared to what the estimate is on the policy (set by me obvs) it was about half! 

My MOT certificates have my previous 3 years mileage on them so I have 'proper' evidence to back up my claims however my insurers can't/won't do a back dated/retrospective payment (which I thought was a long shot but if you don't ask etc) 

Over several years it's a few hundred quid lost (all my doing) but I wonder if anyone's ever successfully managed to get back dated reimbursement other than doing it at the time/logging mileage at start/end of policy year which now I know 'is a thing' will be doing in future - lesson learnt on my part - anyone think they're over paying and not adjusted their insurance mileage for a while might want to play around with the numbers and see if they can reduce their policy costs, good luck!

Good luck with your quest for a refund.

But i would say not a chance. 

On my bike I under estimate then when I start getting close to the amount I ring them and they increase it and its never cost me anything.

Also don't assume low miles = low insurance, a pal of mine got a big jump on his policy, 4000 miles a year, garaged, social domestic and pleasure miles only. On the phone to the insurance they started tweeking the numbers, 8000 miles a year,  added commuting to to social miles, moved it from the garage to the drive and it halfed his policy.

Best option if you have time and can be bothered is jump on the comparison sites and try different connotations until you find the best option. Don't lie and say you don't commute if you do but don't worry about saying you commute if you don't, you might. 

Aye - I’ve already had that conversation, it’s a no from them (which prompted my post) to see if anyones gone down the small claims/moneysavingexpert route and found a loophole or whatever ; )

Yep - that’s what prompted me to call my current insurer to query a, why my policy has gone up yet again (no claims from me however) and also to ‘play the game’ I had some other quotes that were lower and sought to see if they’d match them, it was only then that I realised my mileage was still set quite high with my ongoing provider and with the comparison sites I’d put my actual mileage (which is half what I had on my policy) - the agent I was in conversation with then adjusted my renewal policy to something more realistic which was about £70 less that what I was going to pay (auto renewal) based on the mileage I’d put on the policy years ago and never changed/forgot about etc…

I swear when it comes to renewal they pick a number, double it and then add a bit just in case.

In 2020 I sold my big motorbike and bought back my old little bike that I sold 10 years earlier when I randomly saw it on Ebay.

There was only 1 week to go on my insurance so they just swapped the details with no charge.

My renewal though was £450. I questioned this because the year before I paid £400 to cover a £20,000 1200cc bike for 8000 miles including touring Europe. My new old bike is a £2,000 650cc for 4000 miles and no Europe cover.

A few comparison sites later, £70. With the same bloody company that wanted to renew for £450.

My experience is that every time the renewal arrives, I phone and ask if that's really the best they can do and they have always managed to significantly reduce the quote. Bloody annoying rigmarole.

Your experience with the smaller bike costing more to insure is similar to my own.

I got a higher quote for insuring a less powerful car and when I asked about it their response was that less experienced drivers often buy smaller engined less powerful cars and then crash them however only old gits buy the bigger cars.

This seemed highly flawed to me considering that the main risk factor is the driver and my details hadn't changed between vehicles.

I always used to slighly overestimate the mileage, but not by that much - but then I used to do my insurance through my Uncle (MD of a broker), so easy to discuss with him. He's since retired.

As already mentioned, it's worth playing around with the details on comp sites - I worked out that the sweet spot for my car insurance seemed to be around 4,000 miles a year. Any less than that and the algorithms think you're a very occasional driver and therefore higher risk as you don't get the practice - despite noting that I'm a named driver on my wife's policy. Any more than that and they figure that you're on the road more and therefore higher risk of being involved in an incident. Talk about fuzzy logic!

I'm not aware of any insurance company that's ever checked what mileage you're actually doing.

The other one to watch is not to over-estimate the value of the vehicle. Doesn't matter if you paid, say, £10k for your car 3 years ago, if it's only worth £6k today, insure it for that, as that's what they'll pay out. On the other hand, definitely don't under-estimate it, because they'll pay that, instead.

A long time ago, I spent a few years writing insurance broking software.

I had the opposite of that though it was about 30 years ago. I spent £100 on a car, insured it for a value of £50. That was the lowest valuation they would allow as as I had no intention of claiming on such a bad of crap I was good with it.

30 minutes after buying it a guy ran a red light and hit me, he tried blaming me but the insurance came down on my side and they paid me £250 for the car. Well I call it a car, it was more of a car shaped object held together by rust and paint. 

The price paid is based upon the info you give them, thus retrospectively changing that info isn't going to change anything.

It seems most (?) insurers are offering year to year mileage claim back - log your mileage at start of policy renewal and log at end then if you’re under they offer a percentage cash back. I’m aware the info I’ve given them has been inaccurate (and not in my favour) but as I have evidence of several years of mileage readings from my MOT whether there was any capacity of retrospective reimbursement, which I’ve already discussed and is a no from them….however I wondered (hence the post) whether a Martin Lewis type has actually managed to claim back further than their current policy year 

I have never seen that offered by any of my insurers, but I also have never had the mileage make any difference in any quotes for my past cars so I always overestimate.

The only thing I've had is that the miles I do in my campervan exclude it from the purely holiday policies which are less than half the price of what I pay, but even then the actual miles we put down on the policy keep the price the same.

I've never seen that generally, but insurers generally did offer it due to COVID, though I did more miles during 2020-2022 than normally due to not using the train, not fewer.