I told you all a few days ago about my wife’s very unfortunate experience while buying a car. It hasn’t been recovered yet so may be lost for good, or may return in a state we will not want to buy it in.

However, in order to tax the car we needed an insurance certificate. Our own insurer would take a couple of days to turn that around, but they have a scheme with car retailers where they will give anyone seven days insurance in return for the opportunity to quote for the policy and will provide a valid insurance certificate by fax.

Even though we are already insured with this company, we had to take advantage of the offer to tax the car. Imagine how surprised we were when our own insurance company was quoting us a price which is almost £200 cheaper than they are currently charging us. To be fair this was for a stripped down form of cover with a high excess and no frills. Nevertheless when I checked I found we could save over £100 with our own insurers for cover comparable to what we have now.

It has clearly become normal business practice to overcharge existing customers so long as they remain captive and don’t ask for a reduction. Banks leave savings in accounts paying next to no interest, utility companies don’t offer the best tariff, insurance companies and phone companies don’t offer the deals available to new customers. Sadly the only way to avoid this, as a customer, is to check, check and check again. If you don’t have access, or are not confident using the Internet this isn’t easy. If that is the case it is a good idea to get a friend or relation to help you.

And where does all this overcharged money go? To shareholders, and in political donations to parties willing to allow companies to continue exploiting us…