Car insurance

The practice of insurance companies stealthily hiking policy prices when customers renew looks set to become a thing of the past, following the introduction of new rules from next April that will force firms to spell out exactly how much a renewed premium costs compared with the previous year.

Loyal customers face extra fees of up to £50 a year as a result of sticking with their existing insurance company, a MoneySavingExpert.com investigation reveals – with firms such as Budget, Hastings, Saga and Swinton among those to add on 'admin fees' at renewal.

Car insurance prices are up sharply over the last 12mths, whether you take the AA Index's 20% increase (the average rising from £465 to £561) or the Association of British Insurers' 10%. And both predict rises to continue this year yet many can act now to beat them.

Millions of households and motorists will pay more after Chancellor George Osborne hiked insurance premium tax (IPT) by 0.5 of a percentage point in today's Budget.

Recently I've been swamped with successes from the new marriage tax allowance, which gives many couples a free £212. It got me thinking, what are the other benefits of being coupled up? So I've pulled together key twosome tips and perks - with some you need to be married, but most allow any MoneySavers to, ahem, do it together.

The cost of car insurance policies could rise by up to 25% in 2016, according to the AA, after 20% rises in 2015. But there are ways to lock in a cheap price now, even if you're not at renewal.

More than three quarters of those who've tried to haggle with 10 big-name providers have managed to agree a better deal, with the AA and Sky the companies most open to negotiation, according to a poll of almost 4,000 MoneySavingExpert users.