The price of brand loyalty

I was quite amazed when I discovered that my car insurance company appears to think that just because I'm a loyal customer that I don't deserve the best deal. 

Last year I heard a piece on the radio about this. The reporter pointed out that if you get a fresh quote as a new customer even with your existing insurer, you can often save money. So I tried it and it was true. My loyalty was costing me nearly £200. 

Well, the long and short of this is that because of a claim I'd made a few years ago, it wasn't worth my while changing insurers last year, but this year it was. So I did, and it was still almost £200 cheaper.

Now what bothers me is that my loyalty to one company was not being rewarded. I find it's the same with my ISP. They even told me once that it was my responsibility to keep a check on their packages and find the cheapest package that suited my needs. Their responsibility was obviously the opposite of this, to charge me as much as they could get away with charging.

So the simple moral of this tale is that, in the market place economy, brand loyalty no longer pays, from the point of view of the customer that is. If, of course it ever did.