Warum Treue sich nicht immer lohnt

Heute möchte einen weiteren Gastbeitrag von einem sehr guten Freund von mir veröffentlichen. Barthelemy Piat ist ein Franzose, der seit mehreren Jahren in Deutschland wohnt und arbeitet. Er interessiert sich sehr für persönliche Finanzen, insbesondere Aktien, Immobilien, Geld sparen und finanzielle Freiheit. Sein Artikel ist zwar in Englisch, enthält aber viele Beispiele, wie man in Deutschland mit kleinem Aufwand viel Geld sparen kann.

Why being loyal doesn’t always pay out…

With this slightly provocative title I’d like to explain that companies care much more about getting new customers than rewarding loyal customers and how you can save money out of it. I was able to confirm this experience in several domains such as banks, insurance, telecoms, electricity or gas supply companies.

Let’s start with my car insurance: for some reasons I used to value to have the same insurance company for my house and my car so when I bought my first car I made a comparison on the internet and asked my insurer if he could align his price on that one. He accepted, I made the contract. The year after, I didn’t check proactively how much I would pay the year after– nor was I informed by the insurance company - and only discovered it once the money was taken from my account. I made a quick comparison and found out the best offer on the market was 20% cheaper, excluding potential welcome bonus.

The year after, or 9 months later more exactly, otherwise it would have been too late to change the contract, I actively asked my insurer for the amount to pay for the year ahead. His offer was 30% above the best price on the market. He wasn’t able to match the offer so I cancelled the contract and move to the new insurer, paying 30% less (about 200€ difference) and getting 50€ welcome bonus on top.

I used to be loyal to my bank as well, having all my checking account, saving account and stock account at the same bank. I was never rewarded for this, I could only passively see the interest rates of my saving account dropping as per the market. I found an advert from a different bank, offering me 20 free trades and 4,5% during one year on my saving account (versus 1,5% on my current bank) if I would move my stocks to their bank. I saved 20 x 10€ on my trades as well as 10.000€ x (4,5-1,5)/100 = 300 euros from my savings during one year, this summed up to 500€, and it was just a few clicks and one contract to sign and return.

Same story with telecoms, each time I changed provider I was able to cut down my monthly fees or save a few months of fees.

And now my favorite: electricity and gas suppliers (free market in Germany). While you always need to be careful while comparing insurance or bank conditions in order to find the best value for your needs, electricity and gas is exactly the same product whether you buy it from one vendor or the other. It took me 30 minutes this year to change both suppliers and I saved respectively 70€ and 150€, despite having changed last year already. It is very common to get 100 up to 200€ as welcome bonus, while you don’t get any % off for being loyal over the years.

The move is extremely easy. You’ll find plenty of websites to compare the price of all above mentioned product and services (e.g. www.verivox.de), you can then make the change in a few clicks, and you will be surprised how much money you can save in less than 1 hour!

Once you’ve made it, try to make it a yearly habit, and start with marking the date in your calendar when you should proceed to next move. Even better, talk about it around you and try to find customers of the service provider you want to move to, since many companies will offer you and your friends a bonus for recommending them!

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