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Taken for a ride by insurers
Monday 30th March 2009, 10:29AM BST.
LETTER: My car insurance policy came up for renewal the other day. At the bottom of the letter inviting me to renew the policy there was a statement that if I found a lower quote and provided my insurance company with the details then they would match the lower quote.
Call me naive, but to me this translates as, “we will take you for a ride for as much as we can and as far as we can, but if you catch us out we’ll come clean”. Surely this is no way of doing business?
But the saga of my insurance company goes on. My travel insurance policy expired on February 28, and before the insurance company would renew they demanded more detailed information of medical treatment I had received in 2008. Fair enough, so I obtained the required documentation and forwarded it to them, but it took until March 10 for them to confirm that the policy could be renewed.
I therefore asked that the renewal be effective from March 10. This they refused saying that the original renewal date must stand.
I asked them if, had I made a claim on say, March 5, would they have entertained the claim?
Believe it or not their answer was, “I don’t know”. I take that as a “no”. The reason I write this letter to you is to try to find out if others have “suffered” from less than open and honest dealings with their insurers.
Do insurance companies need to be watched and examined to the same degree as our wonderful neo-nationalised banks? I wonder what are the retirement provisions of the CEO of my ex-insurance company.
Peter Sharman
Powys
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everybody should do well to seek alternate quotes for motor and household policies. my mother received her motor insurance renewal for a 796 cc daewoo matiz for 338.80. i had a letter next day from the aa offering the same insurance for 146.10 plus 36.00 membership of aa. so shop around
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Yes, I had a car policy with the ‘legal assistance” bit. I thought that if an uninsured driver hit me, they would take him to court and I was right. In my case the uninsured driver was back in jail for motoring offensces (he had been released the day before he hit me!) and they said it was pointless sueing him he couldn’t pay anything. OK fair enought BUT I then expected the insurers to cought up etc, but oh no – you pay for ‘legal ssistance’ and when they can’t assist – tough!
Another bizarre thing is I wanted to swap my car insurnce to a car-derived van but they didn’t do commercials. However, on my fully comp, they confirmed that it was ok to drive the van and also the lorry which is a 12.5t HGV down plated to 7.5t for licence restrictions – its mad!
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Insurance companies are actaully ‘regulated’, but they are regulated by the same bodies who regulate the banks so no suprise you have come across a bad apple with your insurance company. I’ve never understud the term “we’ll match your lowest quote” either. I’m pretty sure that the people who decide the premiums turn up to work everyday, blindfold themselves and hit some random number keys. There probably the same people who work 10am till 2pm Tuesday to Thursday and get paid £60k a year too…
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i have received the same sort of problems, and i think its unfair to tarnish all insurance companies with the same brush.
I use a high street insurance broker in Newport and they always explain everything brilliantly and always get the best price first time.
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This is what you get for using a large faceless direct insurer who are only interested in meeting targets.
Use your local insurance broker instead where you can talk to someone human and get proper advice.
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I’m sure this is common practice – I had a renewal from my bank for home insurance at £50 per month – an online insurer quoted me £17 for better cover – the bank immediately agreed to beat it. So was the £50 a rip-off? I think so.
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Hi Simon..
you said
“I use a high street insurance broker in Newport and they always explain everything brilliantly and always get the best price first time”
I can confirm that I use the same High Street Broker in Newport, who gives excellent service advice, and more often than not, better cover at a lower price. – And I have Motor insurance, professional indemnity insurance,employers liability insurance, and general office liability insurance cover with this company.
The message is Clear- DON’T use the comparison sites, DON’T use Direct acess to large companies … the REAL answer is on your doorstep!! – Try it !!
Ad Finally….
Well Simon- when I say that: “also the same Newport high street insurance company is hghly recommended in our local chamber of commerce meetings” – you may well guess who askeric dot com is!!
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Why don’t you just name the broker? Is it the one nearer the bakers or the butchers?
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