Warranty Direct Limited - any experience?

I'm with Warranty Direct currently, but won't be renewing my warranty with them.

First of all I wasn't impressed by the fact that their warranty only covers wear and tear failures 90 days after the policy commencement - given that virtually any failure on a car component could be construed as being wear and tear I wonder what would be covered for that initial 90 day period!.

I can understand the need for some protection against people claiming for pre-existing problems, but personally feel that 90 days is a little excessive, and that 30 days was perhaps a little more realistic. In some ways, its a bit like taking out and paying fully comprehensive insurance, and being forced to only have third party cover for the first three months of the policy :rolleyes:

Then, around 3 months into the policy I had an 'invitation' through the post inviting me to add additional items to the policy for an additional fee of £55. I looked and found that one item which was a common failure on my car was not already covered and that I would essentially have to pay an addition fee of £55 to cover it - remembering that this was only for the 9 months remaining on the policy.

Since then, i've shopped around, and found another warranty company who seem to offer a better level of cover for roughly the same ballpark figure as Warranty Direct.

Check out www.click4warranty.co.uk - they offer wear and tear cover from day 1, and for me, a better level of cover without having to pay additional premiums later on in the policy . For £11 extra they also increased the claim cover maxiumum to £7000, compared to the £5000 non negotiable deal which came with my WD policy.

In short, next year, at renewal time, they will be getting my business based on the above alone

Did the failure occur as a direct result of no oil?.

Surely you were aware of an oil leak, to lose enough oil to cause engine damage - ie 4 or 5 litres of oil, there must have been one hell of an oil under your car when it was parked, in fact more like an oil slick!.

Sadly if the owners manual says that the owner should check the oil weekly and top up where required, and lack of oil is the cause of the failure then insurers could argue that you should have been aware of an oil loss before failure occured, and have taken the relevant action to prevent total failure. i think the only exclusion would be the sudden and unexpected loss of oil, such as if your sump fell off, or the oil pump failed and the oil was lost entirely whilst driving. If it is in the mechanics opinion that the oil leak looks to have been there for some time (ie lots of aged oily gunk around the site of the leak) then they could say that the leak must have been happening for some time, and it was your responsibility to get it fixed at your earliest convenience.

I'm not criticising you, i'm just role playing the part of your warranty assessor and trying to approach it from their point of view.

Basically companies will look for all sorts of ways to get out of paying a claim, its in their interest too.

Did the failure occur as a direct result of no oil?.

Not really! When the mechanic got the engine out of the car, there was still oil in the sump! It was never discovered why the engine exactly failed. The garage wanted to strip down the entire engine to find out other causes - besides oil leak (if possible). And for that, they asked £60/hour labour charge! And since Warranty Direct already washed their hands (as leaks not covered - since it's not a mechanical breakdown), I saw no hurry to strip down the engine. Finally I had to replace the engine with a used one!

The garage also told me that they are yet to see that someone actually got paid by these so called warranty companies.

Moreover, when my power window failed, WD exactly said the same thing. First I need to pay from my pocket to find out exactly what caused the problem. Then, if they think (which they will never), only then I shall be reimbursed.

I asked a mechanic to look into my power window, and he asked £50 even to check it.

When I took the policy, then never mentioned that "investigation" needs to be first paid from my pocket

I'd rather pay £25 a month towards a savings account - if anything goes wrong, I'll cover it from there.

Basically companies will look for all sorts of ways to get out of paying a claim, its in their interest too.

Then what's the point of taking the policy?