Car insurance online quote con?

FBaby · 1 October 2016 at 6:15PM

I've looked back about 6 pages but couldn't find anything about this.

I've gone on one of the compare website for a quote on car insurance. Select one of the best, in this occurrence Admiral and got redirected to their page.

Got to the point of payment, added my card details and as I pressed the button and expected it to be other, I got a page saying that the quote had not processed, my card not debited and had to contact them.

Not too pleased but called (0333 number) and got the usual spell of 5 minutes before being put on hold and another 10 minutes before someone picked up. I asked why the quote had not proceeded, got a mumbled response I could decipher and then got taken through the entire quote again, and of course through all the addition options I had already make a point not to choose on the website.

After another 10 minutes, got to the end, I'd lost the will to listen at this point as she spoke so fast I couldn't keep up, but as I was going to pay giving her my bank details again, I realised she was quoting £20 more than the online quote. When I asked why that was, I got the excuse that it was because the online quote had made a mistake stating that the quote was for a car owned by a company rather than a lease car.

I started to query what she was on about, said that the quote was very clear stipulating that the car was owned by a lease company and therefore she should stick to the online quote. She started to blame the compare website even though I had been redirected to admiral website and therefore at this stage had nothing to do with them. She pretended ignorance, put me on hold for 20 seconds supposedly speaking with someone else, came back to say that new quote stood and an error was made online.

At this point, I said that this sounded like a scam and I wasn't prepared to go along with it and that I'd rather pay more and remain with my current insurer. She was did actually apologised which again made me wonder about the truthfulness of it all.

So call me suspicious, but I'm wondering whether this is indeed a scam by which all online quote end up not processing, with people then having to call, be bored and exasperated going through 15 minutes of bombarding repeated information, to then be told there was an error online and the quote is actually dearer expecting the caller to be so fed-up at this stage they sign for it anyway?

I really hope that I was just unlucky because otherwise, it is quite shocking customer service.

takman · 2 October 2016 at 11:02AM

You are joking arnt you?. You honestly think this is some kind of scam? Really?

It was an online glitch as simple as that!. Just try again today to buy it online or use the next insurer down on the list. I've bought Admiral insurance a couple of times online in the past without any problems!.

Waterlily24 · 2 October 2016 at 1:11PM

The same happened to us last night, we just tried again and it went through.

FutureGirl · 2 October 2016 at 2:55PM

It happens a lot on comparison sites, sometimes it doesn't pull through certain information, or it pulls through incorrect information. You just need to double check all the info on the insurers site, that you would have inputted on the comparison site before buying. I'm sure that has been noted on this forum quite a few times, it's no scam.

When you take out a policy over the phone the insurer HAS to go through all the information with you, otherwise people would complain about not being told certain information.

FBaby · 3 October 2016 at 5:26PM

I don't think I explained properly -post probably too long!

My issue is that if the online application had gone through, ie. past the payment page, I would have been paying £245 with the information I provided which included that the car was owned by a lease company.

When I called to inform them the payment had failed, the operator asked for the online application reference and it was clear that she then had all the details I had provided as she confirmed a number of the details (but not all of them). She didn't mention anything about any glitch with the system or wrong information being fed through, she just gave me a quote at the end of her long speech about all the added services I could still sign up to and that was £20 dearer (actually closer to £30). It is only when I questioned why it had gone up compared to the online quote that she brought up the issue or ownership. The bottom line is that she had no reason whatsoever to go over the whole application again and should have just asked for my card details if indeed, there had been a genuine blip with the payment part of it.

Just to be clear, the information relating to my application on the insurance website WAS the information that was on the comparison website, hence the final amount being the same. It makes no sense that being on the phone, her reading the same information than what was used to provide the quote online should come up with a different payment.

By the way, it wasn't Admiral but Diamond, although I think they're the same group and I end up signing up with another company, inputting my card details just as I'd done with Diamond and that went through immediately without a problem.

takman · 3 October 2016 at 8:02PM

FBaby wrote: »

I don't think I explained properly -post probably too long!

My issue is that if the online application had gone through, ie. past the payment page, I would have been paying £245 with the information I provided which included that the car was owned by a lease company.

When I called to inform them the payment had failed, the operator asked for the online application reference and it was clear that she then had all the details I had provided as she confirmed a number of the details (but not all of them). She didn't mention anything about any glitch with the system or wrong information being fed through, she just gave me a quote at the end of her long speech about all the added services I could still sign up to and that was £20 dearer (actually closer to £30). It is only when I questioned why it had gone up compared to the online quote that she brought up the issue or ownership. The bottom line is that she had no reason whatsoever to go over the whole application again and should have just asked for my card details if indeed, there had been a genuine blip with the payment part of it.

Just to be clear, the information relating to my application on the insurance website WAS the information that was on the comparison website, hence the final amount being the same. It makes no sense that being on the phone, her reading the same information than what was used to provide the quote online should come up with a different payment.

By the way, it wasn't Admiral but Diamond, although I think they're the same group and I end up signing up with another company, inputting my card details just as I'd done with Diamond and that went through immediately without a problem.

Well the poster above gave you a reason why they have to go through the information again. They need to make sure all the information is correct because you won't see it until you get your documents in the post, so it's only sensible for them to confirm it over the phone.

Actually to me it makes perfect sense that a quote on the phone will cost more than a quote online because ringing them up will incur higher admin costs. So if she had to alter some of the information provided like you said then this may be why a higher quote was generated.

I really don't see the problem here. You tried to take out a policy online and it failed due to a system error, you then rang them up and they quoted a price you were not happy with. So you then chose to take your business elsewhere.

FBaby · 3 October 2016 at 9:00PM

Ok giving up! It had nothing to do with an admin cost which never mentioned once. As for repeating information this was pointless as I want getting a new quote I just wanted to pay for the quote that had already been agreed online so again there was no need to go through it again. These was nothing that needed altering from the info I'd already provided.

You are right in the end though. She sounded almost annoyed when I said I wasn't interested any longer. Frankly if they can't even get that part right it doesn't install confidence that their system would be more reliable when making a claim.

takman · 3 October 2016 at 9:29PM

FBaby wrote: »

Ok giving up! It had nothing to do with an admin cost which never mentioned once. As for repeating information this was pointless as I want getting a new quote I just wanted to pay for the quote that had already been agreed online so again there was no need to go through it again. These was nothing that needed altering from the info I'd already provided.

You are right in the end though. She sounded almost annoyed when I said I wasn't interested any longer. Frankly if they can't even get that part right it doesn't install confidence that their system would be more reliable when making a claim.

They won't mention any admin the costs the system they use on the phone may simply not be as competitive as a comparison site. I've had many different quotes from the same information and same insurer by using different comparison sites and the insurers site to get quotes!. So some insurance companies do alter the quote depending on what system you use to get it.

Imagine if people input the wrong information online, don't check it and then take out the quote on the phone without them reading it back to them!. They would never know the information was incorrect and if it did ever come to light they could blame the insurance company for getting it wrong. They would then go back to the recording and it wouldn't provide any evidence of the information provided so the insurance company would deemed to be at fault.
Plus if you do the quote multiple times they may have several stored on the system so they want to make sure it is correct.

FBaby · 5 October 2016 at 6:55PM

I've had many different quotes from the same information and same insurer by using different comparison sites and the insurers site to get quotes!.

That doesn't surprise me but that's not what happened in my case though. The operator first acknowledge the price I was quoted. It's only at the end that she mentioned another amount and when I asked her why there was a difference, she mumbled that it had gone up because the system had registered that the car was owned by a private company rather than lease as I'd ticked on the system. When I asked her why that would be because it didn't make sense to me, she first said it was due to one reason and when I challenged her on that reason, she then started to give me another reason that didn't make much more sense.

Interestingly, I asked OH to do a bogus but similar quote firstly saying that the car was owned by a company and then changing it to owned by a lease company, and surprise surprise, it made no difference to the quote.

Imagine if people input the wrong information online, don't check it and then take out the quote on the phone without them reading it back to them!. They would never know the information was incorrect and if it did ever come to light they could blame the insurance company for getting it wrong. They would then go back to the recording and it wouldn't provide any evidence of the information provided so the insurance company would deemed to be at fault.

I would agree if we had started the quote again, but in this instance, all I asked to do was to pay for that quote, ie. process on the phone what would have should been processing on line, so again, there was no need to go through it all as it she was getting me another quote. It's like the time I booked some cinema tickets online but for some reason when I got to paying, it wouldn't work. I called them, gave them the reference, and they just took my card details. They didn't start asking me which film I wanted to see, and at what time and then informed me that the booking system had recorded the time wrong and therefore it would cost me £10 more!

Clearly the insurance I am with just accepted the information I inputted online and didn't feel the need to call me to go over all the questions to check that I hadn't got it wrong. All I need to show is evidence of my no claim discount.

paddyandstumpy · 5 October 2016 at 7:30PM

Look, you don't get what is being explained to you.
It's not comparable to cinema tickets because the cinema isn't a heavily regulated industry where any ambiguity or accidental non disclosure will cost the company you pay your money to.
If you book the wrong screening you've lost £10. If the insurer doesn't rate on the correct info and be comfortable with their rate or that they are insuring their target market, they can be on the hook for millions, for the sake of a premium of a couple of hundred.

In simple terms, I'll explain what happened.
The insurer will use assumptions as they don't have the correct mapping from the agg to their system. This assumption meant the price was slightly cheaper via the agg. When you called through the insurer re-keys the info to ensure they have full and accurate info (as previously mentioned people nowadays do multiple quotes to lower the rate), whilst doing so the information was slightly different (I.e. Ownership) hence the difference in rate.

Another poster has said the same happened to them, perhaps the insurers payment system was down for the evening.

Not a scam.

Car insurance online quote con?

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free