Cheap Car Insurance Article Discussion

Not a legal requirement.

Have tried to find this, could not see it, so here goes

I renewed my car insurance on 01/05, in the beginning of June went away for a 7 day break, and came back on a sunday to a recorded delivery letter in the house (unsigned for) telling me my insurance would be cancelled 7 days from the date of the letter (monday) if I did not contact them as I had declared 9+ years NCD when only 6 years had been passed on.

Rang them on the monday and being left with no choice ended up paying an additional £53, £20 was admin fee, £33 was the fact the insurance company went up to 9 years NCD, I only had 6 years, from my previous insurer, they confirmed if I had not contacted them on that day, if I had gone away for a 2 week break, I would of been driving back with no insurance.

On my further investigation, and cutting a long story short, I found out in 2010/2011 I insured my car with 1 of the largest Insurers in Britain (not on comparison sites), I gave them 9 years NCD, but there policy is only to pass on a maximum of 5 years NCD, no matter how many years you declared to them, there started the problem, the 2011/2012 insurer passed on 6 years NCD, to what is now my present insurer, and they picked up the difference in NCD years, and hence sent me the letter.

So: managed to get proof of 10 years from the 2012/2011 company, sent it to the present insured, and got my £53 back in full.

Found out theat this is not only company that has this policy, so decided to contact the Ombudsman, who was happy to forward a complaint to the initial company 2010/2011, they rang me, and gave me a load of bull, they were not going to change their policy, when I pointed out they were one of the leading insurers in Britain and should be setting the example, it fell on death ears.

It could of been possible that because they only passed on 5 years NCD, the next company I had the insurance with, might have also gone to 9 years NCD, but I lost out on it because I never checked my renewal closely enough, which is the key.

Their is obviously a massive profit to be made by company's who practice this, and maybe if it has not been bought up before, Martin would like to take it up on behalf of Britain.

I would recommend that you try searching the car insurance website you are using just to see how easy it is to get in touch with them.
I ended up going with Budget, they have been a nightmare to deal with (however it is apparently all of my fault) despite me contacting them twice about my NCD and faxing it over too. I wanted to cancel but they were going to charge £75. Rock and a hard place. They don't understand that i am cancelling due to their inadequacies, poor customer service, lack of contact information on their website etc. :mad:
Please dont use Budget.

Not sure if this is the correct place to post this, but I found, when searching a while ago, that the "Direct Line" brand of RBS' Insurance group ("not available on price comparison sites") used exactly the same quote generator as the "Churchill" brand of RBS' Insurance group.

So the quote Direct Line returned was the same, to the penny, as the quote Confused returned from Churchill.

So, if you have a quote through a comparison site from RBS Insurance via Churchill, is there any point in trying RBS Insurance via Direct Line?