A word of warning - Dont get ripped off by this company - Deffo worth a read

damage2008

Ok, Don’t know if I’m allowed to name and shame on here but Im going to anyway. Grab a cuppa because thiis is kinda long.

Our house insurance was due to expire the end of August 08 and our current insurer increased the premiums because we made a claim after the wife flooded the bathroom with the shower and wrecked the ceiling in the kitchen below. So, we looked around for a cheaper insurance company to provide our buildings & contents cover.


Using one of the many price comparison websites (confused.com) we found and settled for a company called 'Budget Insurance'. Competed the all the online forms and paid up the fee in one lump sum. This was the 25 August and after completing the forms & paying the premium we were informed that our documents would be available on line immediately. So off I went to download the policy documents but there were not available, no problem I thought, I will check again in few days time


Five days later, I checked and indeed our policy documents were there for us to download, which I did. However, after checking through them there were a few amendments that had to be made. Not wanting to call their premium 0870 number I found their regular phone number using 'saynoto0870.com' and had a chat with someone who made the required changes to the policy and said that I would not be charged for making the changes and that she could also send me the documents in the post free of charge, great I thought job done.


The 2nd September rolled around and me and the wife went on our summer holidays for a week safe in the knowledge that all our insurances were sorted and we could forget about them for another year, how wrong were we!


Got back from holiday (after and 11 hour flight & hardly any sleep for the last 24 hours) to find a stack of letters etc pilled up behind the front door. Looking through the letters I found our policy documents from Budget Insurance, all the amendments had been made but it also stated that they would charge us £10 for sending out the documents (my blood started to boil). Then the next letter I opened was from our previous insurer saying thank you for taking out insurance with them, something I had not done. I had just ignored the renewal letter they sent me because I did not intend to use them this year but completely forgot about the automatic renewal thing they do! So now I have two lots of buildings & contents insurance with two different companies. The last thing I need to be dealing with after just getting back from holidays.


In a bit of a rage I called Budget Insurance to have a rant about the £10 charge levied for sending me my documents in the post only to be told that the charge had been reversed, great I thought that’s sorted. Next I phoned our previous insurer who did the automatic renewal (this happened to be Tesco’s) and they apologized and after a little chat with their cancellation department they reduced my premium by £57 and undercut Budget Insurance, which I thought was great as I would much rather be insured with Tesco anyway.


So, I get back on the phone to Budget Insurance and this is where the fun begins. I tell the chap that I want to cancel the policy and went on with the spiel about what they can do with the price etc but I said I just want to cancel the policy I do not want to discuss why. The chap then said fine and proceeded to take great pleasure in informing me that I would be charged the following:

£35 cancellation fee (because its outside 14 days of receiving policy documents)
£73 fee this is 30% of the policy for cancelling within the first month
£6.04p for time spent on cover.

Over £100 all together. I was fuming and stated that the policy did not begin until the 1st September 08 and I was calling on 9th September 08 so was inside the 14 day cancellation period. However, the chap on the phone was having none of it, he said the policy was taken out on the 25th August 08 and that the documents were available immediately from their website so I was outside the 14 day cancellation period. Biting my tong I politely informed him several times that the documents were not available immediately and I did not access them until the 30 August 08 (a quick check on the time & date of the PDF file showed the exact time I downloaded them). Anyhow, after repeating myself several times and telling the chap that it is not my fault that their system did not produce the documents immediately for me to download and I should therefore not be penalised. He then put me on hold for 10 mins and when he came back he agreed with me and said that a £20 cancellation fee would be charged for cancelling within 14 days (this is stated on the policy documents and is what I was expecting originally) plus I would be charged £7.43 for time spent on cover, which is fair enough


Now this morning I was checking through the T&C on the Budget Insurance policy documents and noticed that there a contradiction in them. One part states that if you cancel within 14 days you will be charged £20 cancellation fee & for time spent on cover. However, another part of their T&C states that you can cancel within 14days and only pay for time spent on cover, after 14 days you have to pay the £20 cancellation charge!


So I phoned Budget Insurance again and informed them of this contradiction in their T&C and after their chap reading the cancellation details & charges to me and me quoting the their 'Cooling off period' statement (about only being charged for time on cover) I was put on hold for 10 mins. When the chap came back he admitted that there is a contradiction in their T&C and as a gesture of goodwill would not charge me the £20 cancellation fee and only charge for the time spent on cover (£7.43p).


So there we go, I got the charges reduced from £115.43 down to £7.43. So if anyone else is with Budget Insurance make sure you double check everything on your policy and then check it again because these guys will try anything to get money out of you.


I don't know if I should or how I would go about making an official complaint about Budget Insurance as they are clearly (in my experience with them) doing everything within their power to charge way more than they should and even their T&C are wrong.


I hope this will help out someone else.



Damage2008

Voyager2002

I think Budget Insurance were more than fair to you. I am amazed that you did not bother to read the agreements you made before signing up, and then spent so much time and effort arguing about the small print and getting upset about small amounts of money.

Try reading the hints on this site about reducing your premium at renewal time.

dunstonh

Most of the problems you have suffered are your own doing.

You didnt cancel the old policy. You took out a new one but then decided after cover started to go back to the old one. You made a simple transaction very messy.

That doesnt allow Budget to get away with their mistakes but they did correct them and waive the fee but they are not responsible for your errors and I think your post title and general wording is over the top for what happened.

_Andy_

Agreed - too emotive and too many bits of extraneous information.

losgiganteskid

I thought it was an interesting bedtime story - there are some morals to be gleaned from it - if nothing else it does highlight that where you have a grievance with a company if you stick with it you can usually get the correct result.

Many call centre clerks (or underwriters as they like to call themselves !!) after 3 weeks training believe they know enough to put the world to rights.

In my organisation even the trainers were not correct in one particular aspect of motor insurance policy interpretaion - so where does that leave the clerks ??