First central insurance (car) - any experiences?

Boulevarder

Do not use this comnpany!! The worse customer service ever experienced. Their phone lines aren't answered in adverse weather conditions! You can't speak to Cancellations directly!!! The lsit goes on....

Parisien

brockhurst wrote: »

Be very careful of this setup, My wife broke down while by herself and being as we had taken out the breakdown recovery option thought it wuold be no problem!!!!!
On calling for assistance, after being play greensleves for ages, were told that there were no record of us on the breakdown system??????????
If we would like to leave credit card details, they could send out help??????
Next year i think it will be back to my old broker in the high street. At least i can then take to a human being

Today, 4:58 PM #22 Boulevarder
MoneySaving Newbie


Join Date: Dec 2009
Do not use this comnpany!! The worse customer service ever experienced. Their phone lines aren't answered in adverse weather conditions! You can't speak to Cancellations directly!!! The lsit goes on....

Ooooooopppssss...fortunately I ignore posters with a running total of less then 100......:p..........BUT.....as I have gotten insurance from these guys am sorta stuck with them!!! Saved me several hundred pounds on a group 20 car!

Time will tell!


P

Jame

I was browsing the internet to see if anyone else had come across problems with First Central insurance.

Truly awful insurance company.

I made the mistake of insuring with them after using one of these insurance comparsion sites. They left my car in a ditch for 8 days after too many phone calls to remember and several emails they finally got someone to pull it out. There was little visible damage to the vehicle (just the front wing and a few scratches) but as it had been tilted in the ditch for so long most of the oil had leaked in to the exhaust system and wrote the car off.

They pass you from representative to representative, cut you off mid call, have another company (motorCare) do alot of the work for them; with obvious communication problems.

If you'd like to save your sanity don't insure with them.

dcc251

I'm trying to process a non-fault claim through them at the moment. I would rather be dealing with a bucket full of lobotomised monkeys.

• The average wait before the phone is answered is about 15 minutes.
• They do call back, but never at the times you stipulate you are available, and then do not leave messages.
• They didn't pass on paperwork/ details etc to the company 'employed' to process the claim.
• Their claims centres are staffed by a separate company that has no relation whatsoever to 1st Central and can only 'take notes and pass them on in the morning'!!!
• The company 'employed' to handle my claim has stated that it cannot and is now returning the claim to 1st Central.
• 2 weeks now - nothing. Not a single step further towards processing the claim. Not one. None. Zero.

Hope this helps, because they don't.

troopy

Hi everyone, thought I would share my experience so far....

I have been insured with 1st Central for the past 5 months or so. I had an accident about 6 weeks ago now, just around the time we had lots of snow and ice in London.

My policy is fully comp + recovery + hire car.

I called them at about 0730hrs on the day of the accident and they got a recovery truck out to me pretty quickly. The car was recovered by 0900, so this was good.

I then asked them about the hire car cover that I purchased and they said "hire cars are given out if they are available". Apparently they only have a limited supply! But also, they would not arrange a hire car until the estimate was given on the car either. And this took 4 days for the garage to do. The car is actually a write off, and I have been going through the claim process and I am currently waiting for a cheque. I have a horrible sinking feeling that I am not going to get it any time soon, purely because whenever I ring up they don't seem to know anything about the current status of the claim - the claim handlers seem to work in a different department / location to the people on the phones, so it is very hard getting true and current info from them.

Here are the bad points about this company:

- They are extremely difficult to get through to. I have spent 12-15 hours on hold with these people since making the initial claim. At one point I wasn't able to get through for a whole day (I would be on hold for an hour or so then the line would just go dead). Also, emailing them generally gets a 4 day response or something like that.

- They are very disorganised. They seem to outsource to claims handlers and recovery companies (motorcare did mine), so they never know whats going on as they don't all use the same logging system.

- They have a terrible reputation. Looking at this thread and others on the inernet in general, people have had terrible experiences with them. I feel like I have been one of the lucky ones so far!

All said and done, if they send out my cheque within the next 10 days without any problems I'll be a fairly happy chappy. Mainly because they were £1000 cheaper than ANYONE else.. (I am 26 yo male with IN10 from 2 years ago)...

I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has had a claim go through successfully so I have some hope that they are going to pay out with my claim!

Intolerant_Goth

1st Central was the cheapest quote from an insurance comparison website (£143.46 cheaper than my renewal quote), and as I'd never heard of them thought I'd do some research. Firstly, are they FSA regulated. Yep. Then I Googled the company name for customer experiences/reviews and hit on your posts on moneysavingexpert. Boy am I glad I did !! I'd like to thank you guys/girls for taking the time to post on here, and wish you good luck with your claims.

Wumpus_2

troopy wrote: »

Hi everyone, thought I would share my experience so far....

I have been insured with 1st Central for the past 5 months or so. I had an accident about 6 weeks ago now, just around the time we had lots of snow and ice in London.

My policy is fully comp + recovery + hire car.

Here are the bad points about this company:

- They are extremely difficult to get through to. <snip>Also, emailing them generally gets a 4 day response or something like that.

- They are very disorganised. They seem to outsource to claims handlers and recovery companies (motorcare did mine), so they never know whats going on as they don't all use the same logging system.

- They have a terrible reputation.

I have to say this pretty much matches my own experiences.
Except that they usually take 2 weeks to answer one of my emails.

2 months after the accident, and they still haven't done anything to establish fault/liability, and they've even advised me to write to the other person's insurance and handle it myself.

My car is still usable and their valuation (minus excess) won't cover a replacement so I want to buy the salvage - 1st Central won't let me.
They want to leave me with virtually zero money and actually zero car.

So much for fully comprehensive cover + legal expenses.

As far as I can see, their policy is not worth the email it's written on.

Ellie2758

BenL wrote: »

Do you think you might move address in the term of the cover or change car? Some of the smaller companies have higher charges for midterm adjustments and additional fees to pay.

Something to check whilst looking through the t's & c's

Churchill, NOT a small company, charged me over £20 every time I made an amendment to my insurance!! :mad:

Martyna

their service is ridicolous. I have had my previous car insured with them then I have cancelled with them coz I have sold my car. Now I had another one and isured again with them-My car was stolen and I have sent them 30emails about this case and I was dealing with 3 different depts and was going round in circles with the same emails from them. They were trying to tell me I had an accident I have never had....then they have never sent me my certificate and account details on their website (I was chasing them and nothing) quick explanation -my fost insurance was on different address. I have updated them verbally about changes but now they are saying I have never done that and even I couldnt check my details due to noe having any papers from them. They woke up after my car theft and started sending me pappers I now dont need. All this came to the point that they wont pay me money for the car!!!! horrible horrible horrible service. Speechless with them! NEVER BUY FROM THEM!:mad:

drgreen

please avoid this company, there is a finance part and an insurance part and if you pay by direct debit they blame the other and no-one takes responsability, therefore you can never get any questions answered,