Admiral any good ?

tadpoleuk

The cheapest car insurance quote given on 2 compare websites is Admiral, are they any good ?

Hintza

Go through Quidco there are some good deals there. I'm afraid I'm a bit of a rate tart (and get bored very quickly sorting it out) for car insurance and don't check things out as throughly as I maybe should.

I might add that my recent huge claim with Highway Insurance appears to have gone through without a hitch and that was via Auto Direct. I have just renewed via Quidco through the RAC on the RACs's own website althogh a bit of pain and ended up at Norwich Union and supposedly got £70 cash back (tbc if/when it comes through)

vikingaero

Admiral have the dreaded Standard Parts Replacement Clause. If your car is a vanilla spec model with no extras then you'll be fine with them.

Older_but_not_wiser_2

You'll never know how good an insurance company is until you have to make a claim.

Having said that, I've got a multi car policy with Admiral and they were very competitve price wise.

Premier_2

vikingaero wrote: »

Admiral have the dreaded Standard Parts Replacement Clause. If your car is a vanilla spec model with no extras then you'll be fine with them.

Could you explain futher please?

Most, if not all, insurance policies require you to decare any alterations to the vehicle, so I'm presuming you mean there is something else with Admiral policies.

vikingaero

Premier wrote: »

Could you explain futher please?

Most, if not all, insurance policies require you to decare any alterations to the vehicle, so I'm presuming you mean there is something else with Admiral policies.

Yep. Here goes:

When you get a quote with Admiral you can choose to list any accessories, modifications, dealer fitted options or factory fitted options. Admiral may then add an additional premium to cover you for those options.

So lets say you have a Ford Focus 1.6 Zetec A/C. The car comes with factory fitted 16" alloys but you decide to fit 19" alloys. You let Admiral know on the quote form and they charge you say £90 additional premium for the wheels.

Later, you have an accident where you've damaged the front of the car and one alloy wheel is buckled and the tyre damaged. Admiral may then invoke the Standard Parts Replacement Clause and only supply you with a 16" alloy and tyre or they will only contribute the trade cost and leave you to pick up the balance. So you could be left with a car with 3 x 19" wheels and 1 x 16" wheel, even though you've notified them and paid the additional premium.

Obviously from Admirals point of view they don't want to hunt down a specific wheel and pay over trade prices for the wheel.

Of course some people on here will argue that a car with factory extras isn't modified but the specific question asked by Insurers is something along the lines of:

Has the vehicle been modified from the manufacturers standard specificaion?

If you write off the vehicle the loss could be greater. Let's say you have a £30k Mercedes with £12k of options. You pay additional to cover the options but you write off the car. Admiral would be within their rights to replace your Mercedes with a £30k Mercedes with no additional options.

Admiral Group are a good, cheap, efficient insurer if you have a plain bog standard unmodified car.

Premier_2

vikingaero wrote: »

Yep. Here goes:

When you get a quote with Admiral you can choose to list any accessories, modifications, dealer fitted options or factory fitted options. Admiral may then add an additional premium to cover you for those options.

So lets say you have a Ford Focus 1.6 Zetec A/C. The car comes with factory fitted 16" alloys but you decide to fit 19" alloys. You let Admiral know on the quote form and they charge you say £90 additional premium for the wheels.

Later, you have an accident where you've damaged the front of the car and one alloy wheel is buckled and the tyre damaged. Admiral may then invoke the Standard Parts Replacement Clause and only supply you with a 16" alloy and tyre or they will only contribute the trade cost and leave you to pick up the balance. So you could be left with a car with 3 x 19" wheels and 1 x 16" wheel, even though you've notified them and paid the additional premium.

Obviously from Admirals point of view they don't want to hunt down a specific wheel and pay over trade prices for the wheel.

Of course some people on here will argue that a car with factory extras isn't modified but the specific question asked by Insurers is something along the lines of:

Has the vehicle been modified from the manufacturers standard specificaion?

If you write off the vehicle the loss could be greater. Let's say you have a £30k Mercedes with £12k of options. You pay additional to cover the options but you write off the car. Admiral would be within their rights to replace your Mercedes with a £30k Mercedes with no additional options.

Admiral Group are a good, cheap, efficient insurer if you have a plain bog standard unmodified car.

Thanks for the explanation, but the question "Has the vehicle been modified from the manufacturers standard specificaion?" is the one most insurers will use. It covers factory fitted options (e.g. alloy wheels) but not aftersale modifications (e.g. 19" alloys some boy racer picked up from Halfords & fitted to his 1.1 Corsa)
I have asked this question of a number of insurers including MoreThan, and they've all said the same. If it's factory fitted, even as an optional extra, it is to the manufacturer's standard specification.

If they are factory fitted wheels (even as an extra) then I'm sure they are covered.
When I took out my insurance with Admiral, there was no requirement to specify factory fitted options that I can remember.
If the proposer had declared the modification of fitting 19" alloys, then they would be covered (assuming this was accepted by the insurer at inception). Yes, if only 1 wheel was damaged, a payout equal to the value of that one wheel may be made. This might cause issues if that style of wheel was no longer available - but that's a risk you take when you modify a vehicle away from manufacturer's specification.

This is pretty standard for most car insurance cover I think you'll find.

They can't replace a 19" wheel with a 16" - no respectable repairer would ever allow such a car onto the road in such an illegal and dangerous configuration.

Edit: I just looked at the Admiral website and unusually they do ask you to specify any factory fitted optional extras.
However, if you have declared these, surely they must agree to indemnify you on that basis. What would happen if you had say black or metallic paint as an optional extra? Are you suggesting it would come back with say a damaged wing painted in an alternative flat colour?

Edit 2: According to their key facts document (page 4), they won't cover any modification away from manufacturer's standard specification, but endorsement 11 applies
http://www.admiral.com/policyDocs/admKeyFacts.pdf

Endorsement 11, as specified in the policy booklet page 27
http://www.admiral.com/policyDocs/ADM.pdf
they do indeed cover optional fitted extras as supplied by the original manufacturer (as long as they were disclosed and accepted at the time the policy was taken out.)

It appears they don't cover the replacement/repair costs of any other modifications though.
So in the case of the boy racer with after market 19" wheels fitted, yes they would need to be declared (as they could affect proposer's risk e.g. that of the vehicle being stolen) but only the cost of the standard wheel would be paid out in compensation as you suggested.
The proposer would then need to make up the cost payable to the repairer for the replacement 19" wheel.

tadpoleuk

My car is non modified and no one posted any horror stories :P So i will give them a go , thanks

albionrovers

I ditched them at last renewal, had to claim for my 2 cars, after a bizarre incident in my driveway and they were a bit of a nightmare. It seemed to confuse the hell out of them and everything was done veeeeery slowly plus they didn't really give a hoot, customer service-wise.

Then when I cancelled they said "But why"???