1st Central Car Insurance

noodlump

If you enjoy....

1. Sub-standard cover
2. Waiting on the phone for hours
3. Being made aware of an administrative error (conveniently just after the colling off period) and being landed with a disproportionately large administration fee
4. Generally being treated like a second class citizen and NOT a paying customer

Then you're in liuck, these guys are for you...

If not, take my advice and go elsewhere, as I will be doing in the future.

dacouch

dc070667 wrote: »

As promised i will update you all.

I phone 1st Central this morning using the Claims number and reported my accident to a helpful chap called Amir who logged all the details of my accident and gave me some beware advice of dealing with the 3rd party before giving me a claims number,.The call was answered al most immediatelty ,very quickly in my opinion.

I phoned again this afternoon using the same claims number,again call answered almost immeiately by a chap called Carl,he took my claims number and started the ball rolling as regards my claim against the Taxi driver,has put me on to a reapair centre and solicitor.,he was very helpful and reassuring.I will be contacted in the next 24 hours by a repair centre.

So there you go,all in a very positive experience for me,calls answwered quickly and staff coherent and very helpful.

They have passed you onto an ambulance chasing company to repair, provide an expensive hire car and pursue injuries. These types of companies tend to be very on the ball at the start as they make big money.

If the accident was your fault, I doubt it would be so quick

Steviecee_2

Hi, I have a car that has to be scrapped which has been insured with 1st Central for 4 months.

I called the numbers given on my insurance details. I was told the company can not insure the car if i scrap it and they would need to cancel my insurance. This is fine.......But they want to charge me £50 to cancel!!! When the insurance was taken out, it was never mentioned that if we scrap the vehicle then we would have to pay a fee to cancel.

What are we supposed to do, leave it on the road when not roadworthy. I was also told by an adviser the cancellation was £118 so asked for a supervisor, I was then told they were busy so asked for a manager. After chatting and getting nowhere, I asked to speak to someone higher after finally getting it out of the advisor that she was a senior agent. Was this falsifying information? The "senior agent" said the cancellation fee was £50, then a manager came on the phone and said the cancellation fee was £42.26.

They also said my direct debits were not up to date, but they were taken from the bank over a week ago in which my account was up to date.

Again, there was no mention whatsoever that if my car was scrapped I would have to pay a cancellation fee. I was also told "Buy" a new car and transfer the insurance.

My advise - Do not go near this company!!!

The car i had was used about 4 times since taking insurance

A DISGRACE to insurance companies who try to help their customers with problems, one of the most annoying things was you could hear all the laughing in the background.

Has any others had problems with this?

The_Jester

Stay well clear of them. I've had to call them 4 times this morning because they keep getting things wrong. Every time I'm left on hold for an average of 15 minutes.

They can't even get the basics right. I'm cancelling my policy and moving.

The_Jester

Just so people know.

You need to register and log into their website. Once registered all your documents are available on-line.

KateRadford

NEVER use 1st central European breakdown cover. In fact I would avoid the company for anything. We broke down on a French motorway near Tours. We had taken out European breakdown cover with 1st Central. When we broke down we called them up and we were told we are not covered for towing from a Motorway in France only a road. It seems this was in fact a lie. They said they would put us up in a hotel and take our car to garage first thing following day. The hotel they transported us to was 58km away from the car. We then call up the following day at 11am to ask what is happening with the car and we are informed it is on way to garage. We call up again at 4pm and ask about the car and told it has not yet made it to the garage. We are then told at 5pm that in fact we are not fully covered as the car is over 10 years old and they even wanted us to pay back cost of hotel and taxi which they choose and arranged!! We were not informed about this lack of cover when we rang up to take out and pay for breakdown cover. So 28 Hours after breakdown the car had still not been seen by a garage and we were deserted by our breakdown cover. They wasted our time, money and we got a told a string of lies. They did however manage to send us a text 2 days after breakdown to say we are not fully covered and they will not be helping us further. This was 24 hours after a text from them telling us the car was on the way to a garage, when in fact it was not!

rs65

KateRadford wrote: »

We broke down on a French motorway near Tours. We had taken out European breakdown cover with 1st Central. When we broke down we called them up and we were told we are not covered for towing from a Motorway in France only a road. It seems this was in fact a lie.

From their policy:-

If you have broken down on a European motorway or major public road, we are sometimes unable to assist you
and you will often need to obtain assistance via the SOS phones. The local services will tow you to a place of
safety and you will be required to pay for the service immediately. You can then contact us for further assistance.

The policy also mentions restrictions for cars over 10 years old (and no cover for those over 26 years old).

kikib

What an absolute nightmare company!!!!!! my parents took out 2 insurance policies on the cars with this shower, we have had nothing but bother, they keep returning asking for money 2 weeks ago it was £80, today it was £74...... they allege my dad was driving a vehicle involved in an accident that he failed to declare when taking out the policy...... we have proof he was out of the country at the time and the car was crashed by a third party whose insurance picked up the whole tab. i will be fighting to get his money returned. the staff are Thick!!!! 2 cars same driver same address yet they failed to pick up the second charge for a further 1-2 weeks so therefore another £50 "admin fee" applies, this bunch of cowboys may come up reasonable on the comparison sites but my advice is AVOID them at all costs!!! can't wait for the year to be up, i am half tempted just to tell them to cancel the policy and pay them the money it will cost, at least i would be sure they would have adequate insurance.
oh the other thing was one of his cars was hit from behind a week after taking out the insurance with first central, he duly called with the other parties details and stated no fault claim..... they wanted him to pay a £300 excess!!!!!!!! apparently he would need to pay the excess and claim back of the other parties insurance policy.... thank god Budget car insurance have staff who know what they are doing and got the car collected, repaired and back to us within a week with no need for any money to change hands..... they just seem to push for you to take a courtesy car and when we declined that is when the £300 crept in.....basically we were told if you take the courtesy car no excess charge! we have 2 vehicles so a courtesy car was not required, they also seem very keen on if you are injured or not.
as i say nightmare company, very big mistake made, lesson learnt and AVOID!!!

dacouch

It sounds like your father has an accident or incident registered on the central claims register Insurers use. It's called C.U.E http://www.insurancedatabases.co.uk/default.aspx

If he has then it may be worth getting it corrected as this will keep cropping up with Insurers. You can request a copy of their file for a small fee and then ask them to amend it if it's incorrect (They may ask you to contact the Insurer who made the accident note to correct it)

john1802

I have today used Confused.com to obtain a car insurance quote and it came up with 1st Central as being the best price with the details entered. I then clicked on buy now and it took me to 1st Central where I proceeded to check all the details. I found a couple of minor details were incorrect and so changed these and then I was told by 1st Central that they could no longer quote.

There are a number of problems here. Firstly if I had not checked the details I could have taken out insurance that quite possibly would have been invalid. Secondly, it seems that the details that are entered into Confused.com are not transferred correctly to 1st Central or their systems cannot cope with the info being sent. Lastly after correcting the information I'm told they can't quote and I feel misled and that I have had my time wasted. I'm not a fan of being given incorrect quotes or being misled.

I phoned 1st Central and the phone operator told me there was nothing he could do about the situation. Its a case of computer says no and when I asked to speak to a line manager, they don't seem to exist. When I also ask for some contact details for management it seems that this is not readily available either.

This is not a one off either because my partner had the same trouble when trying to get a quote. It seems that 1st Central with confused.com are in the habit of giving false quotes.