1st Central Car Insurance

Dakino

Bought a policy some month ago and after 4 months they increased my premium for the double price. I also received an email stating " your request to change your policy has been approved"

I NEVER requested anything and when i called them they were unable to help. Useless customer service. I called three times spending money because the calls are not for free and the representatives did transfer me over and over without helping me at all.
I sent 4 emAils to all departments amd never got any reply after 10 days already.

Today i cancelled my policy and they requested me to pay a final bill of 232£ when i bought the total premium for 480. I just used it for 5 months and there was only a 50£ cancellation fee.

When i called them they also hung up on me without giving any reason.

Do NOT buy it because it may be cheap. Spend a bit more and you will be sure that you will receive a proper service and no one that STEAL your money.

Never never and never again or recommend to anyone, will post this everywhere and advise everyone of these scammers.

Dakino

Bought a policy some month ago and after 4 months they increased my premium for the double price. I also received an email stating " your request to change your policy has been approved"

I NEVER requested anything and when i called them they were unable to help. Useless customer service. I called three times spending money because the calls are not for free and the representatives did transfer me over and over without helping me at all.
I sent 4 emAils to all departments amd never got any reply after 10 days already.

Today i cancelled my policy and they requested me to pay a final bill of 232£ when i bought the total premium for 480. I just used it for 5 months and there was only a 50£ cancellation fee. they are SCAMMERS

Dakino

Bought a policy some month ago and after 4 months they increased my premium for the double price. I also received an email stating " your request to change your policy has been approved"

I NEVER requested anything and when i called them they were unable to help. Useless customer service. I called three times spending money because the calls are not for free and the representatives did transfer me over and over without helping me at all.
I sent 4 emAils to all departments amd never got any reply after 10 days already.

Today i cancelled my policy and they requested me to pay a final bill of 232£ when i bought the total premium for 480. I just used it for 5 months and there was only a 50£ cancellation fee.

They just steal your money. Never recommend to anyone and will post this to every social in the world. These are SCAMMERS.

minimike2

I am looking at the policy for 1st Central now as they have come back as cheapest for me - I spend a lot of time looking at insurance documents as part of what I do and actually looking at what they are offering it looks like a pretty decent policy, although I do note it seems to have been updated a lot since some of the posts in this thread (Feb 2015 seems to have been a big update).

It's rated 5* - I can't see the silly exclusion mentioned early in the thread that the car wouldn't be covered whilst parked on your drive at night (which worried me massively!!). I'm doing both our cars with them - Hopefully all will be good.

jew71

I need to warn others to stay away from buying a car insurance policy with 1st Central Insurance. They might the cheapest and serve you well until something happens. Back in June a woman pulled out of a junction without looking on a roundabout and went into the side of me, I was already on the roundabout and about to exit. Her insurance company claimed full responsibility and told 1st Central I wasn't at fault. 1st Central went through a barrage of questions with me, never had this happen before, but I have 9 years no claims so haven't been involved in an accident for a long time. All was okay till they passed me on to the existing claims team. They are arrogant and rude, they won't listen to you and couldn't care less. Without having my car inspected (just had photos taken of it, again never seen this done before) they wrote it off and offered me £1420. A week and a half after I had still been driving my car about, I rang the claims team to ask for an update. The bloke on the phone was rude he said on the spot that my car shouldn't be driven and that I no longer have insurance on it!!!! I asked to speak to a Manager but apparently I couldn't as they were all in a meeting surprise surprise. Most worrying thing was my son had the car 20 miles away from home and not having a hire car, I had to borrow a friends transfer my insurance policy at a cost drive to were my son was and swop cars and drive an uninsured vehicle back. The next day the third party insurance company managed to get me a hire car, but my son who was under 21 couldn't drive it, so he ended up going out and buying another car which again we had to get the insurance transfer to for another admin fee. Long story short Friday nearly 1 month after an accident which wasn't my fault and after HBS had taken my car for scrap, 1st central email me a letter to say they were taking over £900 for my insurance premium owed for the rest of the year and would only be sending me a cheque for £400 for a new car!! I couldn't believe it, rang 1st central existing claims spoke to the rude manager Danny who confirmed that whether or not I had transferred my policy to another car they would have kept the rest of the years insurance, including if I didn't have a car on the policy as £400 to be honest isn't enough for a replacement. I broke down into tears, couldn't believe through no fault of my own how they were treating me. Yesterday I rang them again to check what was going on, apparently the customer service team say my direct debits are still in place and they haven't been notified by the existing claims team that the claim had been finalised. They put me through to the dreaded existing claims team, and I got a Michael, he wouldn't let me speak, kept telling me that they weren't dealing with me any more only the Customer Relations team would speak to me, told me he couldn't care less that I couldn't buy another vehicle and eventually put the phone down on me!!! So here I am a month on through no fault of my own I have lost a vehicle and had no pay out to purchase another one. I have now submitted a complaint in full including letter to the Customer Relations Team at 1st Central, copied the Financial Ombudsman in and made a report to them also. Just beware 1st central are cheap for a reason, because they rip there current customers off!!!

PeterGould1000

I unfortunately have had bad experience with 1st central so far. I tried to change my policy last minute due to a change in car but the website wouldnt accept payment leaving me stranded on a car forecourt with no means of getting my new car home.

I had to change insurance providers and now it seems if I want to cancel the policy with them they will charge me £50 because they cant provide a working website.

I have emailed them and have had no reply and tried to ring but never got out of the queue after ten minutes on the phone.

In future I will never insure with anyone that I dont know.

parky91

I've been looking at insurance through them too.
Something to be aware of, I'd received a quote and was happy with it, was looking at paying it and clicked on to pay, it automatically selected to pay by direct debit, so I'd be paying about an extra £100 over the year.
Something to keep an eye out on.

adamdhl1

I was looking for car insurance for my new car and this company seemed pretty average and offered me quite cheap insurance. Upon getting insurance with them all hell broke loose. They came up with issues out of nowhere and kept charging me additional fees for things that were their fault. In the end after a month and a bit they cancelled my policy which I was quite happy about because I was so tired of dealing with them. But even in the end thay had to put a last nail in this coffin by nearly doubling my cancellation fee because of some hidden payments. After just a month I'm sick and tired of them and over the past 10 years of owning a car I have not come across a worst insurance comapny.

p.s Also when they did cancel my policy i was not even infomed on the day, I got informed 2 weeks later which means I was driving without insurance to my knowledge for two weeks.

Awful company wouldnt recommend to my worst enemy :mad::mad:

Mikeythehat

BUYER BEWARE!!! With them 6 months, then changed my car. Despite changing details online and agreeing to a £40 per month hike in premium (making it MUCH MORE expensive than other quotes), I sucked up the £30 admin fee (for the automated processing that then took place) Today I wanted to put my private registration on the car. How much did they want to do this? £118.80!!!!! When I asked to speak to the manager ([Name removed] of the Glasgow office), he refused to speak to me. Wouldn't even come to the phone. Needless to say, I've cancelled with them immediately. DISGRACEFUL COMPANY. BE WARNED!!!! Much better to pay a little extra and not be left feeling like you've been the victim of a 1st Central Insurance scam as I now feel.

AdRock

I will not be renewing my insurance with 1st Central as they are a total waste of space.

My car got flood damaged over 2 weeks ago. Rang them to make a claim (Sunday) and took details etc. I was told I would hear something by the following Friday. The Friday came and I heard nothing so I telephoned them. It turned out that nothing was done because they wanted me to confirm what I told the agent of the Sunday which I did. They didn't even bother to contact me about that. I was told I would know by the following Friday which annoyed me. The following Thursday I still haven't heard anything so I chased it up again. This time they are waiting for their salvage yard to answer a question and I should have a reply by late Friday or Monday morning. Guess what?! Monday morning been and gone and nothing...I telephoned them AGAIN to find out what is happening with my car as nobody thought it was courteous to keep me up to date. I got through to the claim line and they told me it was a total loss which i expected and I told them nobody has come back to me. They put me through to the total loss department who said they are now waiting for more photos and didn't know when someone will let me know anything. They said I can't speak to their salvage yard as it's done internally. I've now had to raise an official compaint so if they haven't sorted it within 8 weeks I'm going to the ombudsman but I know they'll have it sorted by then.

What really winds me up about these people is that it takes over 2 weeks to find out if a car is a write off due to flood. It doesn't take a genius and their customer service is really poor.

What really takes the biscuit is that the same thing happened to a colleague at work and his insurance made on offer within 5 days. He's now had a pay out and driving a new car.

DO NOT BUY INSURANCE FROM THIS SHADY COMPANY!!! WASTE OF TIME