1st Central Car Insurance

teeni

my son is with 1stcentral, he had an accident in oct 2009 (his fault) failed to get through on the claims line but sent an email which was responded to three days later, operator told my son that his claim was not going to be paid as he had allowed his 16 year old girlfriend to drive the car and she had crashed it. My son advised him that the police were present at the accident and their report confirmed he was alone at the time he was on his wayhome from work. After a very worrying 24 hours they phoned back to say that they had mixed his claim up with someone else's and agreed they would now deal with the claim have not heard anything since and presumb all has been dealt with. it was a third party policy so no payment for our sons car was due.

worth paying a bit more for peace of mind if you can fford to unfortunately my son was 20and even with 2 years no claims behind him quotes were extortionate from other companies

He will not be staying with them after renewal as I cant stand the stress should he need toclaim aain for any reason.

AliM_3

Thanks dacouch for the useful info and for making me smile. It's been a hard day if you hadn't noticed from my earlier post.

Fingers crossed our friend Tom bothers to reply!

dacouch

Alim it was indeed for your benefit.

Tom is not permitted to post on MSE as he has not sought the proper authorisation from MSE to represent a business. This never used to stop him but since all the complaints started rolling in he has fallen silent. He does log on to MSE every few days to read the new complaints. I get advised via pm from some of the contributers on this and the other 1st central threads (Yes there are others, do a search of forums to view them) that they have PMed Tom and things eventually were sorted out.

I cannot understand why Tom does not get the proper authorisation from MSE and then post up on the 1st Central threads asking disgruntled customers to contact him so he can see if he can help. Becuss does this for the Aviva customers on MSE, it would certainly help as most of the posters are complaining about not being able to get through on the phone or nothing being done about their claim when they are told things will be done. So the simple way to resolve things would be to get the authorisation and use MSE to communicate with the disgruntled MSE members.

hkpurplecat

piscass wrote: »

I would stay well clear of these as the customer service is terrible, also i sent a scanned image of my no claims bonus but they just dont want to accept it. They keeps sending me reminders to sya they have not got it and to ring a number that is always busy. The latest thing is if I dont send my no claims bonus within 7 days they will charge me an extra 80 pounds so I am about to contact the insurance ombudsman about it YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED STEER CLEAR!.

I have had exactly the same experience. I have sent them scanned proof of my NCD 7 TIMES. THEY HAVE TOTALLY IGNORED THIS AND CHARGED ME £8 PER MONTH MORE. The only time they bothered to reply was to say that I should contact the credit company re the NCD. Knowing that this was a load of rubbish, I emailed them back with a cc to the credit company. The credit company came back to me with a reply that it should be the insurance company. I emailed them again, but guess what, no reply. STEER CLEAR OF THIS COMPANY, THEY ARE RUBBISH.

dacouch

Hkpurplecat

You have the option of making an "Official Complaint", the Insurer has to deal with a complaint in the proper way and report back to you within certain timescales. Their compliance officer also has to give details of complaints logged to the FSA annually (Me thinks the compliance officer could be a busy man, hopefully they outsource their compliance officer and he is charging the industry rate of circa £500 a day as he will make a nice packet out of them).

Here is how to make an official complaint (Send the complaint by recorded delivery)

The Managing Director
First Central Insurance Management Limited
Gemini House
Mill Green Road
Haywards Heath
West Sussex
RH16 1XQ
Tel: 0845 194 9947
Email: [EMAIL="customer-relations@1stcentral.co.uk"]customer-relations@1stcentral.co.uk[/EMAIL]

Alternatively you could send a PM to TOM 1st Central via MSE as he may help

You could alson let the Financial Services Authority know of the problems your having as they will be interested. Mention their "Treating Customers Fairly" (TCF) to them. I think 3,4 and 5 could be relevant in your case.

Outcome 3: Consumers are provided with clear information and are kept appropriately informed before, during and after the point of sale.
Outcome 4: Where consumers receive advice, the advice is suitable and takes account of their circumstances.
Outcome 5: Consumers are provided with products that perform as firms have led them to expect, and the associated service is of an acceptable standard and as they have been led to expect.


http://www.fsa.gov.uk/Pages/Doing/Regulated/tcf/index.shtml

http://www.fsa.gov.uk/Pages/Doing/Contact/index.shtml

P.S You can also add a review on the following site, it might help potential 1st Central customers see what they are letting themselves in for (A lot of potential customers read the problems on MSE and decide not to buy) http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews232123.html

1jim

hkpurplecat wrote: »

I have had exactly the same experience. I have sent them scanned proof of my NCD 7 TIMES. THEY HAVE TOTALLY IGNORED THIS AND CHARGED ME £8 PER MONTH MORE. The only time they bothered to reply was to say that I should contact the credit company re the NCD. Knowing that this was a load of rubbish, I emailed them back with a cc to the credit company. The credit company came back to me with a reply that it should be the insurance company. I emailed them again, but guess what, no reply. STEER CLEAR OF THIS COMPANY, THEY ARE RUBBISH.

I have to say that I scanned in the documents they wanted and got a reply confirming that my account havd been updated very quickly considering it was over the christmas period.

dalenblue

I have a friend who worked for this company but left because he thought their business practises enethical.
They employ a lot of young temp agency staff most of whom have never had a full time job since leaving school and are of a low calibre.
People seem to think that just because they come up on comparison websites as cheap then they are getting a good deal, this is a false.
These cheap end outfits attract a lot of new business without the resources to deal with claims. As previously stayed they are registered in Gibraltar not just for tax reasons but because they are less regulated.

Insurance is a serious undertaking, if you are unfortunate enough to have an accident or incident you need a proper service.

Peace of mind is everything.

STAY WELL CLEAR OF THIS OUTFIT!!!!!

tourdefrancis

1st central car insurance charged £25 to make a change to the address on my policy, and then they will charge you a further £30 to cancel the policy. Are there any regulations about how much they can charge?

need.need

I have just lost a days leve waiting for, and chasing up thier windscreen service. The level of support, reliability and efficiency of 1st Central is nothing short of appaling. My advice - Don't go there!!

michael1983l

It's funny how most of the posters rubbishing this company have 1 post. I would suggest that there may be some underhand tactics going on here as I will repeat myself. 1st Centeral have so far given me an A1 service and are about ready to pay out my write off. Havn't got a bad word to say about them so far.