anyone got 1st central car insurance?

Breachwood1

Agreed. Nearly bought a policy but their system crashed. I called and told them I wouldn't proceed but they took payment from my card anyway.Lots of complaints to get a refund (still waiting). Definitely not recommended.

(Text removed by MSE Forum Team)

screwg

caela wrote: »

..I am insured to drive other people's cars third party only. Can't imagine why they'd leave this out on comprehensive- are you sure you checked properly? I'm not being condescending, just that asking them won't help they have no idea, you have to go through your policy very carefully.

I had my own problems with 1stcentral and I'm switching as soon as the 1 year is over for sure. (Cant be paying 50! to cancel in a "cooling off period" thats a rip off and probably a misleading use of the phrase "cooling off period").

But watch out they by default will auto-renew you. So call them and remove the "auto renewal" option (for which there is no fee), then they'll have to contact you to see if you want to renew, which of course you DO NOT.

About the cover on driving other people's cars I saw in the section 4.2 of the policy document says you maybe covered but refers you to your certificate of insurance to check if that part applies to you. However the certificate of insurance is a one page document which doesnt provide that kind of info. So I found by talking to them on the phone that by default you are not covered to drive other people's vehicles by default. (unless of course the other person has any driver policy or has you as a named driver). If you notice and ask they may offer you this cover but it depends on your experience, crash record and NCD and other factors. They could not provide a separate fee for it, they just may offer it to you if you have a good record I guess.

So BEWARE you are most likely NOT covered to drive other cards.

Lesson: NEVER insure with 1st central.

They say there is no cancellation fee during 14 day cooling off, BUT you lose a 50 setup fee which is non-refundable, so in fact for practical purposes there IS a cancellation fee of 50.

Scam artists, sharp dealers, avoid.

dacouch

1st Central still up to their old tricks...

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?363394-car-prang-**-WON-**

You would have thought they would have learnt after this one (And a few other we've had on MSE)...

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2573777

How does this stand with the FSA's Treating Customers Fairly when they've known they can't do this for over two years. The latest victim would have lost £2000 for their own car and if the other car decided to make a PI claim potentially thousands more.

Would you Insure with a company like this?


http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews232123.html

rudekid48

Nice work Dacouch :T

gideonssword

dacouch
please pm me the info you have regarding 1st Central

Thank you.

dacouch

rudekid48 wrote: »

Nice work Dacouch :T

They remind me of an Old Skool Lloyd's syndicate from back in the days of Pegasus.

Look for any way not to pay a claim, have unenforcable small print which they try (And no doubt get away with) and enforce which they know they should not be doing.

Very tempted to get onto the FSA's whistleblowers email to report them, would be nice to see them hit with a very large fine for this as it's systematic which the FSA don't like. Would also get them splashed over the papers.

I know Mikey etc give us a hard time, but the vast majority of us in the Industry like to give what the customer pays for and 1st Central are an embarrassment which reinforces stereotypes of Insurers.

1st Central have so many nasty dodges in their policy and practices, why don't they sort themselves out. Why anyone would want to set up a business and intentionally decide to go down the route of making it dodgy is not comprehendable to a normal person.

foofighter0912

I must confess that I have read these MSE forums for many years now without ever contributing but I feel it's time to respond due to the massive amount of negativity about 1st Central.

I took out my first policy with them in March 2012. Shortly afterwards I was involved in an 'incident'.
I contacted them to report the incident and they said they would deal with in.

Whilst they were dealing with it I found this thread on MSE and started to get very nervous after reading all of the negative posts.

I was especially nervous because I live in N.Ireland and insurance laws etc can differ between here and England. Also, the policy they offered me was much cheaper than any other insurance company and seemed 'too good to be true', I was worried I was about to find this out!

However, I had no need to worry....

My experience with 1st central was extremely positive and I found their case workers to be fantastic in helping me out in what was a very stressful situation. It was a complicated case involving insurance fraud and dragged on for months.

1st Central fought my corner and informed a local solicitor to contact me. The case went to court and we won.

I truly am thankful to them for all their help during a very stressful claim. Especially my case worker who kept in contact with me throughout the whole ordeal.

I'm not saying that other people's negative comments are wrong, but all I can say is that in my case I found them to be excellent.

Sometimes it's easier to write a negative comment than a positive one.

bash786_2

Hi I am a student and I bought insurance from 1st central insurance and they quote me £1412. Then as i opted to pay monthly they said it came to £1658.( I also got a document saying this is the amount due including admin fee). I paid a £414 deposit and ended up paying 10 months of £141.80(even though i thought it was 9 months and I also rung on the 9th month to confirm this and an advisor did confirm this). So the total it came to £1832. I rung up customer services and they said on the page i took insurance out on the total of £1658. It apparently showed interest rate which i thought had already been calculated. AT NO POINT DID IT STATE THE PRMIUM DUE WAS £1832. REALLY ANGRY AND FRUSTRATED AS I AM A STUDENT AND STILL SCREWING ME. I have taken out policies in the past and the price given to me is always including the interest and then total payable would be stated. They didnt even send me a credit agreement and now will not refund me either. They then said i could cancel the policy and charge me £60 cancellation fee even though i had nothing left to pay on the policy. . i still have 2 months insurance with nothing due and i should cancel.Do they think I am stupid or what.
I took out my policy on january 2012 and now it is november 2012. Policy ends january 2012

TAKE MY ADVICE FROM EXPERIENCE STEER CLEAR OF THEM. TOO MUCH HASSLE AND MISLEADING QUOTES.
ALL THE NEGATIVE REVIEWS ARE CORRECT AND REALLY SCREW EVERYONE.

annei_2

took out 1st central comprehensive cover insurance over the internet 13 days ago. Just got through the proof of NCB from my previous insurers and needed to email 1st C with it but didn't have their email address so googled them just to get their email address but in the google results could see a discussion on MSE so thought "oh well, I'll take a look" and was concerned to see that they don't include 3rd P insurance for policy holders who drive other people's cars - this is important to me, we frequently drive cars for friends and family. So I thought I'd give 1st Central a ring to see if this was correct. Like any good MSE reader I went to "say no to 0870" and got their geographic number and phoned that - it went through to their claims section and I spoke to someone who said that some of their policies do allow 3rd party cover and some don't - if I'd give him my policy number he'd check. He checked - I wasn't covered. I asked why and he said it was an underwriting decision - the decision could be made for any of a number of reasons; occupation, accident history, if I wanted more info he'd have to put me through to customer services. I said OK and was put through to Russell in customer services. Russell confirmed I wasn't covered, that this would have been in the terms and conditions I accepted when buying the policy and said that I couldn't add it as an extra. (so was the first rep correct that it was an underwriting decision or was Russel right that it was in the standard T&Cs??? It couldn't be both!) As the policy is no good to me without the 3rd party cover I said I wanted to cancel - he said that would cost £50. Later on, after I'd arranged an alternative policy with another insurer, I emailed customer services to say I wanted to cancel my policy forthwith and that I wanted to lodge a complaint both that I hadn't been told about the no 3rd party cover and that the £50 was not reasonable.

Any thoughts on how I should take this forward?

Thanks

Quentin

annei wrote: »

....Any thoughts on how I should take this forward?

Follow their complaints procedure (which will be set out in the policy), and escalate if you are unhappy with their response.