A chance for all bankrupts to change your life - Your help needed!

alastairq

Once again, a big THANKS for your time and effort, CitySlicker....I'm sure many of us would have withered under the hail of stonewalling you have encountered and endured.

I get a distinct impression that the Price Comparison websites are a phenomenon that some insurance brands would dearly like to see disappearing into the sunset?

After all, is it not apparent that some brands would rather we, their potential customers, were not presented with 'a choice?'

regarding the AXA response?

I get the impression your complaint actually is aimed far way and above the respondent's pay-grade?

They wont like the fact that you have subsequently presented them with valid argument against their response?

[Question..if pushed further, do you think the initial responder may find themselves collecting their P45?]

tigerfeet2006

CS you are indeed a legend :A

IF

You are a Star CS

dojoman

Thanks for all your hard work CS:D

4$£&*(£$&*(!

You're all very welcome, I expected to get lots of refusals but my latest attempts are really paying dividends. I feel if I am too small to win a war singlehandedly, then let's get the big players to fight each other for us. This approach seems to be working and the evidence is mounting up.

The price comparison sites are going to find themselves in an untenable position as they blamed the intermediaries and insurers, yet I keep getting a constant response now that the insurers are all blaming the price comparison sites. Confused.com seems to be all too eager to ignore this, yet although I have offered an olive branch for them to consider their position before saying that's their final response, part of me hopes I can take them to the Ombudsman and present my evidence from insurers.

Anyway there's a couple of developments I'm about to post about, look out for my next posts.

4$£&*(£$&*(!

AXA were mistaken in their previous email, and re-confirm what M&S/Swiftcover brands have already told me that they will cover bankrupts so long as they haven't been discharged in the last two years:

Thank you for your email,

From reviewing your recent communication, I am sorry to hear that you remain dissatisfied with our business rules surrounding occupants being declared bankrupt. As such, I have sought further clarification from our Underwriters in relation to your concerns.

Our Underwriters have confirmed that we cannot cover occupants that have been declared bankrupt within the last 2 years. Therefore, if any of the occupants were declared bankrupt before the 2 year period, our website should be able to provide a quote. Our website also states that occupants cannot have been declared bankrupt within the last 2 years.

With the above in mind, I am sorry for any confusion or misunderstanding that this matter has caused. Your previous email does suggest that your partner was declared bankrupt more than 2 years ago. As such, I am genuinely sorry that my previous email did not address this.

Once again, please accept my personal apologies and my apologies on behalf of AXA.

4$£&*(£$&*(!

Hastings Direct say (this is really worth reading):

Further to my letter of 4 July I am now in a position to provide you with an update on the information we request about bankruptcy.

I arranged for all of our Home Insurance underwriters to be contacted and asked them to confirm their criteria when taking in to account bankruptcy. I am pleased to confirm that all of our underwriters have responded and we now have the most up to date guidance.

In summary, none of the underwriters we work with automatically refuse to provide quotations where there is history of bankruptcy. As expected, we were provided with different criteria; however, in most cases a discharged bankruptcy order was not deemed relevant for underwriting purposes. Underwriters do take in to account connected information, such as claims experience and employment status and have different acceptance criteria depending on the circumstances presented to them.

In addition to the quotations provided by the underwriters, we obtain a credit score for those customers who wish to pay by monthly instalments. In compliance with the requirements of our consumer credit licence we may restrict or decline the availability of credit based on the scoring result.

As a result of my enquiries I have identified that a change is needed to the Hastings Direct Acceptance Criteria on our website as this currently states;

- You and any person permanently residing with you, have never been declared bankrupt and have no CCJ's in the past 6 years

Our online quotation process cannot take in to account the various requirements of each underwriter therefore we are not able to provide online quotations in these circumstances. However, our Acceptance Criteria on our website will be updated to state the following;

- You and any person permanently residing with you have never been declared bankrupt and have no CCJ's in the past 6 years. (we may be able to offer you a quotation over the phone, please contact us on 0800 00 1066)

As we do need to refer all disclosed bankruptcy information to our underwriters it is necessary for us to invite people to call us so this can be discussed and quotations can be based on individual circumstances.

From your original letter, I understand your query stems from your recent experiences with the various price comparison websites. Information which is collected on price comparison websites is mapped to our own systems to provide quotations. As explained, our quotation process requires manual intervention to ensure that bankruptcy information is taken in to account appropriately. As the price comparison sites cannot ask all of our questions we have no alternative but to return a "no quote" response.

I am unable to comment directly on the question sets used by the price comparison websites however we do have a Relationship Manager who is able to ensure that your feedback is reviewed by them. It is clearly in our customer's interest, as well as our own commercial interest, to be able to provide quotations when the risks posed are acceptable to our underwriters.

I trust that my response has provided you with the information you need, and that I have assured you that following your letter we are making changes to how we request and process bankruptcy information.

alastairq

Thanks once again........I think the worm is turning?

I suspect that, if using a Price Comparison site, withholding the BR information will provide the competitive quotes...simply phone the relevant insurers or brokers, and provide them direct with any BR information necessary?

A bit long-winded, I know.......and obviously not within the Price Comparisons' sites business model....but who cares?

freddy911

Bankrupts are definatly getting a raw deal, anyone who commits a criminal offence that is imprisonable for upto 3 years, has there conviction SPENT after the same period. So you can commit quite a serious offence such a fraud, sexual assault, ABH, etc, go to prison for 3 years and six years after the offence you conviction is spent. You never have to declaire this to insurers, banks, employers (unless exempt, health care etc) even if they ask there is no obligation to declare it, and they cannot void any policies or close any accounts for not declaring it, its against the law.

So why is it that if you go BR for the rest of you life you are stigmatised and deemed to pay higher prices for insurance and credit, possibly for something you have no control over. Surely we should be allowed at least the same dignity as criminals and not have to declare our BR after the six years when its removed from files, This sytem is wrong!!!!

freddy911

What actually makes this worse is that many of the banks that label us as poor high risk customers, went bankrupt themselfs and had to be bailed out by the tax payers, talk about pot and kettle.