Quoteline Direct - a cautionary tale 21 June 2006 at 11:59AM in Insurance & Life Assurance 3 replies 4.6K views

mpn_2

Just wanted to warn you if you are looking for a cheap car insurance deal. Following Martin's advice I used the various screen-scraping sites and ended up finding a company called Quoteline Direct. I asked for a quote with them online then they rang me and said they could beat the cheapest quote I had found. I gave them the details then they rang back later with the best deal by about £10. I went through the application on the phone and set up insurance to start a few days ago.

I got the policy details in the post, all was correct and the first payment was debited from by credit card.

This morning they rang me to say that the insurance had been cancelled as of 9am! Apparently the company they had insured me with was refusing to continue the policy as my wife (a named driver) has had her licence under a year. This fact was made perfectly clear on the phone and was stated on the policy and quote documents I got from Quoteline Direct.

So now I am left with an uninsured car, currently sitting in the car park at my place of work and I am due to go on holiday and leave it in a car park for two weeks early tomorrow morning. Wonderful.

The only option (apart from starting the whole quote process with different companies again which I quite simply don't have time to do today) was to pay Quoteline Direct another £65 to insure with a different underwriter. So the policy is now about £50 more than the previous cheapest quote I had.

What a scam.

Buyer BEWARE!!

Matt

nickmack

If this fact about your wife was made absolutely clear, you should seek clarification on the cancellation with this company. If necessary get hold of telephone conversations/documents under the DPA that prove this.

One reason being, when you apply for new insurance, one of the questions is 'Have you ever had insurance cancelled/refused?' Strictly speaking you would need to answer Yes to this question which could increase premiums or they could to refuse to insure. You may be able to explain the circumstances better if you have information about what was said to the cancelling insureres. If you were to answer No, any insurance you have could be rendered invalid.

ArchieB_2

If quoteline were at all interested in customer service they would have matched the original quote by taking a hit on their commission. If you have everything in writing it is their mistake and I would still persue this with them and get the £65 back. Send copies of the original quote details along with a strongly worded letter insisting they reimburse the extra premium.

To be honest they would not get my business after doing that to me - if they are so poor at quote time, what are they going to be like come claim time?

coloquil

hi i have had the same trouble with them they are a company to avoid