PLease Help!!!! 30 April 2010 at 3:52PM edited 30 November -1 at 1:00AM in Insurance & Life Assurance 10 replies 1.1K views

crizz

I had been with 1st Central Isurance for 1 year and back in March my renewal came up. As I couldnt find a better quote I phoned them up and said to renew.
I had a small prang at the weekend so I thought I just phone up and let them know even thou I wouldnt be making a claim. It turns out that they had not renewed.
What can I do? I know I spoke withthem and said to go ahead, as they record all telephone conversations how can I get them to dig this out to prove I said go ahead and they didnt!
I'm am just so glad that it was a samll scratch and nothing major.
Any help is gratfully recieved.

Quentin

You have waited a long time without a new certificate!

If no-one else is involved in your prang, just take out a new policy elsewhere now.

But if there is the chance of a third party claim against you then pursue 1st central to investigate/listen to the tape etc and reinstate your policy from its renewal date.

stevemarsh1976

Have you paid or are you paying your premiums. If you have then or are then get them to listen to the conversation (could take time) if you havnt then I am afraid there is little come back for you as if the inurance isnt being paid for there cant be insurance in force.

Even on your say so to renew without payment there arguement will be that you should have noticed you wernt paying etc....typical call centre situation and one of seen many times.

lisyloo

Questions?

1. Did you get any paperwork?
2. Have you been making payments?
3. Do you have any details of the phone call - time? date? name? (they aren't going to listen to a months worth of calls for every operator - they might have hundreds).
4. Do they have any record of your call against your account? or did they say they had no record?
5. Was anyone else involevd in your prang?
6. What are the indications of them claiming? Did they take your details?

We need more info.
Best case - you might get off scott free. Worse case you are looking at a claim and a conviction for driving without insurance, so a wide range of possibilities there.

gordikin

The most important thing now is to stop driving until you are insured!

lisyloo

Even on your say so to renew without payment there arguement will be that you should have noticed you wernt paying etc....typical call centre situation and one of seen many times.

Even if the call center or royal mail messed up. That will not be an adequate defense.
If you want to drive half of ton of metal round pubilc streets it is YOUR (the drivers) responsibility to be insured. That means you need to check and if call centers are useless then tough, you need to deal with it and get it sorted.

I know some will think that sounds "holier than thou" but I think it's helpful for crizz to understand the atttitude that he/she will come up against with the authorities.
Ultimately it's the drivers responsibility. Rubbish call centers are something we all ahve to deal with. Lost in the post, forgot etc. does not cut any ice.
This is not late homework, it's people's livelihoods, medical treatment and ongoing living costs at stake.
So sorry crizz, there will be no sympathies from the authorities and I believe they can crush cars etc.

We can only help you if you answer the questions asked.

Jsut because you call MAY be recorded then I would not bank on the call center listening to a months worth of calls to find yours.

Quote

What you wanted was an automatic renewal.

Jane2005

If thier calls are on a recorded line they should be able to check that for you, if it is that you said, yes I want to renew, they need to honour that. If a claim is made for the period you were 'unisured' then the insurance company would need to pay for that and not the underwriter. Good luck.

lisyloo

If thier calls are on a recorded line they should be able to check that for you

Not necessarily.
If you only know it was March and they have 100 operators do anyone of you think they will listen to 100 months worth of calls.
Of course not.

For important calls I take the date time and name of person I spoke to.
If they are called Jon I take the surname as one call center I dealt with had 47 jons.
If it's really important a phone call is not good enough and you need it in writing.

I don't know whether the OP has this information, but if they didn't check they had insurance I am doubting whether they would have recorded call details information.

Quentin

lisyloo wrote: »

Not necessarily.
If you only know it was March and they have 100 operators do anyone of you think they will listen to 100 months worth of calls.
Of course not.

Call centres have systems to trace calls to specified clients, so despite your gloom it is worth the OP pursuing this avenue and seeing if his call can be listened to.

Jane2005

Usually they will make comments on the policy, thus giving them the time, date and who they spoke to, so no searching through 1000s of calls.