Warning about Churchill Home Insurance

chris1973

Just a warning about Churchill Insurance, when it comes to renewal time.

Very few insurers will quote a good renewal price compared to that offered to new customers, however Churchill extract the urine and crank that margin right up when it comes to the margin between keeping loyalty and retaining a customer and enticing a new customer into the fold.

As an existing customer I am being quoted nearly £220 to renew my House and Contents insurance with them for another year. I've never claimed from them, nor have any pending claims, my only 'crime' would be laziness by not shopping around and to just roll over and to pay this ludicrous price.

£106 is a lot to pay for the 10 mins it takes to type your details into a comparison website.

Using a well known comparison site, the quote using exactly the same details as on my renewal with them comes back at £114 from Churchill, that is a difference of over £100 added by Churchill on my renewal documents just for the convenience of renewing an existing policy. Sod that

I know that most insurers 'load' the policy when it comes to renewing, probably to try and claw back the outlay on cash back sites and all of that fancy advertising, but i've only experienced £30 or £40 differences, never £100

So just a heads up if you are a Churchill Customer, chances are your renewal won't be as competitive as first taking a policy out with them - in you may find its doubled and you'll easily find 20 or 30 insurance companies can easily beat their uncompetitive price.

It does anger me, that insurance companies are allowed to get away with two quotes, which are massively different for essentially the same policy and same customer, just based on whether you are a new or existing customer.

Usually the people who are unable to shop around and get better prices are possibly the elderly or those on low incomes and without internet and by default are the ones least likely to be able to afford inflated prices, and who trust in their insurer year after year to play fair and give them a competitive price.

Seems Churchill, and others of their ilk like to abuse this trust and profit from it.

adamc260

Their adverts says they'll give you a discount every time you renew if you don't claim too.... by discount do they mean.... an extra charge!?

tonycarew

Hi Chris

I have found that with Churchill if you were to obtain a lot better quote than the renewal quote by using a comparison site they simply match it without quibble,as if the renewal quote didn't exist.Admittedly this only works if you wish to remain with them.

chris1973

Hi Tony,

Thanks for the heads up. I work in Purchasing, so like a good haggle like the next person. However I also appreciate the difference between companies making a fair profit in return for a fair days work and simply taking the Mickey out of existing customers and treating them like milkable idiots.

I really wouldn't reward a company with such gutter level ethics and absolutely no loyalty towards existing customers, by gifting them with further business and encourage them further by opening up any channel of communication. I certainly won't be recommending them, quite the opposite.

I appreciate that we live in a "new customers always get the best deals" society, however a difference of £104 for essentially the same customer in the same building is just totally unacceptable, I think automatically charging existing customers double the going rate at their renewal time shows pure contempt for that customer and so we should all perhaps equally reward them for having this philosophy and so relieve them of the burden of having us on board by choosing to cheerfully pass all of our future business to another competing insurance company. Churchill clearly aren't working hard to retain us, so lets give them exactly what they want.

Besides, i've got a quote of £104 with another company from the same Comparison site which, with cashback, will be reduced even futher, so i've not got a lot of lose. However if Churchill had quoted their comparison site price on their renewal letter in the first place, I probably would have happily paid and would have been happy at that.

Fuzzy logic really, they don't do themselves any favours with these renewal quotes, especially with the constant glut of comparison site adverts brainwashing the masses.

tonycarew

I fully agree with your logic Chris as it does make perfect sense.Indeed last year I left Churchill for the AA under similar circumstances to yours.I too used a cash back site and was rewarded to the tune of £50.
Some companies really do treat existing customers as mugs.

septemberblues

I wouldn't use them for car insurance either, they may offer a low quote but they manage to scrape it all back by charging an "admin fee" for every single thing they do. To put my son-in-law on my insurance for the weekend was £16.80 (£5 admin fee), but it was £60+ (£15 admin fee) to have him on my insurance as a named driver for one year, but in reality it would only be when they went on holiday and their car doesn't work. He has a clean license and no accidents etc.

When I took out the insurance I was entitled to the Green Flag cover, so I paid extra to make sure it was good cover. When I collected my car I found it had breakdown cover on it already (from Toyota), so I saw that Churchill say you can cancel within 14 days, I rang and cancelled. I had paid an extra £46ish, so I cancelled and waited for my money back. I had only had the cover for one week, but they charged me £25 admin fee and gave me back £19.50!

Seriously, I could write a colomn on them, but I don't want to fill up the page! They even sent an email and asked for my opinions on the service, funnily enough they never got back to me