Hastings car insurance - The worst car insurance company ever!!

afwone

Quentin wrote: »

You asked us to show how this looks from Hastings pov.

Thanks, Quentin, for the Hastings viewpoint. I appreciate the technicalities of the situation. There is an issue with stone chip repairers, though possibly for another thread (and the repair was carried out before I took out the policy with Hastings Direct and as far as I am aware was without effect on my premium with the previous insurer).

I took out the policy with Hastings Direct in good faith and there was no deliberate attempt to hold anything back that could have affected the premium. In the circumstances punishing me with a £35 fee seems to me unreasonable.

I am not refusing to pay, merely saying that I shall be unhappy to pay this. They have my credit card details and have written to say that they will collect the sum. I will not seek to block payment. I do have the option of cancelling my policy, but they will then hit me with a fee for that. I shall come to a decision before the cooling off period is over.

From my point of view, I do not feel that Hastings Direct has treated me with good sense in this small matter, and as such am concerned about dealing with them in future. The evidence from this thread and others (on this and on several other sites) is that this company has a fair number of disgruntled customers.

kolin_2

Hmm , hastings direct, i've just taken my policy out with them, maybe i should wrap my car in cotton wool and not drive it

Quentin

afwone wrote: »

I took out the policy with Hastings Direct in good faith and there was no deliberate attempt to hold anything back that could have affected the premium. In the circumstances punishing me with a £35 fee seems to me unreasonable.

The problem is you cannot "choose" what you feel you can tell any insurer when answering their questions, and what effect your answer will/won't have on the premium.

As it turns out this non disclosure of yours did affect the premium (on top of being a non disclosure). (You don't know what effect this had with your previous insurer (who knew about the claim) - you would be given a renewal premium which you either paid or shopped round)

The £35 isn't a punishment - but the agreed admin fee for notifying changes mid term. Even if there was no premium change involved, they would be justified in charging you their admin fee for making the change and making your record correct.

You were at fault, you were in the wrong, you got caught! Isn't that the "end of"?

(I don't defend Hastings, and most insurers would react in the same way to discovering a non disclosure).

afwone

kolin wrote: »

Hmm , hastings direct, i've just taken my policy out with them, maybe i should wrap my car in cotton wool and not drive it

Just dont let them know. I am sure that there will be a fee chargeable for this!

afwone

Quentin wrote: »

You were at fault, you were in the wrong, you got caught!

You know, Quentin. I am beginning to wish I hadn't asked for the Hastings Direct point of view.

You have succeeded in making them look good. At least they didn't accuse me of wrongdoing.

Inactive

afwone wrote: »

You know, Quentin. I am beginning to wish I hadn't asked for the Hastings Direct point of view.
.

However you cannot deny what Quentin has stated is correct.

Time to move on perhaps?

Indout96

They are all as bad, My premium with Elephant went up 28% despite no claims (10+ years NCB) so I moved to Admiral who quoted the price Elephant were last year (yes I know its all one company) This was for a modified car where the loadings were £120 - just about every change is £20 with Admiral.
Fast forward to May and I changed to a standard 1.8 Tigra TT, same group as Celica but no mods. Cost to change car on insurance was £48 till November, so I said "but what about the £120 loading for modifications?" their answer was that the loading was for the year!!!!! the fact that I no longer had them was immaterial.
Having looked around I can now get the new car insured at 1/2 the price of the Celica so will be moving at renewal.

I worked in insurance for many years and am BIA & BIBA qualified, it was always a rip off but seems to be getting more so now its all call centres and spotty teenagers just pressing buttons on a computer.

sassy_one

Hastings car insurance is rubbish.

Any one considering using them, DON'T.

They are not cheap and they are poor in customer relation!

fatbelly

AutoExpress recently surveyed 39 insurers. Hastings finished 24th!

So they may well be 'bad' but there a lot of companies who are considered worse by their clients!

Rather than a roll of shame it might be better to name the top ten:

1. NFU
2. RIAS
3. Frizell
4. SAGA
5. RSA
6. LV
7. Fortis
8. Adrian Flux
9. NIG
10. Co-Op

Quentin

fatbelly wrote: »

AutoExpress recently surveyed 39 insurers. Hastings finished 24th!

That list you posted is a mix of insurers and brokers.

Pretty meaningless by Autoexpress.