Excessive administration fee

dacouch

Their fees could potentially be to high as the FSA generally frown on anything over £50, so the fees they list that they could potentially charge are to high. I suspect they have charged circa £25, as mentioned before you are well within your rights to request a breakdown of the fees they have charged.

It sounds like your mother has made an innocent mistake which is not fraud and the chances are the Ombudsman would have backed her in a disputed claim. Do not let them intimidate her on the phone over what was an innocent and expensive mistake.

If they genuinely charge more for caravans over houses they can request the difference in premium.

Have you tried running a quote through their system with exactly the same details but entering the caravan as a house etc to see if it actually does make a difference to the premium

incubusaurus

Hi dacouch,

I'm hoping to get all the information together early next week. My mum has been visiting for the weekend, so we haven't had access to all the necessary information. She said that she doesn't recall the type of dwelling being mentioned on the printed documentation or certificate that she received, so she may not have been able to spot this mistake after the web process was complete.

I agree with your idea about entering checking the quotes for same details but with different dwellings. Once I have all the relevant information, I'll run through the quote system, and update this thread. I hope to speak to the Financial Ombudsman advice line tomorrow. For me, it's a slightly tricky call - I don't mind paying for my mistakes, but I don't like being ripped off either - and I'm sure my mum feels the same way.

incubusaurus

I really should have run through the quotes a little sooner! The sample data I entered gave a price of £310.30 with the dwelling as a sited caravan, and £266.70 with the dwelling as a house. That's a £43.60 difference, leaving £16.40 for admin fees, which is much more acceptable. I do feel rather stupid now.

dacouch: Thanks again for taking the time to look into this, and sorry to have wasted your time.

dacouch

How did your mum get the quote, was it through a comparison site where she entered her details or did she go direct to the onecall site.

I ask the above as the comparison site quote may not have asked a question about whether it was a house or caravan, if so did it then ask the question when she clicked to accept the onecall quote.

If you know the comparison site we could run a quote through and see if they ask

incubusaurus

dacouch wrote: »

How did your mum get the quote, was it through a comparison site where she entered her details or did she go direct to the onecall site.

I'm not sure, and she's on a train in the middle of nowhere at the moment. I'm fairly sure it was direct, but I'll check it out. After having seen the price difference on their site, I'm inclined to say that this was a fair cop gov!

dacouch

I would be surprised if she went directly to their site as she is unlikely to have heard of them before but will probably remember the annoying opera singer or Omad's adverts etc etc so it would be worth checking this out as comparison sites do not always ask these types of questions.

Onecall are a broker and thus deal with lots of companies, so when you run the different quotes through it may be quoting different Insurers where as to make an exact comparison you would need to get a quote from the same insurer through them.

Find out how your mum got to the one call site and then have a look at the questions the comparison site ask, you can then click through on the one call quote from the comparison site and see if it asks about home type before you commit to buy. If it does not and does not have a list of assumptions that include it being a home then the charge is probably not due.

lisyloo

Awkward and confusing website forms are very common, and for someone who is not particularly tech-savvy, it can be easy to miss things on these forms.

I would suggest in future that she finds a high st broker and goes into their high st office and sits down face-to-face and gets them to do the paperwork.
Insurers have to rely on the information they are given.
If she can't do that herself, she should offload that responsibility to a human broker who will fill out the forms.
Of course she would need to read and check them but that doesn't require anyone to be tech-savvy only to spend a little time reading.

I used to do it this way 25 years ago before we had computers.

incubusaurus

Judas, lisyloo,

It's a shame that those who may benefit most from the potential savings available from online brokers are often put off from doing so, feel unable to do so, or sometimes just plain misled, by the all too common problems that poorly designed technology can create.

Unfortunately, some people do actually make mistakes every now and then. Even when it comes to important matters like insurance. Sometimes, people even make mistakes when computers are not involved. To err is, after all, human. Personally, I'd prefer to make a few mistakes and learn from them, rather than reject anything new for fear that I may do something wrong.

In this particular case, it looks as though the extra costs involved were mainly due to the difference in insurance costs between a dwelling of type house and a dwelling of type sited caravan. The form could have been designed better, but my mum could also have checked it more carefully.

I'm glad that my mum is prepared to embrace new technology. A valuable lesson has been learned, and my mum is now a little wiser, and less likely to make the same mistake again.

lisyloo

It's a shame that those who may benefit most from the potential savings available from online brokers are often put off from doing so, feel unable to do so, or sometimes just plain misled, by the all too common problems that poorly designed technology can create.

High st brokers have computers too :-)
It's not all Roladex and fililng cabinets :-)
They are very high tech these days and will use computers heavily.

The difference is that they will operate the computer interface for you, so it suits non tech-savvy people .
If THEY make a mistake then they have liability insurance.
Whereas if you DIY then it's your resopnsibility.

Unfortunately, some people do actually make mistakes every now and then. Even when it comes to important matters like insurance. Sometimes, people even make mistakes when computers are not involved. To err is, after all, human.

Of course it is.
If a professional makes a mistake they have liabiity insurance to cover the cost.
If you make a mistake, you have to accept the responsibilty and financial cost yourself.

Personally, I'd prefer to make a few mistakes and learn from them, rather than reject anything new for fear that I may do something wrong.

Ok, but you have to accept the responsibility and the cost if you make a mistake on an important matter.
If you don't like tech interfaces you can always print things out and read them on paper or check the documents when they arrive.

I know people make mistakes buit if it's something important (like holiday flight times) I get them double check by asking my husband to check them aswell so it's done by two people.
Not totally 100%, but putting some extra effort in place does reduce the chance of it happening.
You have 14 days to check paperwork, which should be plenty of time to read and also get someone else to have a look if you want that.

I'm glad that my mum is prepared to embrace new technology. A valuable lesson has been learned, and my mum is now a little wiser, and less likely to make the same mistake again.

Great, if she wants to do it herself that's fine.
She just has to accept any costs to her learning.
It's jsut an option I was offering up which may be of help to some reading.
My 82 year old parent would not be able to embrace things like your mum, so good for her.

dunstonh

The problem with making mistakes is that when the profit margin is reduced, the company cannot afford to write off the cost of the mistake if they are not responsible.

Also, by cutting out the broker/adviser you are taking on the responsibility they would have for getting it right along with the liability if its wrong.

Quote sites are increasingly being recognised as creating an increased level of work for companies. Whether it be corrections or even non disclosure resulting in rejected claims. Some companies are starting to pull away from quote sites because of the issues.