Churchill car insurance nightmare!

alx100

Hi all,

On Tuesday 7th, i renewed my car insurance with Churchill. I received a renewal notice in the post from them, quoting me a price.

So i rang them up, and accepted the renewal price, but asked for the car breakdown/recovery policy, (which was £80), to be taken off. They said that's no problem, and so this bought the total price of the insurance down a bit, so i paid in full using my visa debit. I also added legal cover. The total price for the insurance and legal cover was around £370.

However, today i have received the policy documents, and am shocked to see that they have charged me £200 more than the price that we agreed! The total price is now more than £630.
I rang them up and they said that £630 is the correct price and that they have no record of the £370 price. I then told them the name of the person i spoke to on Tuesday, and also told them that Churchill sent me a renewal letter, quoting the agreed price. They said that the renewal letter is not enough to confirm the price.

They then said that there is nothing that they can do and they will need to listen to the call again and will call me back in 1 hour, (that was at 10AM).

Come 1PM, and still no call, so i rang them up again and explained the whole situation to another chap, who said that everything has been transferred to their customer relations team, and they will deal with it, and that it will take 1 week for them to get back to me.
I explained that the money has already been taken out of my account and i am not happy about having to pay more than £200 to what i agreed with.
He then said that there is no record/documents relating to the £370 price insurance policy, other than the words "renewed" from the person i spoke to on Tuesday.


I know that 100% i am in the right, because during my initial call on Tuesday, i wrote down the prices the Churchill guy was telling me, (as well as the call time/his name), and as well as that, i have the renewal notice from Churchill confirming the price. (On top of that, why would i agree to a £630 insurance policy when i can get it cheaper elsewhere)...

What i am most angry about though is them taking more money out of my account than i agreed to, and hopefully, i wont be overdrawn as i dont tend to keep that much money in that particular account.

So in terms of what i need to say back to them/i can do, or in terms of speeding things up, is there anything?

Thanks


EDIT: Just thinking that could i say to them that for everyday this goes on, i will charge them x% on the £200+ difference? (I am sure they would do the same to me).

go_cat

A lot of the insurance companies record conversations for training purposes - have you asked if you can have a copy of that ?

alx100

Thanks for your reply.

No, i have not asked for a copy of the call, as they said that they will be checking it.
Should i ask for a copy of it too?

McKneff

To be perfectly honest,I would ring up and cancel the whole blumming lot. I wouldnt put up with that from any company.

I knwo it will take a few days to get your money back but i really would go with some one else even if i had to get it on my
cc or pay for it over a year.

You are still within the cooling off period.

catflea

Sorry if I missed a point, but if its on a credit card you can raise a disupute with your CC provider. If its DD you can ask the bank to make a claim under the indemnity scheme. EDIT: sorry, just seen its a debit card. You will HAVE to deal with churhill.....

If you dont recieve a satisfactory response then write to them citing that the problem and including the word complaint (so there is no wriggle room) ALL insurance sales calls should be recorded for reasons of FSA compliance - if your call is not recorded or churchill claim they have lost it they could be in huge trouble!

If they then dont follow the FSA complaints procedure to the letter you have them over a barrel

shortchanged_2

Agree with Mckneff, under the DSR's you are still under the cooling off period, just cancel it in writing requesting a full refund. Their loss ultimately as I'm sure you'll never use them again. (unless you made a claim previously with them ).

Optimist

shortchanged wrote: »

Agree with Mckneff, under the DSR's you are still under the cooling off period, just cancel it in writing requesting a full refund. Their loss ultimately as I'm sure you'll never use them again. (unless you made a claim previously with them ).

Financial services are exempt from the Distance Selling Regulations

shortchanged_2

Optimist wrote: »

Financial services are exempt from the Distance Selling Regulations

Yes, thankyou Optimist I stand corrected.

alx100

Thanks all for your replies.

If Churchill honour their original quote, then i would still like to stick with them, as they were the cheapest by some margin.
If they say that i have to end up paying the £635 new price, then i will definitely cancel the policy and demand that they refund me in full, (as reading the policy, it seems that they charge some admin fee's).

I have no idea why the new £635 price is over £200 from what i paid last year; its not as if i have ever made any insurance claims, modified the car in any way or changed the car and i also have a number of years no claims bonus (protected). This is something that they said they would look into too.

It looks like i will just have to wait for their customer relations team to come back to me, and then follow catflea's advice if the outcome is not in my favour.

Optimist

Have you tried getting a quote from their web site to see how it compares ?

alx100

Just an update:

I received a telephone from the customer relations team today, who firstly apologised for all this.
She then said that she listened back to the call, and completely agreed with with i said as well as the original quote of £370.
She then apologised for taking £650 out of my account and that the advisor who took my call initially should have spotted this error.

Anyway, she said that the difference will be refunded back to me ASAP, as well as give me £30.00 compensation, as well as refund me any bank charges (if i have occured any).

So overall, i am happy with this result and at least it is all sorted.

Once again, thanks all!