Aviva Car Insurance to First Direct (10% off Renewal Quote)

chaotic_j

Hi,

I paid last year £451.76 as a new customer with Aviva for a comprehensive car insurance policy.

This years automatic renewal quote £548.00.

Done all the comparison sites etc, cheapest quote coming in at around £750.00 with RAC, can get £80.08 cashback but still obviously a lot more expensive than Aviva, and also higher excesses etc.

Saw on MSE that First Direct will do 10% off a Renewal Quote, I meet all the criteria in their offer.

Telephoned Aviva, spoke to someone in India and explained about First Direct and 10% off and gave the price First Direct quoted me, Aviva just said "no we can't match that" so I said ok please lapse the policy, and they said "so you want to cancel from 24th November?" and I said "I want to lapse the policy, I don't want it to renew" so they said "Ok it will be cancelled on 24th November".

Now nothing is displayed on the Aviva website when I log in other than "Hello (myname)!" - is this normal?

Also I rang First Direct to sort out their insurance, as when I put all my details in one of the assumptions was that my car had a security device (it doesn't have any in fact, and there was no option to change it).

I went through some stuff with the advisor, and she said that because the letter from Aviva is an auto-renewal and mentions auto-renewal I need to wait for my cancellation letter from Aviva, so that they can match everything otherwise I'll get charged more? and that without the 10% off the Renewal Quote they would be charging me over £1000.00

I also got a new quote from Aviva on their website, it is coming in at £759.00!

Bit confused here, it was very difficult dealing with the Aviva Indian call centre! I had to sort out some details before I cancelled i.e. their system had changed me, randomly at some point to married (I'm single) and also my email address and telephone number were wrong.

Also the documentation from Aviva says that there are 2 cars in the household, would that be a problem for First Direct? (I moved house a while ago and whilst I changed my address, I didn't know to change 2 cars to 1 car...) I have since changed this with Aviva.

Many thanks in advance!

Quentin

This sounds like First Direct are trying to weasel out of the offer.

eg What if you had contacted them the day before your current policy expired (when there would be no possibility of you supplying them the "cancellation letter from Aviva")?

dacouch

Bear in mind that the First Direct premium at next renewal will be circa £1100