Avoid Churchill

erratticus

Someone crashed into my car 2 weeks ago whilst it was parked by the kerb & me at work (3rd party 'ill' on way home, crashed further down road into a lamppost) police attended, details from them (name, address, registration, insurance details); the policy is fully comp with 'guaranteed hire car'.

Reported the details, the car was taken away by menders. No hire car. Car hire company gets in touch, tells me its 1st party & to verify details with the police. Turns out the policeman had written the last letter of registration wrong. I tell my insurer. Have to go on holiday, still no hire car. Incur £60 of train fares. Apparently Churchill only reimburse £15 a day. On return, contact the menders, they say repairs not authorised. Contact the insurer, they say there's no reason to not mend it so they will instruct the menders.

The hire car company now tells me its 3rd party & I can have a Merc E class. I have no garage, live in a part council owned estate. Not worth it (fear of damage, use my car to shift junk/materials as renovating my house & garden). Tell them I want something small like a hatchback. They tell me I can't as they can make money out of the 3rd party!

Throughout all of this, Churchill have done apparently nothing & the only ones to come out with any credit were the menders (UK Assistance). The hire car lot (Enterprise) were only in it for what they could get. I've given up dealing with them! Apparently my car will be repaired by 8th December. That's a month without a car.

A friend at work (with Royal Sun Alliance) had someone crash into them, had a hire car within 2 hours.

I'm not putting my business with Churchill again! I'd urge anyone else to avoid them.

Anyone else have similar experiences?

cheers,
Howard

mikey72

No wonder insurance costs are rising. Insurers should be banned from using "claim management" companies, and should be forced to keep the costs down. It's all very well them making as much as possible off the third party, but at the end of the day the insurers just charge the customer more in premiums, then happily pass it around to each other.

WRAPPER_2

My experience with Churchill is very similar.
Got hit by someone not giving way at a junction, went through the claim procedure but had to delay UK Assist. from taking my car away when no courtesy car was ordered by CH. After phone calls they finally sorted one but I had to make do with a small hatch replacing my Mondeo est. and stump up the excess
Since then heard nothing, phoned them last week and told my NCB had not been affected and a letter had been posted, still nothing.
About to ring them again this morning, trouble is it takes half an hour to get anyone to answer every time.