1st century car insurance not good

toldthem

My son is insured with 1st central car insurance.
He had an accident last October and for two months they were going to repair the vehicle which although slightly damaged was not roadworthy. After numerous phone calls to them asking when the car was going to be repaired they decided late December 2010 that they were writing it off. They then offered 1600 pounds in a payment but when we checked on the Internet we could not find any under 2000 pounds. We sent them advertisements showing ones for sale 2000 pounds plus but 2 weeks later they advised us they were no longer for sale so could not assess them. We sent other examples and the same thing happened. I pointed out that clearly the cars sold at at over the 2000 pound figure but they would not accept that. I spent another hour checking the internet and sent a whole raft of examples to them and followed that up with some hard copies through the post January 13th 2011 and have heard nothing since.
My feeling is they are waiting for the price of that particular age and model to drop to the 1600 pounds they offered.

I tell you this so you and anyone reading this will be forewarned that this company is a bad one to deal with. Insurance of any kind should be a protection to you and not purchasing a companies services and ability to rip you off. I personally have 3 cars and to be sure I will not be using this company or any associated with it.

Quentin

Your rant is against the well documented poor service from 1st central, but your thread title is more associated with 21st century (who are nothing to do with 1st central)!

dacouch

Adverts at £2000 do not mean the value of the car is £2000, that is the price the seller is willing to start negotiation from, so allowing for negotiation maybe circa £1800 is nearer the mark,

Have a read of this link that explains about valuing written off vehicle etc http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/motor-valuation.html#13

Have a good read of section 15, not unusually 1st Central have handled the claim badly, you MIGHT be able to claim some compensation from them for the miss handling and lack of use of a car (I assume you had no courtesy car).

The link is from the Ombudsman

toldthem

Quote. Adverts at £2000 do not mean the value of the car is £2000, that is the price the seller is willing to start negotiation from, so allowing for negotiation maybe circa £1800 is nearer the mark,

Have a read of this link that explains about valuing written off vehicle etc (will not let me print link but have it noted)
Have a good read of section 15, not unusually 1st Central have handled the claim badly, you MIGHT be able to claim some compensation from them for the miss handling and lack of use of a car (I assume you had no courtesy car).
End quote

I appologise for the typo if there is a company called 1st Century. How I managed to type Century instead of Central I have no idea. To make it clear the company concerned is 1st Central.

I must get my son to change insurance companies as soon as possible by the sound of it.

Yes I would accept that a number of dealers would accept lower offers but even assuming that the examples were above that price so 2000 should be the minimum he would have had to outlay.

Thanks I will look that link up.

He has not had a courtesy car, in fact has had to purchase a cheap car in the meantime as it is difficult to get to work without one. We live in a really rural area where the bus to his work is 4 miles away. I will look at how we could claim some payment.