help - any positive car insurer stories?

backhander_2

I'm doing the annual insurance comparisons and finding that the cheapest quotes all have appalling customer service reviews. But it's much harder to find any positive comments about insurers anywhere - is this because they are all equally awful? Does anyone have a recent good experience of claiming?

Tilt

I'm probably one of the lucky ones as I havn't had a claim for about 10 years now. I was with Churchill at the time and the experience wasn't good. I have also had bad experiences with Admiral. I believe you only find out how good/poor your insurers are when you have to make a claim.

Lum

I'm quite pleased with Direct Line, because of their police of not docking you two years NCB for uninsured drivers or vandalism claims.

I had someone drop a brick off a bridge which shattered my windscreen, then dented my boot lid. They initially tried to process this as an RTA but I pointed out that they define vandalism as "malicious damage cause by someone not in charge of a vehicle" and they quickly accepted. They were also happy to let me use my own preferred garage.

It's also nice that you can stack their various discounts. 10% off for having their home insurance, 15% second car discount, 10% online discount and at the time I signed up they were doing 3 months free as well. They were over half the price of the second best quote as a result of all this.

There are a couple of gotchas though:

1) They don't deduct NCB, but you also don't gain NCB that year, so you still lose out a little

2) Their hire car facility only lasts 2 weeks (3 if you get the premium version) regardless of how long the car takes to repair. In my case it took 6 months to get a new windscreen (NOT Direct Line's fault) so this was an issue for me.


I've made a few claims in my time and Direct Line were definitely the best to deal with, with Equity Red Star being the worst, closely followed by Churchill.

vikingaero

A really good mainstream insurer is NFU Mutual. They may not be the cheapest though.

Lum

Most of the broker-only insurance companies are crap in my experience. They're broker-only so that they don't have to speak to customers. Many of them outsource their claims lines too.

worried_jim

Never had to claim or speak to one in 20 years of driving, I always go with the cheapest and I only have insurance as a legal requirement, if it wasn't the law then I wouldn't.

josie31

vikingaero wrote: »

A really good mainstream insurer is NFU Mutual. They may not be the cheapest though.

I would certainly recommend the NFu...you may have seen my post regarding my issue with them.....so probably strange I am recommending them...but the way they have sorted this out and bent over backwards to do so makes me think that if you needed to claim they would do their upmost in helping you with it. I also like the local aspect the NFU have with local offices. I have also found their prices to be extremely reasonable.

As i said probably strange I am recommending them considering thanks to their error I have been unknowingly driving uninsured for 2 weeks but think quite often how a company deals with problems is a good indication and can't fault the way they have dealt with me in sorting this out.

marlot

We've made two claims with Aviva, both of which were handled well.

Inactive

marlot wrote: »

We've made two claims with Aviva, both of which were handled well.

You are very lucky then.

" Bargepole " and " don't touch " spring to mind.;)

slbhill

It depends on so many things. Surveys do tend replies from everyone who has anything bad to say, but those with a good experience keep quiet because if all goes to plan nobody notices!

I haven't claimed myself (but I know a lot of people who have with very few issues) on classic car policies through Footman James. Of course that may not be relevant for newer vehicles *and* they're a broker not a provider *and* they got taken over a couple of years ago and I don't know if that has changed things. I'll shut up now then LOL.

But I tend to ignore the customer service ratings, within reason. I usually pick the cheapest of the ones that I've heard of!

djheath

Churchill for me were very good when I initially made a claim. Hire car was delivered next day. My car was repaired within a week, didn't hear anything after that and was happy.

Problem came one year later when other party sued me for costs! I had a horrible two weeks chasing Churchill and trying to find someone to deal with the claim. They gave me wrong numbers, wrong addresses, lots of different information which slowed up the process. It was a nightmare but did get sorted.


The best service I have had was from Aviva when somebody drove into the back of me who was insured with them. She admitted it was all her fault and so they contacted me directly, dealt with everything and fixed everything very quickly with little fuss!! Not sure how well the liability faired though!