Problem with insurance and broker - please help!

naughty_10382

This may be long, so please bear with me!!

I bought my first car at the end of October, and set up my insurance the same day.

I work for Dominos Pizza as a delivery driver, using my own car, but all the drivers are covered by a business use policy, meaning I need Social, Domestic and Pleasure only.

Confused.com gave me some very cheap quotes, and I rang the first one, who, unfortunately couldn't insure me because of my job, and so passed me on to a broker. The broker said the insurance would probably be high, again because of the job (I made sure I told them this from the outset), so I was very pleased when they came back to me with a price of £375 through HSBC.

I accepted this, and paid the first payment, I think it was around £110 on the 26th October. The next payment of £33 was taken from my account on the agreed date of 28th November. All well and good.

I received a letter on Saturday from the broker, worded as follows:

We have recently been advised by your Insurers that due to the fact that you will be using your vehicle for Pizza Deliverey [sic] they are unwilling to offer cover for your vehicle. In view of this, we must now advise that we have no alternative but to cancel your Insurance policy within 7 days from the date of this letter.

We have since broked your details through the list of insurers that we have available but unfortunatly [sic] we are unable to arrange alternative cover with any of our other insurers, with the use you require.

I thought it was a bit odd that I had held the insurance for 6 weeks and it was only now that HSBC were unwilling to cover me, so i called them to query this.

At first they told me that I needed to speak to my broker if I had any problems with the insurance, but I explained that it was the broker I had trouble with, and wanted some info before I spoke to them.

I spoke to someone at HSBC who informed me that they had enquired with the broker whether I used my car for delivery on November 1st (I assume they saw on the documentation that i work for a pizza company) and the man on the ohone informed me that the brokers didn't get back to them for 5 weeks, on December 6th.

As you can imagine, I'm pretty P****d off at the broker, and I will be getting in touch with them (not quite sure what I will be telling them yet, any help for an initial communication would be greatly received) but I understand it is not HSBCs fault.

I'm more annoyed that I need to get more insurance, a colleague told me he has insurance through Direct Line, who I called, they are fine with me being covered for the business side, but they've quoted me £850 :eek: which, if I can't find anything cheaper, I will have to go with. Most companies probably won't even cover me.

If I were dishonest, I'd just tell insurers that I am on the customer service side of the Dominos team, but I'm honest! :rotfl:

My main question is this - can I reclaim any of my money from the brokers (who I'm not sure if I should name and shame or not) because they were so bloody useless. :mad:

I really hope someone or some people out there can offer some advice, I'm really annoyed about all of this.

dunstonh

If I were dishonest, I'd just tell insurers that I am on the customer service side of the Dominos team, but I'm honest!

And of course face prosecution if you had an accident and it came to light you had arranged insurance fraudulently.

My main question is this - can I reclaim any of my money from the brokers (who I'm not sure if I should name and shame or not) because they were so bloody useless. :mad:

Its unusual for people to use brokers nowadays. However, you should take this query up with the broker. Indeed, why havent you done so already? Its quite possible that the broker made a check with the insurance company before arranging the policy and has a log of the call or call reference number relating to that enquiry.

Until you know where the failure has occured, you wont know who to complain to. The other thing is that you will have to declare on your next car insurance that your previous one was cancelled by the insurance company. Its one of the disclosure questions that usually appears.

naughty_10382

dunstonh wrote:

Its unusual for people to use brokers nowadays. However, you should take this query up with the broker. Indeed, why havent you done so already? Its quite possible that the broker made a check with the insurance company before arranging the policy and has a log of the call or call reference number relating to that enquiry.

Until you know where the failure has occured, you wont know who to complain to. The other thing is that you will have to declare on your next car insurance that your previous one was cancelled by the insurance company. Its one of the disclosure questions that usually appears.

I haven't taken it up with the brokers yet as I wanted to sort out more insurance first, that is my main priority as I have work later in the week, and obviously cannot drive uninsured.

I also wanted to find out why HSBC had decided not to insure me, whether they hadn't been told about the pizza delivery or because of something else.

Thanks for your reply