Admin Fee for Change of Address

KimberleyMaria

vusys1 wrote: »

when was your renewal due, as Churchill,DL etc will waiver the admin fee if your renewal is within 30 days.

If your renewal is due, did they tell you the new renewal price with the amended address as sometimes the consultants update the existing policy but not the renewal quote on system & thats when problems occur as letters will go to your old address etc, this has also happened with change of vehicles,the policy has renewed on the old car details,no new car on the MID

My renewal is due on the 1st of December so looks like I just missed out, that must be why the charge was less

ROY47

Cost the daughter £17.50 to change the registration number with admiral

On top of the £1250 she paid 10 days before for the year :eek: :eek:

dunstonh

It's just that I worked as an administrator for an insurance company and it seems to be quite a high charge

Did you work in Romania? It couldnt have been the UK as you would know the costs of regulation, compliance and administration are high.

mikey72

dunstonh wrote: »

Did you work in Romania? It couldnt have been the UK as you would know the costs of regulation, compliance and administration are high.

Well, the costs to the customers certainly are.

dunstonh

mikey72 wrote: »

Well, the costs to the customers certainly are.

Yes. Ultimately, the consumer pays for that as charges reflect the costs. Who else is going to pay the costs?

Regulation and compliance is a good thing but the FSA have made things so damned expensive with the way they do things.

KimberleyMaria

dunstonh wrote: »

Did you work in Romania? It couldnt have been the UK as you would know the costs of regulation, compliance and administration are high.

No, Norfolk actually. I don't know about regulation and compliance costs but the wage I was paid as an administrator certainly didn't reflect such a high charge for administration fees.

dunstonh

I don't know about regulation and compliance costs but the wage I was paid as an administrator certainly didn't reflect such a high charge for administration fees.

I run a financial services company and the biggest cost is regulation and compliance. Wage is second to it.

However, you were paid as an administrator. What about the supervisors and compliance team, IT team etc that also have to be paid for? What about your benefits package as its not all about your pay?

KimberleyMaria

dunstonh wrote: »

I run a financial services company and the biggest cost is regulation and compliance. Wage is second to it.

However, you were paid as an administrator. What about the supervisors and compliance team, IT team etc that also have to be paid for? What about your benefits package as its not all about your pay?

But surely changing an address is only a tiny part of what regulation and compliance is involved with, it definitely is when it comes to supervisors and IT, and so if it is the biggest expense for the company then surely a large portion of customers' premiums will be going towards them anyway...? I think it's hard to draw the line on when to charge a customer for a service like that because arguably a customer who calls up at all is using up more of the company's resources by keeping an employee busy on the phone and so should they then be charged more too?

The company I worked at was actually a really nice place to work, great ethos and seemed to really care about their employees, but apart from having flexi-time I don't think there were many benefits... it was a part of the Perkz benefit scheme, but 28 days holiday is standard isn't it?

InsideInsurance

That is the balancing act that needs to be done.... what do you charge up front to every single customer and what do you charge to only those that ask for additional services.

The reality is that this isnt new at all, insurers have charged them for decades, what has changed is that insurers must now give breakdowns of costs. 10 years ago, before the ICOB rules came in you'd do a COA and get told thats going to be an extra £30 and people accepted it. Now they get told its an extra £5 premium and £25 admin fee and they get annoyed by the admin fee portion.

The fact people buy on price so much with insurance is always going to push companies towards reducing the up front premium as much as they can and loading the admin fee to compensate. The fact the regulator seems to prefer the idea of paying what you use rather than requiring everyone to fund those that make lots of changes helps justify it too.

dunstonh

But surely changing an address is only a tiny part of what regulation and compliance is involved with, it definitely is when it comes to supervisors and IT, and so if it is the biggest expense for the company then surely a large portion of customers' premiums will be going towards them anyway...? I think it's hard to draw the line on when to charge a customer for a service like that because arguably a customer who calls up at all is using up more of the company's resources by keeping an employee busy on the phone and so should they then be charged more too?

Changing address is just one of the admin tasks. With some it may take a few minutes, with others it could be longer. Other admin tasks could take 60 seconds or some could take 6 hours. However, when you operate a flat charge for admin, then you have to pick a figure that covers the vast majority of tasks.

Either that or you remove the admin charge and factor it back into the annual premium which increases the cost for everyone, whether they create an admin task or not.

Also remember that the FSA like explicit charging. Whole chunks of financial services are moving to explicit charging with the retail distribution review and whilst insurance has little impact from that initially, it is clear to see where the trends are.