Motor insurance troubles...advice sought

fordcortina

Hi, may I first sincerely apologise that this post may grow to be quite lengthy.

I'm involved in a war of principle (often a dangerous thing) with a motor insurance company and I'd very much appreciate any advice available, probably in connection with the law of contract. I'll be contacting citizen's advice next week, but have found this website very informative in the past, so someone out there (who's blood isn't boiling!) may be able to see this in a more objective manner and tell me if I'm flogging a dead horse, so to speak... and indeed, whether I should "bite the bullet".

I have 3 motor insurances running, a car, a commercial vehicle and a motorcycle, all full no claims and I've, fortunately, no penalty points either. The bike ins. arrived a couple of months ago with the usual "do nothing and we'll renew automatically" info, but as I'd used this site for info on new credit card deals, I phoned to renew and to change the credit card used.

A few weeks passed, but I never received any further info from them. No amendment, no credit card receipt (it never appeared on my statement either) etc but as the bike would never be leaving the garage over winter, was road-taxed (so no sorn to worry about, although current tax disc has never even been on the bike) and was worth only a little anyway (even if the garage burnt down!), insurance was not really a priority. There is no legal requirement to insure a vehicle which will not be on the road and there was no chance of a fire etc caused by the bike, as I'd drained all the fuel, taken the battery & other bits off etc (necessary acts, as most bikers will tell you). It is also "ground anchored" to the garage floor!

In all honesty, I'd normally have chased things up but with Christmas and also having to go away for a couple of weeks for family reasons, it slipped my mind.

If nothing had "gone through", I figured that I'd probably insure later in the year, or take out a "garage only" policy, if this was necessary to ensure retaining my No Claims Bonus, which was my main concern really. Garage only policies, when/if available, normally only costs a few £'s,
Anyway, to get to the point, the insurer has just sent me four letters (3 on the same day!), demanding full payment.

I must add here that I wouldn't have bothered too much about this and may well have just paid, as I'm normally "on top of" such matters, BUT this is where the point of principle kicks in!

It took hours of phone calls (and lost earnings, being self employed) to finally establish that I had given them the correct details, but that they had taken the payment from an entirely different clients credit card, who I guess phoned them at around the same time. I said that I wanted to speak to a manager, as this was not satisfactory service, but I became even more irate when the repeated answer was "shall we sort the payment first?"
I said I wanted to speak to a manager first, was told none was available, but one would phone me back later or this week.....NEITHER HAPPENED!!!

Then my fourth letter arrived....and the straw that broke the camels back! I phoned them and the very arrogant operator practically called me a liar, saying that they had sent amendments etc out. (I realise you only have my word to take on this, but NOTHING arrived at my home). I asked the operator to send me a DATED copy of the allegedly sent info, but he didn't know if they could, as it "would have today's date on", to which I re-stated "send me a DATED COPY of what you claim to have ALREADY SENT".

We went round in circles and it got quite heated. I will now go elsewhere, REGARDLESS OF COST (HONESTLY!), but he stated that if I do so, I still owe them a time on risk charge of about £50 and court proceedings may be started. My final words were that I'd welcome them trying.

Anyway, after calming down, I thought I'd check my facts and also post this lengthy thread (apologies again).

I'm definitely not going to renew with them now, even if they were to offer free insurance, but has anyone got any advice, or can point me to the best place for it, regarding this matter? Would it be wise to see this battle through to the end?

Regards,

fordcortina

Astaroth

I am not sure what you want the outcome to be?

There appears to have been 2 problems, one with the payment and the other with the mail. Certainly the second one could be the fault of royal mail or the insurer/ broker.

As to letter reprinting... I can tell you that certainly with our system if an advisor requests a regeneration of a letter the letter will carry the new date. A data extract can be done/ page dump to show letter code XWT was printed on date A but that wont tell anyone the content of the letter unless you know the codes.

Of cause failure to sort this out properly will result in the policy being voided (potentially for no intent to pay which also may result in being loaded for fraud) which you would have to declare to all future insurers and needless to say the majority of insurers would never touch you again.

To be honest I dont see why you have got irate simply about postal issues? I am more suprised when I do get mail than when I dont with how Royal mail is.

iceman_2

Astaroth wrote:

I am not sure what you want the outcome to be?

There appears to have been 2 problems, one with the payment and the other with the mail. Certainly the second one could be the fault of royal mail or the insurer/ broker.

As to letter reprinting... I can tell you that certainly with our system if an advisor requests a regeneration of a letter the letter will carry the new date. A data extract can be done/ page dump to show letter code XWT was printed on date A but that wont tell anyone the content of the letter unless you know the codes.

Of cause failure to sort this out properly will result in the policy being voided (potentially for no intent to pay which also may result in being loaded for fraud) which you would have to declare to all future insurers and needless to say the majority of insurers would never touch you again.

To be honest I dont see why you have got irate simply about postal issues? I am more suprised when I do get mail than when I dont with how Royal mail is.

Yes, because it couldn't possibly be the insurance company at fault could it??

fordcortina

Thanks for the replies, regardless of whether I totally agree or not!

Indeed iceman....I forgot that insurance companies have a clause written in stating that the customer is always....wrong!

Astaroth....the reason I got irate has little or nothing to do with Royal mail. They may, or may not (and probably didn't) have played a minor part and if you really are more surprised when you get mail than when you don't, I'd get the police to investigate! Let's be fair, I know there was an element of humour involved and anybody in business will have legitimate grumbles over Royal Mail, but it's amazing how often they stand accused of losing that one vital letter or letters, when all the other junk somehow gets through. Yes it's possible, but in this case it's a defence that doesn't stack up.

To clarify, my annoyance is directed at a broker/company who made a complete pigs ear of something that they allegedly do on a daily basis, I received no correspondence from the broker for almost two months, then three letters recently on the same day, with a fourth this week. They
could not tell me what the problem was when I originally called them, so I wasted hours of my time chasing it/them up and then never had the decency to call back, on more than one occasion when they had promised to do so.

If this isn't enough to warrant my frustration, there has been no apology for the inconvenience, considering that they finally had to admit that it was their error, and the operators were very poor. (I admit to targeting one in particular, who was one of the most arrogant, aggressive, condescending people imaginable and shouldn't be allowed to deal with such matters....and yes, I can support this claim, should it be necessary. However, as this is only my version of events, I won't be offended by any doubts that you may have in it's legitimacy, without you knowing more of what occurred).

So, it's about poor service, not the postal service. "Postal issues" as you phrased it, have nothing to do with my being irate and are certainly not responsible for the company in question's error, which was using another of their client's visa cars details to pay for a different client's policy, followed by a perfect example, in my opinion at least, of how NOT to sort a !!!!-up and instead provoke conflict.

The operator also told me that had the vehicle/bike been SORNED, it would be a different matter and they would cancel the policy from inception, with no charge. I have no idea why this would be the case (and severely doubt it's accuracy, although it may be true), but it seems rather odd. It seems to be pointing towards whether there is any evidence that a vehicle may, or may not have been on the road, rather than any actual liability of cover that they may have faced and seems totally contradictory to other views they expressed. If this was to be true, the fact that I have a completely untouched tax disc, perforations intact and still in the envelope, would be equally valid "evidence".

All this said, I accept your point that I may be rather more annoyed than the situation deserves, but that's what points of principle can do to you Astaroth. Good customer service can even turn a possible problem into a positive situation, incompetence etc and repeated mistakes and/or insults to the intelligence, only rub salt into the wounds....and you can hardly call this good service...even if you consider it to be a rather large molehill(?).

My required outcome? In all honesty, forgive the cliche, but if they had just been NICE, maybe even apologised and certainly if they'd investigated the cause properly, in order to provide answers and then phoned me back as promised, I'd no doubt have just paid, as I usually do, for an easy life. After becoming a victim of what I would call abysmal service, this magnified my anger at having to pay for the period covered by their inability to do their jobs correctly.

Of course an individual, such as myself, has a responsibility to monitor their own situation and I accept that, but circumstances, partly mine, but largely down to the broker, made this far more difficult than it ought to have been. (Here is where the poor postal service "defence" could have it's only validity, letters not getting to me, but I'm sorry, where there has been such a high amount of incompetence shown by the broker, it makes it very difficult to believe them). As I said previously, I hold a full NCD on all my vehicles and have never been a problem to any insurer, or indeed, any of the many, many people I deal with in business, including my customers, whom I would never treat so poorly.

However, I do also take on board the points you make regarding the risks of having a policy voided and thank you for this input. All things to balance against "points of principle" I guess! This is precisely the kind of info. that I, perhaps, needed in order to take a balanced view of the situation and of the possible outcomes.

Yes, the wisest course of action, even if annoying, may well be to simply pay what they claim they are owed, but ensure that the particular company involved never receives any more of my money. Principles sometimes have to be compromised a little, but over all, I find it's much better to have them.

Thanks to all who read/replied/or who even may still do so. Your replies are most appreciated.

fordcortina

Just a brief update for those who read/responded to the thread a couple of months ago.....may I first thank those who did.

Despite the (over)lengthy posts, it was impossible to include all of the details and I see no point in boring anyone with them now, but suffice to say, there was more to my grievance than could be included here.

Three words of advice for anyone who may find themselves in a similar position......Financial Ombudsman Service. The insurance company concerned backed down and even apologised once the FOS became involved (so whilst damage limitation for them may play a part, it's certainly not just down to this).

Citizen's Advice were also quite helpful.

Whilst it must be admitted, matters of principle can be time consuming and indeed, sometimes foolish, the moral here is don't be bullied either! David can indeed, occasionally beat Goliath....if he uses the help available!

Regards,

fordcortina