Quote me happy!!has any one used them before?

gilbert_and_sullivan

Many years ago i was shafted big time by this mob under its previous Norwich Union alias.

Basically a local town bus hit my car, totally his fault, i had a good independent witness who was livid at the bus drivers actions, NU claimed knock for knock because they happened to insure the bus company too.

I had a laughing insurance company 'advisor' on the phone who informed me if i take the bus company to court and win, they would re-instate my no claims...yeah right, young dads struggling to raise a family were always taking multi million pound companies to court in those days.

Never again.

adamc260

They've come up cheapest for me so umming and ahhing.

topazbird1

They quoted me happy, now they are making me very very unhappy. Just gone with them for my car insurance but i can tell you now i will not be renewing with them next year no matter what they quote me. They only deal with you online. There is no call centres so to get an answer to a question takes eternity and then when the idiots get the answer wrong you have to email them again and wait for a reply again. I uploaded my proof of No claims discount but they did not accept it as it never had previous insurers name on it. So i uploaded another one and got no reply from them. So i emailed them and they just sent an email saying no insurers name again. So they are looking at the first one i uploaded ARRRGGGGGHHHH. If i could just phone them it could be cleared up in a matter of minutes, but there way of emails so far this has gone on over a week. ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC, still not rectified. NOT HAPPY

property.advert

They were in the frame for my last renewal but a quick review of my data from that time shows they operate the same technology as airlines aka fuzzy logic.

If you ask for a quote, they give you a price of (for example) £100. If you then go back, it might have risen to £110. Quickly it might become £115. Their computer system pushes you to buy now, rather than risk a later rise. However, if you wait a while, it reverts back to either exactly or near the original £100.

They also offer differential pricing dependent on whether there is an intermediary or a potential cashback involved.

Of course, as with any insurance shopping around, you don't put in your real details or car registration but use a substitute with the same postcode and a registration taken from Autotrader or similar. Some companies actually load the premium quoted if you select by model rather than registration.

suzie_g_2

I tried to get insurance with quote me happy and had bad experience. I submitted my NCD proof and paid for the agreed insurance 4 days before old insurance ran out. I printed off all literature, policy, etc. (no mean task!) and then on the day my old insurance ran out I had an email to say there was a problem with the NCD date of issue and could I re submit which I duly did. I received an automated reply telling me that due to heavy use of the email section it would be 2 days before I could expect a reply. I was not given a telephone number for reply and the website says the telephone number displayed may only be used for claims. They effectively left me without insurance. Not impressed especially when you do all the work yourself. I went back to Lv - only £20 more on the phone, super!

NonGeographicalMan

I have been with Admiral for the last year and before that with MoreThan for two years, then Admiral again for three years and then AXA RAC for several years until the RAC link with AXA was severed (prices went through the roof at that point). My car is a Toyota MR2 Roadster, now getting quite long in the tooth.

I paid Admiral around £390 last year when I moved to them after a protracted dispute with MoreThan who had told me it was now compulsory to have a "voluntary" excess with them of at least £100 in addition to their "compulsory" excess on my vehicle of £250. No other insurers has ever claimed to me that you cannot make the voluntary part of the insurance excess zero.

When Admiral sent my renewal this year it was a whopping 460 quid but when I used their own confused.com to shop around it found that I could get precisely the same cover with Admiral's Elephant brand for £280. However I then noticed QuoteMeHappy only wanting £230 through the same Confused comparison.

I then took up with Admiral's CEO their constant bait and switch approach on only one of their brands offering a decent price each week or month and this being used as a way to stitch up busy but loyal customers with expensive auto renewals (unless your original payment card is no longer valid Admiral will always auto renew the policy on you unless you actively cancel before the renewal date). This complaint took a few weeks for AISL to investigate but meanwhile I found that Elephant's quote went up by £150 on Confused and the cheapest deal with AISL was now with their Diamond For Women brand even though I am a man!

However rerunning quotes on confused.com the quote from Quote Me Happy went down to an incredibly low £202 for Comprehensive with Protected NCD (admittedly the car is only worth about £2,500 these day) and I was then able to get a further £40 cashback off that by starting at quidco.com and doing the quote direct with QuoteMeHappy. At £162 net compared to a grudging £280 from AISL with Elephant (and only then because I had bothered shopping around or they would have stitched me up for £460 auto renewal with their Admiral brand) then it was simply a No Brainer to go with QuoteMeHappy and then if it is necessary resort to correspondence with Aviva's CEO using the details to be found at a useful website listing CEO email addresses (apparently Moneysavingexpert does not allow its URL to be provided in this web discussion forum) if I get any serious customer service problems.

I am very late 40s, live at a low risk home counties postcode and have owned the car for all its now quite long life. I suspect that these are all things that QuoteMeHappy's more precise quote engine than most of their rivals has decided makes me a very low risk who can therefore receive a very low quote. Even if next year I don't get any Quidco cashback QMH are still likely to be far cheaper than any of its rivals if premiums stay around the current level.

I agree that not having a phone number for customer service is not at all desirable but there is a number of 0800 056 3479 clearly shown for "Aviva car insurance complaints" at https://www.saynoto0870.com for and I am sure either a phone call to that number or an email to Aviva CEO David Barral would be likely to rectify any issues caused by the insistence on only allowing email for making customer queries and QMH then seemingly frequently failing to respond to those emails either at all or within the quoted 24 hour response period.

The bottom line is that I like many things about Admiral's insurance including especially their Protected NCD (previously handy for me if you already have one or even two claims in the last three years but at the moment I have none) but their pricing strategy for auto renewals and their refusal to have one single car insurance brand with an always low price means they do not deserve to retain my business. Also a net premium of £162 with only a £50 compulsory excess on a sports car with 6,000 miles per year of driving included is a staggeringly good deal even allowing for my advancing years and lack of an accident or speeding conviction in the last three years (but I do have one speeding and one accident in the last five years which still gives me a high quote with many other insurers).

vinylmusic

I got a quote from Quote me happy through moneysupermarket for £300 less than my renewal with Churchill
Strange things going on though
First I put £850 excess and got a quote. Then reduced it to £350 and the new quote was £11 more
Tried again at £250 and the quote went down by £50
Nearly £40 cheaper than the first quote:T
I think I'll go for it:j

NonGeographicalMan

vinylmusic wrote: »

Strange things going on though
First I put £850 excess and got a quote. Then reduced it to £350 and the new quote was £11 more.

There is normally an optimal excess vs premium point where they want you to have that excess. If you choose a bigger excess then that you will save next to nothing. However if you lower the "voluntary" excess below they want the premium will increase hugely.

Tried again at £250 and the quote went down by £50
Nearly £40 cheaper than the first quote:T
I think I'll go for it:j

That seems odd. The quote should have gone up, even though it might have only gone up by a few pounds. Have you tried £0 or £100 voluntary excess to see what the quote figures are for those excesses?

vinylmusic

That seems odd. The quote should have gone up, even though it might have only gone up by a few pounds. Have you tried £0 or £100 voluntary excess to see what the quote figures are for those excesses?

i think I reached their limit because when I put in £200 it still read £250.
Other companies accepted £200 but their premiums were over £100 more expensive
I've already saved £300 on my renewal fee so I'm not complaining

NonGeographicalMan

vinylmusic wrote: »

Other companies accepted £200 but their premiums were over £100 more expensive

Quote Me Happy are only asking for a £50 compulsory excess on my Comprehensive policy to insure my 10 year old MR2 Roadster on which the net premium cost this year is only £162 after £40 cashback from Quidco. Admiral wanted a £75 excess. Most other companies were asking for £200 to £300 compulsory excess.

People are daft if they are prepared to accept an £800 excess for only a £50 saving in premium as unless your insurance premium is say £800 cheaper over the next five years in total due to the higher excess then it quite clearly isn't worth it.

Even if QMH's email admin response is poor the fact that they do an excess as low as £50 for a Group 14 sports car still makes them worth considering given the vast and unreasonable minimum excesses asked for by many of their competitors.