Nightmare getting proof of no claims for car insurance!!!

angelavdavis

I am absolutely at my wits' end!

In January, my renewal for AA car insurance came up and I thought I would dutifully shop around. At the time, Egg Insurance (who I hold a CC with) had an offer on for give £30 cash-back for insurance. I got a quote which was competitive and applied. It was agreed in principle - although they asked me to send my renewal notice from my existing insurer to prove no claims. No problem - I then sent the renewal notice in and waited for my docs to come through.

I instead got a letter saying that "Unfortunately, the supplied documentation was unacceptable" and they would need "the renewal notice" Aargh!

So I phoned them and they said because AA was the broker, they could not accept the proof. I phoned AA who said that Egg "had to accept our document as it was on AA headed paper" - but Egg still refused.

Thinking Egg were just trying to get out of giving me the £30 and thoroughly disgusted with the non-communicative attitude from Egg, I then re-insured with E-sure - accepting that the experience with Egg was a lesson to be learned and a cost I would have to bear.

Again, they asked for proof of insurance. Although I had asked Egg on two occasions to return the documentation, it wasn't returned. I therefore had to ask AA for proof, repeating to AA that E-sure also had asked for the proof to be provided by the insurer, not third party or broker! Again, AA sent a letter confirming no claims, but it was AA not Churchill!

I eventually looked up Churchill in the yellow pages and phoned them. I was taken aback to be told that "you can't phone us because we can't deal with customers like you" because I wasn't a direct customer, I was a customer of AA and "we don't have a customer service department for customers like you".

I was told by the rep at e-sure that the reason for this was Data Protection - I said that (as a DP officer), all they needed was a letter confirming my agreement to them approaching AA on my behalf, plus the policy info and they could contact - they said this wasn't the case and that I would need to speak to Churchill!!!!

I am at my absolute wits end!!! I am being pingponged between companies and can't seem to get anywhere with this. It is April and I still don't have confirmed car insurance - just cover notes!

Has anyone else suffered the same fate - what has happened? Has ANYONE got suggestions! I am on the verge of complaining to the insurance Ombudsman!!

Savvy_Sue

angelavdavis wrote:

I am on the verge of complaining to the insurance Ombudsman!!

Do it! What have you got to lose?

There are some very knowledgeable people working in car insurance in The Back Room of Honest John so you could post your story there and ask for advice. You'll have to register, but it's free and they're usually friendly ...

dunstonh

Churchill are correct. They are effectively working for the AA so their contract is with them. If you were directly with Churchill, then it would be a different matter.

DP seems to get blamed for all sorts of rubbish nowadays. Although you can get round it with a letter, you have to remember that the telephone people at the insurance companies usually have no discretion or sufficient knowledge to act when something is not on their script.

The letter from AA should suffice. Most of these "direct" brokers issue documents with their own branding and not the company that underwrites the plan.

savvy

OMG I had this problem with e-sure!!!! Accepted me straight away and cover started, then they decided they wanted prove of No Claims, I couldn't send them anything and told them to that effect and asked them to contact my previous insurance company to obtain the said information.

A couple of weeks later they sent me a letter to say they had already cancelled my policy. GREAT, that meant I had been uninsured for a couple of days without knowing it! :mad: So went off to another company that did the old way! :rolleyes:

Paul_Varjak

Working with agents can also be problematic when you have an accident! The agents gave different answers to me than the actual insurers about the other party to the accident. They also gave differing answers to the Police which meant the Police failed to prosecute the other guy for no insurance (he produced 'doctored' insurance documents)

I think it best to avoid agents. In general, the direct policies are cheaper anyway, because the insurance companies do not then have to pay commission to the agent.

ohreally

savvy wrote:

I couldn't send them anything and told them to that effect and asked them to contact my previous insurance company to obtain the said information.

The onus is on you to verify your claim to no-claims bonus, not on the new insurer to seek it from another firm.

savvy

ohreally wrote:

The onus is on you to verify your claim to no-claims bonus, not on the new insurer to seek it from another firm.

Well I'd never had to do it before (is there a new ruling or something???), and didn't have anything that stated it.......................so basically that was the only thing I could think of, and they never said anything to the contrary, so I believed they were on to it

angelavdavis

ohreally wrote:

The onus is on you to verify your claim to no-claims bonus, not on the new insurer to seek it from another firm.

What I don't understand about my experience is that what seemed to be acceptable by the AA as proof was not the case by e-Sure or Egg. This meant that I was being rebounded back and forth and getting nowhere!!!

Why don't the actual insurance companies provide a proof of no claims when they send out the renewal? Just like you getting an eye prescription when you have an eye test, as well as perhaps a quote for glasses?

I can't help thinking they are making it deliberately difficult to stop you moving your business elsewhere.... or am I being too cynical??!! ;-D

ohreally

angelavdavis wrote:

Why don't the actual insurance companies provide a proof of no claims when they send out the renewal?

I agree, they should send out proof at renewal time and normally they do. I'd be inclined to approach your broker once more and inform them of you dismay at their handling thus far and to advise of their grievence procedure as you wish to invoke it on a formal level. That may get the ball rolling at this point. Good luck as i have recently had to take on a stubborn insurance company and i know what they are like, but with persistance i won my case and recieved compensation and reinstatment of suspended no claims bonus.