Which car insurer offers the best customer service?

Hatrick24

Hi everyone,

Just changed my car and need to set up new insurance. I've been on the comparison sites and got a range of quotes from £350 upwards. However, how can I compare the level of service the companies give? I am happy to pay more than £350 for quality service if I ever need to call or use them.

A couple of years back I had an older gentleman hit my car and at that time I was with Admiral. They were terrible and I vowed I would never use them again. Thankfully, the gentleman was with Saga and they were outstanding, arranging the repair of my car without issue.

Can anyone recommend any particular companies that are known to offer a decent level of service please?

Thanks ever so much!

InsideInsurance

Have a look at Which? that tend to rate more on service than they do on product quality http://www.which.co.uk/money/insurance/reviews-ns/car-insurance/whichrecommended-providers/

You will somewhat inevitably find that service comes at a price and I've personally found some of the results a little spurious - I've seen two brands that have shared staff being scored very differently on customer service despite the fact it is the identical staff answering both brands calls and no differentiation occurred beyond the terms of the policy (which for motor are almost identical anyway)

rev_henry

NFU are meant to be excellent but are very picky with who they'll cover.

First Central are meant to be diabolical. Any brand of BISL (Post Office, Budget etc) are not very good either.

forgotmyname

The problem is you only really find out after a claim.

Even the ones that come top of the list for customer service have posts on the net with people complaining about poor service.

ACG

Never had to make a claim with the, but when i needed to speak to them they answered the phone within seconds rather than the 25 minutes i spent on hold to hastings before giving up and emailing them - but LV= seemed quite good.

olly300

forgotmyname wrote: »

The problem is you only really find out after a claim.

Not necessarily.

Proving NCD or changing policy details i.e. address, adding drivers can cause serious problems for some insurance companies.

One thing to do is make sure you know what the admin fees are before buying the policy.

Hatrick24

Thanks to everyone for their advice! Have gone with NFU. It was dearer but hopefully better service.

Thanks again, really appreciated the advice!

InsideInsurance

forgotmyname wrote: »

The problem is you only really find out after a claim.

I think the reality is too few people have much contact with their insurers to ever make a proper judgement.

A claim can be a very bias situation as it depends very much on the circumstances and if there are other parties involved, how they and their insurers act. If liability doesnt go the way you want it to then most people will have a negative impression of their insurers even though clearly it is the courts that establish the guidelines for negligence.

Added to that I can say without fail the level of service in claims can be vastly impacted by your luck of which claims handler(s) you get. Some of my colleagues would fight hard, would try all the tricks in the book to win a case, others either werent as experienced or simply werent as impassioned as others. No matter a companies aims or ethos no one will ever be able to hire X,000 people who are all 120 percenters