Aviva Car Insurance Economical With the Truth

Kenman

A couple of years ago, I fell for Aviva's "get three months free" marketing ploy. The price seemed reasonable on the assumption that I was buying 15 months insurance. Silly me; what Aviva meant was that I was buying 12 months insurance, but at a price that was nine twelfths of their "normal" rate. As this was significantly more than other quotes, not a good deal at all. Never again, I said.
Well, this week I fell for another one from Aviva. I filled in the online form; my details, car details, excess (£250), etc. I checked it all, three times, got the quote which seemed reasonable, and bought the insurance. I was then invited to download the documents, and check them. What could be wrong? Lucky I did because the Schedule said the excess was £750. I rang them straight away (Premium rate number) and the man said it was because I had a premium car. Maybe (I don't think so), but they knew what the Car was so why didn't they say there would be an outrageous excess before I bought the insurance?
I cancelled the Aviva policy, and renewed with Direct Line, who are cheaper than Aviva, and seem happy with a £250 excess.
Someone remind me never ever ever to deal with Aviva car Insurance again.

Quentin

It sounds like a compulsory excess on top of your voluntary £250???


If so then your total excess should have been available to view before you bought.


Otherwise you have grounds for complaint and a refund of the cost of the phone call + something for your trouble.

They have a robot that spots when their name is mentioned detrimentally online (so its a busy robot), but when it posts here you will get the opportunity to contact them about this (or put in a formal complaint straight away)

rs65

Kenman wrote: »

but they knew what the Car was so why didn't they say there would be an outrageous excess before I bought the insurance?

I left them a couple of years ago because of the excess applicable. It was £250 plus £350 (plus another £200 because they have no Merc garages in their approved network - I know I don't have to use Merc but I want to).

I just tried a quote this week and the excess was still £600 but to be fair it was quite clear.

If Aviva do pop along, train your staff that if you can't reduce an excess then it shouldn't be called voluntary.

Also, if you tick 'no' to contact by phone - it means I don't want to be contacted by phone.

InsideInsurance

I am not sure where you are looking.

As others have said there is two types of excess, voluntary excess which is set by the customer and compulsory excess which you have no choice over and may be applied due to the age or experience of a particular driver or what type of vehicle you have.

When you start the process off you will be selecting the voluntary excess you want. Before buying then they should also have a facility to see what compulsory excess may also apply, now because these arent necessarily constant for all circumstances its a bit harder to represent them and so normally they are simply listed - young driver £500, nonauthorised repairer £200, vehicle type £350 then you need to work out what your total excess will be depending on whos the drive, if you use an authorised repairer or not etc.

My vehicle also attracts a compulsory excess plus I have an inexperienced driver on my policy and so in the more complex setup and I didnt have issues with the Aviva site when recently doing quotes.

Kenman

It was a compulsory excess, and not made clear during the online proposal process other than a small note indicating that premium cars might attract an higher excess. This small note was next to a big box saying £250 excess, and my car details. The extra £500 excess seems to me to be a material fact, and that the only reasons for their snazzy software not disclosing it upfront are incompetence or deliberate non-disclosure.

[Deleted User]

Kenman wrote: »

A couple of years ago, I fell for Aviva's "get three months free" marketing ploy. The price seemed reasonable on the assumption that I was buying 15 months insurance. Silly me; what Aviva meant was that I was buying 12 months insurance, but at a price that was nine twelfths of their "normal" rate. As this was significantly more than other quotes, not a good deal at all. Never again, I said.
Well, this week I fell for another one from Aviva. I filled in the online form; my details, car details, excess (£250), etc. I checked it all, three times, got the quote which seemed reasonable, and bought the insurance. I was then invited to download the documents, and check them. What could be wrong? Lucky I did because the Schedule said the excess was £750. I rang them straight away (Premium rate number) and the man said it was because I had a premium car. Maybe (I don't think so), but they knew what the Car was so why didn't they say there would be an outrageous excess before I bought the insurance?
I cancelled the Aviva policy, and renewed with Direct Line, who are cheaper than Aviva, and seem happy with a £250 excess.
Someone remind me never ever ever to deal with Aviva car Insurance again.

Hi Kenman,

Firstly, I'd like to apologise that you found the website unclear and were unhappy with the policy purchased. Please be assured we don't try to conceal any information about your policy excesses nor try to catch you out.

The website is built in order to keep the quote process as simple and smooth as possible for our customers, without missing any vital information out that could effect your choice of insurers. As we have several different types of excess, we list these on the 'Your quote' page (where the price is displayed) just underneath your amendable voluntary excess. The excesses here aren't always applicable, for example, if you chose to include a young driver on your quote, their additional excess wouldn't be applicable to older, more experienced drivers. Likewise, if you quoted for more than one vehicle, the other vehicles wouldn't necessarily be subjected to a vehicle type excess if they were lower in group/power. As a result of this, if you choose to continue to purchase, we outline the specific excesses for each car in the summary section on the 'Buy' page. Here you can expand each section of your quote and check all the details are correct and suitable for your needs before purchasing the policy.

We appreciate all feedback, so will pass your comments onto our web developers to see if we can improve the service you receive during the quote stage.

If you'd like to discuss this further with us, or feel you were not treated fairly during the quote process, please don't hesitate to get in touch with us at social@aviva.co.uk. For data protection purposes, we will need you to include your full name, date of birth, post code, policy number and MSE username please.

Thanks in advance,

Nicki
Aviva Online Team