Admiral - Disclosing Driver Awareness Course

cmgames

I was talking to my car insurance about a recent incident that I had been involved in. They asked me some questions pertaining to past incidents and asked me if i had been on a drivers awareness course. I said that i had 3 years ago when i last made a claim. Anyway, I just received an email today to say my policy has been amended to reflect this and i will have to pay for i but when i was speaking to customer service on the phone they never made any prior mention that i would to make an additional cost.

When I first made my application online for car insurance last year I gave the info regarding the past incident. However, the online application did not ask for any information pertaining to any driver awareness course so of course this info was not included.

Is there anything i can do about this because i feel like i am being penalised unjustly.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

asking for this type of course is purely a fishing expodition to inflate premiums, there no way for them to find out as that information isn't shared with publicly like point on license and convictions. next time don't mention it.

Quentin

cmgames wrote: »

I was talking to my car insurance about a recent incident that I had been involved in. They asked me some questions pertaining to past incidents and asked me if i had been on a drivers awareness course. I said that i had 3 years ago when i last made a claim. Anyway, I just received an email today to say my policy has been amended to reflect this and i will have to pay for i but when i was speaking to customer service on the phone they never made any prior mention that i would to make an additional cost.

When I first made my application online for car insurance last year I gave the info regarding the past incident. However, the online application did not ask for any information pertaining to any driver awareness course so of course this info was not included.

Is there anything i can do about this because i feel like i am being penalised unjustly.

Admiral do ask about courses (and were doing so last year.

They look to have now discovered your "omission" and unless you can prove you were never asked then you do look to owe them and expect them to chase you for the money if you don't pay.

InsideInsurance

cmgames wrote: »

However, the online application did not ask for any information pertaining to any driver awareness course so of course this info was not included.

Yes, their question on their website is:

Do you have any motoring offences in the last five years, including fixed penalties, convictions, driver awareness course or disqualifications or have any pending prosecution?

Admiral are also one of the minority of insurers who's definition of "modification" includes all optional extras from the standard build for your car (eg metallic paint etc).

The "problem" can be that if you go via an aggregator you dont have to fill in either driver awareness courses nor optional extras. Now you are told to go back and check all the details are correct when you click through and in doing so you should spot these two issues and correct them but the proportion of people that do what they are told is tiny.

The insurer however is accepting it was a genuine error rather than attempted fraud hence giving you the option of just paying the extra premium. If they thought it was intentional then they could have voided the policy for fraud along with loading you to CIFAS etc

davidsuffolk

Admiral are one of very few insurers who ask these questions. As they are also not one of the cheapest a simple way to avoid is to to go elsewhere? I had three cars on their "Multicar "policy which allegedly gave a reduction but was able to insure elsewhere at a much lower cost

InsideInsurance

davidsuffolk wrote: »

As they are also not one of the cheapest

If there was a single insurer that was cheapest for everyone there probably would only be one insurer.

Admiral group insurers were cheapest for me for years, they are still the third cheapest but last year Tesco were better and this year my car value evidently dropped below some threashold or Aviva changed their terms as they went from declining for the last two years and then suddenly this year they are by far the cheapest.

magpiecottage

Unless they actually asked you about the awareness course when you took out the policy - or at renewal - then demanding an additional premium because they found out now would seem to be a breach of the Consumer Insurance (Disclosure and Representations) Act 2012.

So you can make a complaint to Admiral. If they still insist that you must pay extra you can take it to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Note, though, that even if they are forced to retract now, they can add a loading at renewal - so shop around next time.

jeffnail

I had to disclose last year and my premium went up 10%