£20 Tesco Car Insurance admin fee...

bigmaz

My wife passed her driving test yesterday, so I phoned Tesco to update my policy to show she has a full drivers license. He changed it withing a second and went on to say I will be charged £20 admin fee.... Unbelievable.... Is this a common practise? I would kind of understand if it was an error on my part and I had to change it to be correct, or if it was something I wanted to voluntarily change, but when its something I am forced to change, getting charged for it is a joke. I complained so he went away to see if he could remove the charge, but his manager wouldn't budge. Very dissapointed Tesco.....

Quentin

Paying an admin fee for making changes will be set out in the policy.


You say you made a complaint but it was knocked back. This doesn't sound like a formal "Complaint". If you feel you have been charged wrongly then you need to make a formal complaint inline with the complaints procedure which will be set out in the policy docs.


(If they only want the £20 (and no premium increase) then you have done OK! Normally changing from a learner to a full licence holder adds £100s to the premium!)

bigmaz

Quentin wrote: »

Paying an admin fee for making changes will be set out in the policy.


You say you made a complaint but it was knocked back. This doesn't sound like a formal "Complaint". If you feel you have been charged wrongly then you need to make a formal complaint inline with the complaints procedure which will be set out in the policy docs.


(If they only want the £20 (and no premium increase) then you have done OK! Normally changing from a learner to a full licence holder adds £100s to the premium!)

I just complained over the phone at the time, I know how to make a formal complaint.

Just very frustrating making you pay for a change you have to make... Its not the amount that annoys me. Just because its not a lot of money, doesn't mean its not a rip off.

InsideInsurance

Some charge £50+ for admin fees so arguably you have gotten off lightly. Some do however allow you to do amendments online for free and only charge if you use the call centres

skintpaul

Would premium come DOWN, now that the Mrs has passed test? IE, less of a risk, than a learner?

Quentin

skintpaul wrote: »

Would premium come DOWN, now that the Mrs has passed test? IE, less of a risk, than a learner?

Not really.


Now she has a full licence she can drive unsupervised.


Statistics don't favour inexperienced drivers which explains why they usually face extra compulsory excesses.

InsideInsurance

skintpaul wrote: »

Would premium come DOWN, now that the Mrs has passed test? IE, less of a risk, than a learner?

Exact opposite, shes is no different to what she was 5 minutes before her test but doesnt now have an experienced driver there to oversee her actions.

For older drives there tends to be little to no impact but younger people will often see a fairly big spike as now they dont have Mum telling them to slow down but a bunch of mates suggesting they see how fast it will go

bigmaz

I did expect premiums to go up actually, which I wouldn't have had any problem with. Its just that £20 charge for something I HAVE to change. Ah well, its providing someone somewhere with a nice bonus at the end of the year

InsideInsurance

bigmaz wrote: »

Its just that £20 charge for something I HAVE to change. Ah well, its providing someone somewhere with a nice bonus at the end of the year

Yes, thanks :beer:

More seriously, the regulators currently support the idea that "pay on use", ie admin fees, are a fairer approach than charging everyone an extra £X irrespective of if they may 0 changes or 20 changes.

You could argue that there should be a per minute fee rather than flat rate but thats just a can of worms for people to argue that their call should have taken 2 minutes rather than 2.5 but the agent didnt speak clear enough etc.

Of course when you consider the cost you arent just talking about X minutes of 1 persons time but all the other staff that support them and the infrastructure around them. A former client had 7,000 service call centre staff at one point spread over 10 call centres (plus a further 8 Disaster Recovery sites) probably with around 5,000 computers, desks, phones etc supported by IT and HR, team leaders, managers, internal audit/ quality control etc etc. Add all those costs up, divide by the average number of MTAs they make a year and you should have a number that is in the ball park or higher than the admin fee they are charging.

skintpaul

OP should see if other co's give a better quote. then see what existing insurer says, when you call to cancel..