Car insurance quote based on name

mccobr

My car insurance is up for renewal again so I went to the Admiral website to get a quote. Filled in all my details and got an acceptable quote for the year ahead.


However I noticed that I had typed one c instead of 2 in my surname when I looked at the final details so I went to online chat and asked them to rectify it in the quote. They did that and my quote rose 40% or £413.91 difference! No other details were altered. 6 yrs NCD, same address, same age (40), same car registration and car, same person, same no convictions, same no claims, but one letter different.


When I obviously challenged them they said that their internal and external searches in my name drove the quote price change, but they wouldn't explain to me why the quote varied so much for an identical person with 9 letters in their surname instead of 8. My credit rating is good and I pay my car insurance up front. My suspicion is that either the cheaper offer is reserved for new customers or that somehow they means test my affordability from my credit file???


Does anyone know if they are allowed to do this? Are people aware that insurance companies do this? The most frustrating thing is they seem to be able to hide behind the veil of a pricing model that somehow discriminates without giving any explanation.

huckster

If you are already an existing customer, i suspect that it is them attempting to stop you obtaining a new customer priced policy. A bit naughty really, but i am not sure there is much you can do apart from complain.

Get some alternative quotes from elsewhere.

mccobr

Thanks for your reply but I'm aware that I can get quotes elsewhere, that's not the point of the post.

Highlighting these sort of practices and making others aware is partly what this website is for. My question is more directed at someone who knows whether means testing, if that's what's happening, is allowed and explain to me why the price variance exists for someone identical to me in every way apart from one letter can change a quote by 40%.

Marktheshark

Simple explanation is :
Loyalty is an expensive habit and certainly not a money saving one.

Aretnap

The correct spelling means that the system recognises you as an existing customer so doesn't credit you with the new customer discount. They give a discount to new customers - just the same as my gym which offers new members 15 months for the price of 12, my broadband company who gave me my first six months half price, and for that matter Sainsbury's who recently gave me a voucher for £30 off my first online shop.

Arguably it wouldn't hurt for insurers to be more upfront about the fact that their quotes for new customers include a discount, but as things stand there's nothing requiring them to advertise the fact, and the principle of offering discounts to attract new customers is a perfectly reasonable one which is common across many types of business.

huckster

This has nothing to do with a credit check in my opinion. The Insurers systems do cross check with credit records mostly to identify people. Because they would check using, name, date of birth, address, it would be sophisticated enough to realise that the name was spelt slightly incorrectly.

The correction of the name has not led to credit record data increasing the premium. Yes some Insurers do use credit data to partly calculate premiums or whether they offer monthly payments by DD. But i don't think the correction of your name, is behind the premium increase. When the quote was re-run, it has picked up you were an existing customer and it has led to the premium increase. The customer service staff at the Insurers would not know reasons, as they can't see it on their screens. The Insurers rating analysts with access to more data would be able to find out, but i doubt they would tell you,

forgotmyname

Saga wont let you get a quote online if your already a customer, try to do it online and it will say see your renewal.

Parents were with them and i managed to get a quote by tinkering with the name and address slightly. No point though they just said the renewal was the price so they left them.