Car insurance

Vaughfitz

I bought car insurance from confused .com I filled out forms on their site and quotes were generated and I bought car insurance from 1st Central for 12 months,  2 days after I did this they contacted me asking for a further £130 to cover admin charges as I had not disclosed  claim!
I had disclosed the claim it is on my details at confused .com which proves I did  
When filling out details you are asked if any claims in last 5 years I have only had one against me and could not remember exact date but you have to input something or you cannot go further, I guessed day and month and when putting year I had inadvertently pressed 7 making it 2017 instead of 2019 
Incidentally when that claim occurred I was with 1st Central and so was on my insurance
I contacted 1st Central and they said they have amended the date and agreed there was no claim in 2017 . So I only have one claim in last five years  which I disclosed but with the wrong date.  I feel they are profiteering on a technicality do I have any rights or is there anything I can do 

Sandtree

Confused.com instructs you to check all the details are correct and that you should double check they are all correct when you go through to the vendors site to make the purchase

When you went to the vendor's website, or had you gone to any other's, they will have had a button for you to click which states that by doing so you declare all the information you have disclosed is correct to the best of your knowledge. You state you guessed at a date and therefore clearly should not have pressed that button until you had checked the date at which point you'd have notice the typo.

There is really no one to blame but yourself however there certainly seems to be a few intermediaries that have decided to more thoroughly check the declared facts given its now easier for them to check driving licenses etc electronically. 

So yes they are correct that its your fault and as such you have to pay a price... with these types of intermediaries I would anticipate there will be an admin fee for making a change (its easier to charge cheaper insurance if all changes are chargeable and people care about price alone these days) plus an additional premium for the fact the claim is more recent than you declared.

There £130 should be recalculated to confirm the corrected data and you can ask for a breakdown between fees and premiums. The former should be inline with the literature sent out when you bought the policy and the later will be what it is.

In the future... a) dont guess at anything but enter accurate data  b) double check everything for typos 

joebob

Do you get 14 days cooling off period if so cancel and purchase again.

Sandtree

joebob said:

Do you get 14 days cooling off period if so cancel and purchase again.

Cooling off gives you a right to cancel, doesnt mean cancelling the policy is free.

As an intermediary this company's cancellation fees are likely to be fairly high, particularly if the policy has incepted. Certainly want to make sure you arent shooting yourself in the foot by cancelling it and find the fees and new premium is higher than simply paying the alternation fees.

MKSavvy

May I say a big thank you to Martin for his advise on obtaining comparable  car insurance quote well ahead of time. My car insurance is due 1 March and obtained a quote this week saving me £250. I did go back to my current provider to haggle (as recommended) but they only reduced the premium by £60. 
Great result. thank you Martin
Raj

[Deleted User]

MKSavvy said:

Great result. thank you Martin

I've left a post-it note on his desk.  Cheers.