Car Breakdown Cover Warning

bleachqueen_2

I've been buying breakdown cover since I began driving in 1980. I've just renewed to a company I hadn't heard of, assume it's one of the smaller ones, but it came up via a well-known comparison website and the price was good at £27.50 including Homestart. However, when I got my confirmation and documents, and read through them, I was annoyed to see (first time ever) a list of additional charges, including £9.99 for a change to personal details. I've heard warnings about this but never seen it, and it wasn't mentioned anywhere in the comparison or sign up info. I'm annoyed about this because 1. it isn't common (as far as I know), 2. the buyer should be told up front, and 3. £9.99, whilst not a huge amount, is over a third of the cost of the premium itself, and 4. I object to paying for something which I would do on my computer and their (already set up) systems would do the rest. Other charges include £9.99 to cancel within the first 14 days - so the statutory cooling off period seems to have gone out of the window!, £9.99 to cancel after 14 days, and £60 if the policy's declared void due to misrepresentation or fraud. But an important point for me is that it left me wondering whether they would be reliable in a breakdown situation, basically my trust in this company evaporated. If they're going to treat me like a cashpoint, and hide relevant info until you're caught out .... not for me. I cancelled the policy at a cost of £9.99 and went to a service I know I can rely on to have my back in an emergency. I don't know if I should post the name of the company so I won't, just a warning to other people, if you don't already know, this is now part of the insurance environment. I'll also post this in the 'car breakdown' forum.

Westin

What is the breakdown service company called?

JJ_Egan

Pointless warning unless we know who .

Tokmon

bleachqueen_2 said:

I've been buying breakdown cover since I began driving in 1980. I've just renewed to a company I hadn't heard of, assume it's one of the smaller ones, but it came up via a well-known comparison website and the price was good at £27.50 including Homestart. However, when I got my confirmation and documents, and read through them, I was annoyed to see (first time ever) a list of additional charges, including £9.99 for a change to personal details. I've heard warnings about this but never seen it, and it wasn't mentioned anywhere in the comparison or sign up info. I'm annoyed about this because 1. it isn't common (as far as I know), 2. the buyer should be told up front, and 3. £9.99, whilst not a huge amount, is over a third of the cost of the premium itself, and 4. I object to paying for something which I would do on my computer and their (already set up) systems would do the rest. Other charges include £9.99 to cancel within the first 14 days - so the statutory cooling off period seems to have gone out of the window!, £9.99 to cancel after 14 days, and £60 if the policy's declared void due to misrepresentation or fraud. But an important point for me is that it left me wondering whether they would be reliable in a breakdown situation, basically my trust in this company evaporated. If they're going to treat me like a cashpoint, and hide relevant info until you're caught out .... not for me. I cancelled the policy at a cost of £9.99 and went to a service I know I can rely on to have my back in an emergency. I don't know if I should post the name of the company so I won't, just a warning to other people, if you don't already know, this is now part of the insurance environment. I'll also post this in the 'car breakdown' forum.

So you think there was no cost to them for setting up those systems and no ongoing cost for them to maintain those IT systems and update them as required?. There is a definite extra cost to them offering a change of details online (as there is with offering a change of details on the phone but online will be less). Then when you consider most policies will not require any change of details or contact with the customers then the cost of the system to allow details to be changed and contact with the customer will be distributed between this smaller group which therefore means a higher cost.

When you go to the budget end of the spectrum them costs like this need to be accounted for when they are trying to remain as competitive as possible. 

But as others have said you need to tell us who they are and I'm sure you did have the chance to review these costs before purchasing. 

mattyprice4004

So it's a warning about a company we can't identify? 
What's the point? 

lisyloo

The general lesson here is look at the charges before you buy.

Le_Kirk

lisyloo said:

The general lesson here is look at the charges before you buy.

Good idea but the OP said it wasn't until he/she had received their documentation that they discovered the additions.

deanos

With insurance you should be able to view documents before you buy, why did you read them ?

mobileron

Emergency assist did this to my wife,i booked got premier service no addons,she booked the same service but want to charge her £30 for each call out.
She was also informed she would be charged £10 to cancell within the cooling of period. Is this legal.

p3ncilsharpener

mobileron said:

Emergency assist did this to my wife,i booked got premier service no addons,she booked the same service but want to charge her £30 for each call out.
She was also informed she would be charged £10 to cancell within the cooling of period. Is this legal.

If she agreed that the service starts immediately then there is no cooling-off period.