Motorbike insurer MCE to cancel cover for all 105,000 policyholders - what it means for you

MSE_Emily

MCE Insurance Company, which was one of the UK's biggest motorbike insurers, is to cancel all of its 105,000 remaining policies after falling into administration last year. The moves comes despite the insurer initially promising to honour existing cover...

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Motorbike insurer MCE to cancel cover for all 105,000 policyholders - what it means for you

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garys1961

Just wondering if anyone will honour no claims
i was due 1st year no claims in may 22 .
wondering if I have to start again fro scratch?

lampyjohn

garys1961 said:

Just wondering if anyone will honour no claims
i was due 1st year no claims in may 22 .
wondering if I have to start again fro scratch?

Yeah I’m in a similar position having started my cover last march.

ruchia

I second the comments above, my partner and I are both just a month or so shy of 12 months cover with MCE. Given how much weighting NCBs have in the UK insurance market, not having the NCB honoured would almost definitely mean we would be facing an indirect financial penalty of sorts. Is there nothing the regulators can do about this?

FYI the MCE FAQ page states that NCB would not be honoured if the policy is due to expire after the 31st January 2022..

garys1961

Just spoken to Swinton and Motorcycle direct and they will give you a years no claims as long as you have completed 9 months with Mce.
sadly I’ve done only 8 , can’t help me but you may be in luck

aja22

I added my son to my policy and paid by credit card, can i go through the cc issuer to get my money back?

Chris_English

I bought a policy for one of my bikes with MCE fully aware that they were not a great company, but just wanting the cheapest cover available.

I assumed they’d never pay out in a claim, but only really needed to be legal to ride it,mand it was a bike with an unusually high cost.

Annoyingly I’m now going to have to buy again at nearly twice the price.

Sandtree

aja22 said:

I added my son to my policy and paid by credit card, can i go through the cc issuer to get my money back?

CC or FSCS, choice is yours

aja22

Sandtree said:

aja22 said:

I added my son to my policy and paid by credit card, can i go through the cc issuer to get my money back?

CC or FSCS, choice is yours

Whats the difference, is it stll 90% of the remaining cost for cover? any quicker? Ive never needed to do this before, how would you start the ball rolling?

Sandtree

aja22 said:

Sandtree said:

aja22 said:

I added my son to my policy and paid by credit card, can i go through the cc issuer to get my money back?

CC or FSCS, choice is yours

Whats the difference, is it stll 90% of the remaining cost for cover? any quicker? Ive never needed to do this before, how would you start the ball rolling?

Never had the pleasure of dealing with the FSCS for an actual claim and they were slightly obtuse when asking about a theoretical situation (not motor insurance related).

MCE Insurance Company Ltd - customer information | FSCS
According to the above they are looking to return 90% of unused premiums... I'd argue that this is debatable if its correct given they are supposed to provide 100% cover for compulsory insurance of which part if not all the premiums for motorbikes will be (TPO cover would be fully compulsory)... they even remind you in the same PR that the insurance is compulsory.

With your CC company it will depend on if you are within the time limits for doing a chargeback or will be forced down the S75 claim route... if you are then it will be a longer process and you may fall foul of the fact there is the UK broker but its the overseas insurer that failed and so too many parties involved in the supply to be covered by S75

m1uk3

Hi all, sounds like a few of you are in the same position with your NCB! Here are my details so far: 

I purchased annual motorcycle insurance with MCE Insurance on the 8 June 2021. MCE have advised that anyone who purchased insurance on or before 1 June 2021 (and would have a total of 8 months when the policies end on 31 January) would be able to purchase a new policy with them and be able to claim a 1 year No Claim Bonus (NCB). However, because I purchased my policy 7 days later, I am not eligible (MCE confirmed this over the phone). If I’m completely honest, after them going into administration, I was very reluctant to purchase additional services from them. However, I contacted several other insurance brokers who advised that they would only honour my NCB if I had had the policy for more than 9 months, so it seemed like my best option.

As this would have been my first year NCB on my policy, and as I live in London where motorcycle insurance premiums are the highest in the country, purchasing a new policy without a NCB would cost me anywhere in the region of an additional £300 - £1000 ( for 3rd party SDP only I have received quotes ranging from £1200 to £2200  year whereas with 1 year NCB it would be £900) and many of the highest-rated insurance companies will not offer me cover at all. I appreciate that I will be receiving a 90% refund on the remaining months on my policy from the FSCS, but this barely covers the amount I stand to lose from not having a NCB.

 I called MCE and asked:

• Would they allow me to have 1 year NCB on a new policy as I was only 7 days outside of the accepted time period – they declined.
• Would they allow me to purchase a new policy without a NCB but to continue the months of NCB I had already accumulated (rather than starting again from 0 months) – they declined.
• Would I be able to seek compensation for my loss of NCB – they referred me to FSCS who are handling the compensation case.

I spoke to FSCS and they stated that they are “involved with the administrators to issue return of premium refund payments to eligible customers. FSCS does not undertake insurance claims handling functions” and NCB is not something FSCS are able to advise on. I can just about accept that I am not going to receive compensation for this, but it seems unfair that there is not a process to allow me to continue to accumulate my NCB from the amount of months I currently stand at, on a new insurance policy.

 Is there another regulatory body I can appeal to and seek compensation from, or do I just have to accept that I am being unfairly punished because of one insurance company’s inability to operate?