1st Central Insurance sharp practice?

wongataa

tiger135 said:

they are scum bags , ive sent them the proof of no fault claim and they disputed the wording .. apparantly " not responsible" isnt the same as "non fault".

In insurance terms a fault claim means the insurance has had to pay out on that claim.  It doesn't mean the person who's policy it is actually caused the incident.  This is true for all insurers.

dunstonh

they are scum bags , ive sent them the proof of no fault claim and they disputed the wording .. apparantly " not responsible" isnt the same as "non fault". 

It is not the same.    Fault and non-fault are the recognised terms for whether your insurer had liability or not.  (i.e. did your insurer cover the costs or did the other party's insurer).

It is possible to have a claim showing you were not responsible but still at fault.

Not sure how that makes them scumbags.

GoodHouseKeeping

Sandtree said:

Ultimately a good result.

You have to remember that 1st Central are an intermediary though and have a panel of insurers. You therefore technically cannot say apprentice only makes £20 difference really because when you buy insurance from an intermediary you are locked in with both the insurer and the intermediary. When you are getting quotes though the first quote for a non-apprentice may have been ERS but the second as an apprentice from Skyfire. ERS may be charging £230 more for being an apprentice and as you've bought an locked in any changes have to be at that insurers rates.

You're free to contact the aggregators like confused.com with your suggestion but they follow what the insurers ask for. As some insurers have more options than others in the drop down menu there is then a translation table which, for example, would convert "residential parking" to "on driveway" for Axa as they dont offer the response of "residential parking" in answer to the question of where you keep the car at night. If the aggregators followed your suggestion of introducing apprentice as an option then no insurer would see it because no insurer is asking for it and so it'd be translated to something these.

Job titles etc are a pain because many people are multi-hatted... I am a director of a company, I act as a consult to insurance companies and I generally provide programme management as my service so there are three job titles straight away and it ignores the other kinds of work I sometimes pick up or that sometimes my client may be a bank or supermarket but I'm dealing with their insurance offering

Hi, I have a similar problem with 1st Central, re-categorising my occupation and wanting to double my premium and charge me £50 for the pleasure!
I also think this is a SCAM.
I found them using a comparison website and they offered a rate similar to the rate of my previous insurer.  I believe that they are using UNDERHAND practices by hiking up the premium again once the 14-day cooling off period is past.  Surely, the insurance firms need to complete their 'checks' within the 14-days, and thereby give people the opportunity to cancel if they don't want to be charged double?  
I have never had this problem before.
I haven't managed to discuss it with them, however, I made the declaration of my occupation in good faith, I will test out their online system to see what choices they actually provide.

DullGreyGuy

GoodHouseKeeping said:

Sandtree said:

Ultimately a good result.

You have to remember that 1st Central are an intermediary though and have a panel of insurers. You therefore technically cannot say apprentice only makes £20 difference really because when you buy insurance from an intermediary you are locked in with both the insurer and the intermediary. When you are getting quotes though the first quote for a non-apprentice may have been ERS but the second as an apprentice from Skyfire. ERS may be charging £230 more for being an apprentice and as you've bought an locked in any changes have to be at that insurers rates.

You're free to contact the aggregators like confused.com with your suggestion but they follow what the insurers ask for. As some insurers have more options than others in the drop down menu there is then a translation table which, for example, would convert "residential parking" to "on driveway" for Axa as they dont offer the response of "residential parking" in answer to the question of where you keep the car at night. If the aggregators followed your suggestion of introducing apprentice as an option then no insurer would see it because no insurer is asking for it and so it'd be translated to something these.

Job titles etc are a pain because many people are multi-hatted... I am a director of a company, I act as a consult to insurance companies and I generally provide programme management as my service so there are three job titles straight away and it ignores the other kinds of work I sometimes pick up or that sometimes my client may be a bank or supermarket but I'm dealing with their insurance offering

Hi, I have a similar problem with 1st Central, re-categorising my occupation and wanting to double my premium and charge me £50 for the pleasure!
I also think this is a SCAM.
I found them using a comparison website and they offered a rate similar to the rate of my previous insurer.  I believe that they are using UNDERHAND practices by hiking up the premium again once the 14-day cooling off period is past.  Surely, the insurance firms need to complete their 'checks' within the 14-days, and thereby give people the opportunity to cancel if they don't want to be charged double?  
I have never had this problem before.
I haven't managed to discuss it with them, however, I made the declaration of my occupation in good faith, I will test out their online system to see what choices they actually provide.

You are misunderstanding what a cooling off period is... it just means you have a right to cancel in the first 14 days, it doesn't mean it has to be fee free. After the 14 days you have no statutory right to cancel the policy.

Because of the nature of Car insurance the reality is you will always have the right to cancel the policy at any time as long as a claim hasn't been made so the 14 days is a moot point. 

In this case is the intermediary not the insurer making the checks and from what I understand of their practices they do contact you within a few days of inception... how long you take to respond etc is what may move it over 14 days end to end but as already noted you can still cancel post 14 days. 

Bazzalona13295

Need to renew my car/house insurance this month - I've always used my family broker (not easy to break the shackles). But the huge increase in price has made me look online more seriously than before.

1st Central keep coming up as cheapest for my car - a whole £300 cheaper than my renewal quote, but having read this I'll probably steer well clear.