Hastings Car Insurance 'glitch' costs me £300

gawa75

Via a comparison site, I recently bought new car insurance for myself with Hastings and included my daughter on to the policy.

When I looked at the policy docs when they were emailed to me, only I was named on the policy. 

I called Hastings to ask why my daughter wasn't named on the policy and they said there had been a 'computer glitch', she was in their system but yes, only I was on the policy and it would cost an extra £300 to add her on. 

My issue is that I bought the policy in good faith at the price I was quoted online, and Hastings seems to have moved the goalposts. Surely a glitch is their issue, not mine as I bought at the price they quoted me? 

Thanks in advance.  

EDIT: Hastings now say I have to take the issue up with the comparison site as not all data transferred over to them. 

DullGreyGuy

When you clicked through from the aggregator to Hasting's website did you follow the instructions to ensure all the details were correct before buying?

Ultimately you need to register a complaint and await their response. If you dont like their response you can take it to the Financial Ombudsman. 

km1500

do you know what the  t&c of the comparison site are especially regarding interfacing the quote with the insurance company

Aylesbury_Duck

gawa75 said:

Via a comparison site, I recently bought new car insurance for myself with Hastings and included my daughter on to the policy.

When I looked at the policy docs when they were emailed to me, only I was named on the policy. 

I called Hastings to ask why my daughter wasn't named on the policy and they said there had been a 'computer glitch', she was in their system but yes, only I was on the policy and it would cost an extra £300 to add her on. 

My issue is that I bought the policy in good faith at the price I was quoted online, and Hastings seems to have moved the goalposts. Surely a glitch is their issue, not mine as I bought at the price they quoted me? 

Thanks in advance.  

EDIT: Hastings now say I have to take the issue up with the comparison site as not all data transferred over to them. 

A couple of points:

Why did you proceed to purchase the policy without checking the cover was what you wanted?  Did the process not allow you to do so?  Whenever I've bought through a comparison site it takes me to the provider's site and walks me through all the cover specifics, summarises them at the end and then asks for payment  Did that not happen?

Assuming you're within 14 days of purchase, you can just cancel and buy a new policy.  Have you checked to see what a new policy would cost, with your daughter added?  If it is around £300 more anyway, surely there's no problem beyond the annoyance of the comparison site misleading you?  In that case, the glitch hasn't cost you an extra £300, because you'd have to pay that amount anyway.

DullGreyGuy

gawa75 said:

EDIT: Hastings now say I have to take the issue up with the comparison site as not all data transferred over to them. 

DullGreyGuy said:

When you clicked through from the aggregator to Hasting's website did you follow the instructions to ensure all the details were correct before buying?

In which case when you did the above you would have seen there wasnt a named driver added and so wouldnt have proceeded to buy. No system is infallible and there is a good reason why they tell you to check the policy before buying. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

If the comparison site had everything correct but all data didn’t transfer that doesn’t explain any extra cost. 

Have you run the comparison again? 

DullGreyGuy

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

If the comparison site had everything correct but all data didn’t transfer that doesn’t explain any extra cost. 

Have you run the comparison again? 

They have presumably called Hasting's seeing the policy is insured only driver and when asking about their ND daughter that to add her on it'd be £300 extra cost

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

DullGreyGuy said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

If the comparison site had everything correct but all data didn’t transfer that doesn’t explain any extra cost. 

Have you run the comparison again? 

They have presumably called Hasting's seeing the policy is insured only driver and when asking about their ND daughter that to add her on it'd be £300 extra cost

I get that  

What I mean is if the comparison site had the correct info for the quote and Hastings left the policy as it was they'd be overcharging the OP.

The policy cost is based on risk, a second driver increases that risk so they should either be giving the OP some money back or adding the daughter with the current price standing (if they said they wanted an admin fee that may be fair).

In this situation Hastings want to be paid for the same risk twice! 

DullGreyGuy

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

DullGreyGuy said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

If the comparison site had everything correct but all data didn’t transfer that doesn’t explain any extra cost. 

Have you run the comparison again? 

They have presumably called Hasting's seeing the policy is insured only driver and when asking about their ND daughter that to add her on it'd be £300 extra cost

I get that  

What I mean is if the comparison site had the correct info for the quote and Hastings left the policy as it was they'd be overcharging the OP.

The policy cost is based on risk, a second driver increases that risk so they should either be giving the OP some money back or adding the daughter with the current price standing (if they said they wanted an admin fee that may be fair).

In this situation Hastings want to be paid for the same risk twice! 

I think you are mistaking the roles of the different parties here....

Aggregator takes in all the risk details.... it sends those risk details to a variety of insurers, brokers and software firms. That transmission of data requires manipulation as, for example, the aggregator includes the answers "residents parking" or "office car park" whereas one particular insurer's options are only On Road, Drive or Garage... this manipulation can happen at either end of the comms. 

The Insurer, broker or software house then evaluate the risk and pass back to the aggregator the premium and a link to be able to access the quote on their website.

The aggregator then displays all the quotes it received in price order. The user selects one and is told they will be transferred to the insurer/brokers website to make the purchase and that they should check all the details there. This is for two reasons, firstly is so the user can review the translation thats happened and secondly to make sure there have been no errors (their own or anyone elses). Assuming the user is then happy they click the buy button. 

You may have chosen residential parking as its a communal parking inside the building behind locked security gates. The process may have transposed that to "driveway" as it has to cover the other type of communal parking when its just an open air parking area infront of the block.  As such you may decide given the reduced options that "garage" may be more appropriate.

Here the OP has asked for prices for 2 drivers but has been presented with a price on the aggregator for 1 drivers with a health warning they must check the details when on the vendors website. They have gone to the vendors website and here they've been shown the same price but now saying its only for 1 driver. The OP didnt look and so proceeded to buy and paid the agreed price for one driver.

Its certainly unusual to happen... when I dealt with the aggregators our systems were sent not to quote at all if there was any flags raised with the call to our API but without seeing every step in the process and exactly what went wrong its pure speculation on if its reasonable for a IOD quote to have been generated or if a reasonably built system should have identified an issue and flagged it. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

DullGreyGuy said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

DullGreyGuy said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

If the comparison site had everything correct but all data didn’t transfer that doesn’t explain any extra cost. 

Have you run the comparison again? 

They have presumably called Hasting's seeing the policy is insured only driver and when asking about their ND daughter that to add her on it'd be £300 extra cost

I get that  

What I mean is if the comparison site had the correct info for the quote and Hastings left the policy as it was they'd be overcharging the OP.

The policy cost is based on risk, a second driver increases that risk so they should either be giving the OP some money back or adding the daughter with the current price standing (if they said they wanted an admin fee that may be fair).

In this situation Hastings want to be paid for the same risk twice! 

I think you are mistaking the roles of the different parties here....

Aggregator takes in all the risk details.... it sends those risk details to a variety of insurers, brokers and software firms. That transmission of data requires manipulation as, for example, the aggregator includes the answers "residents parking" or "office car park" whereas one particular insurer's options are only On Road, Drive or Garage... this manipulation can happen at either end of the comms. 

The Insurer, broker or software house then evaluate the risk and pass back to the aggregator the premium and a link to be able to access the quote on their website.

The aggregator then displays all the quotes it received in price order. The user selects one and is told they will be transferred to the insurer/brokers website to make the purchase and that they should check all the details there. This is for two reasons, firstly is so the user can review the translation thats happened and secondly to make sure there have been no errors (their own or anyone elses). Assuming the user is then happy they click the buy button. 

You may have chosen residential parking as its a communal parking inside the building behind locked security gates. The process may have transposed that to "driveway" as it has to cover the other type of communal parking when its just an open air parking area infront of the block.  As such you may decide given the reduced options that "garage" may be more appropriate.

Here the OP has asked for prices for 2 drivers but has been presented with a price on the aggregator for 1 drivers with a health warning they must check the details when on the vendors website. They have gone to the vendors website and here they've been shown the same price but now saying its only for 1 driver. The OP didnt look and so proceeded to buy and paid the agreed price for one driver.

Its certainly unusual to happen... when I dealt with the aggregators our systems were sent not to quote at all if there was any flags raised with the call to our API but without seeing every step in the process and exactly what went wrong its pure speculation on if its reasonable for a IOD quote to have been generated or if a reasonably built system should have identified an issue and flagged it. 

I see what you mean if the OP was to run another comparison and it was £300 more on the comparison site second time around then the first quote was a mistake due to the insurer not getting all the info to make an appropriate quote. 

If the second comparison is the same as it first was then I don't think the insurer shouldn't be charging any extra (unless the same glitch has happened again!) but I assume it should be obvious from other prices given on that comparison site or others as I've never seen comparisons £300 apart, maybe overall but if there's 50 results there's usually £10, £20 whatever between each one. 

Jumblebumble

gawa75 said:

Via a comparison site, I recently bought new car insurance for myself with Hastings and included my daughter on to the policy.

When I looked at the policy docs when they were emailed to me, only I was named on the policy. 

I called Hastings to ask why my daughter wasn't named on the policy and they said there had been a 'computer glitch', she was in their system but yes, only I was on the policy and it would cost an extra £300 to add her on. 

My issue is that I bought the policy in good faith at the price I was quoted online, and Hastings seems to have moved the goalposts. Surely a glitch is their issue, not mine as I bought at the price they quoted me? 

Thanks in advance.  

EDIT: Hastings now say I have to take the issue up with the comparison site as not all data transferred over to them. 

You unfortunately did not buy at the price Hastings quoted you.
It was suggested by a third party that the quoted price  was the price you might pay for the cover you wanted but then you must double  check with the insurer themselves
When you were transferred to their site to make the purchase  Hastings misquoted you there by quoting for you only.
 The reality is that you might just as well forget it as Hastings are not likely to want to waste much fruitless time on this as they are a minimal margin business and this is one of the consequences of a race to the bottom on price