Sainsbury’s Bank Car insurance

Minky_Jones

I received an email informing me that my car insurance auto renewal was in place and I didn’t need to do anything as the new premium would be collected automatically. I submitted a request at aco parison web site for a series of new quotes after I realised that my auto renew quote had risen by approximately 33%. Having found a better premium with a different company I decided to call Sainsbury’s Bank to see if they could match my new quote. Unfortunately the phone call didn’t go as I expected. Trying to ascertain the parking overnight I stated that the car was parked in a rented garage that was within 50 metres of my house however does not have postal address as it was one of 21 rented garages surrounded by private houses, off the main road, on private land. I realised that on our original policy we used our address because we thought that our post code would cover the garage as it was within close distance and when we used the search option on the insurance web site we couldn’t locate the garage address. The rep stated that they could not renew our policy as the garage didn’t have a post code (must say I appreciate it was not a Sainsbury employee as it must have been the broker but my product was bought through Sainsbury). To add insult to injury they then stated that as there was no recognised address for the garage my current policy was null and void and that I would not be insured from midnight. I stated that I would therefore park it on the road. Once again I was asked what the post code of where I was going to park the car. If anyone knows Dartmouth Devon I think they will appreciate parking is hit and miss and it’s very unlikely that you can park in the same place daily. So from being insured and parked in a secure locked garage I was facing being uninsured and not being able to be drive my car. In addition the broker stated they would not honour any no claims acquired over the previous 350 days and they would reimburse me just over £3 for the cover outstanding (15days). Perhaps I am at fault for not resolving this last time I took out the policy, and I don’t think Sainsbury is the only company that make it so difficult perhaps I should have tried what three words. Readers beware if you park your car in a garage without a postal address don’t try and resolve it with your provider as your cover may with withdrawn immediately,

DullGreyGuy

The clue is somewhat in the name... POSTcode. They were created and intended to assist in the postal delivery service. A garage will most likely never receive post and as such will never have its own post code. In this day any age we use postcodes beyond postal delivery inc geolocation but they are ultimately a fairly imprecise thing. 

The issue appears to be mainly that you were parking in an offsite garage but the broker had priced based on an on premises garage.

I would certainly be putting a complaint in... most postcodes are much wider areas than 50m and whilst its not "on site" the proximity is damned close enough. 

I'd also double check the postcode of the residential address closest to the garage... for geolocation purposes that is more than accurate enough. They can't pick an address from the PAF file because the garages dont have a letterbox for the delivery of mail to them. 

Minky_Jones

Absolutely thank you for taking time to respond the postcodes are the same with the exception of the last letter, mine ends f and the house next to my garage ends g, can’t get much closer.

Minky_Jones

I have just spoken to Sainsbury’s bank and they have been extremely helpful in assisting me in raising a complaint, so if people are interested I will update here if not then I won’t trouble you busy people.