We're not going to offer to renew your car insurance??

maman

I've received this message from Churchill about my car insurance which is due for renewal at the beginning of April.

There's no reason given and I can't think of one.

I rang Churchill to ask for an explanation. All they've said is that their underwriters have refused and given no reason. I've asked for someone further up the chain of command  to call be back who can answer the question as the call handler obviously didn't know.

My concern is that 

• it might stop me getting insurance elsewhere
• the refusal may be based on some false information that I can't challenge

Anyone come across this before? Any ideas why?

Herzlos

You're presumably just in a category they don't want at the moment for whatever arbitrary reason. I wouldn't be overly concerned.

Have you looked at insurance quotes from comparison sites to see what rates you are getting across the market?

Flight3287462

Could it be:-

Your age
Your car's age
Type of car
Claims
Where you live
Occupation
Made bankrupt etc

But I'm with you, on attempting to find out why if possible.

maman

Herzlos said:

You're presumably just in a category they don't want at the moment for whatever arbitrary reason. I wouldn't be overly concerned.

Have you looked at insurance quotes from comparison sites to see what rates you are getting across the market?

No, not yet but I will , the email arrived yesterday.

Do you mean that insurers have 'quotas' for various types of drivers? I'd never thought of that. I assumed they'd only refuse if a driver was high risk for some obvious reason. 🤔

DullGreyGuy

maman said:

I've received this message from Churchill about my car insurance which is due for renewal at the beginning of April.

There's no reason given and I can't think of one.

I rang Churchill to ask for an explanation. All they've said is that their underwriters have refused and given no reason. I've asked for someone further up the chain of command  to call be back who can answer the question as the call handler obviously didn't know.

My concern is that 

• it might stop me getting insurance elsewhere
• the refusal may be based on some false information that I can't challenge

Anyone come across this before? Any ideas why?

There are lots of technical reasons why it may be and I'd be very surprised if they will ever tell you. A former client bought Stop Loss reinsurance and one year their reinsurer put a new clause in regarding risk aggregation around flood zones and they quickly realised they were massively overexposed and so their options were either 1) pay more to remove the term 2) buy elsewhere or an additional treaty or 3) not offer renewal terms to some customers in floodzones. Trying to explain all those concepts to a call centre agent would be bad enough let alone then depending on them to explain it onwards to your average punter.

You do need to be careful on answering Qs going forward, it wouldnt need to be declared on the traditional question set about insurance ever being cancelled etc however some do explicitly ask about renewal terms not being offered and that you would have to say yes to

Herzlos

maman said:

Herzlos said:

You're presumably just in a category they don't want at the moment for whatever arbitrary reason. I wouldn't be overly concerned.

Have you looked at insurance quotes from comparison sites to see what rates you are getting across the market?

No, not yet but I will , the email arrived yesterday.

Do you mean that insurers have 'quotas' for various types of drivers? I'd never thought of that. I assumed they'd only refuse if a driver was high risk for some obvious reason. 🤔

Sort of, it's all statistic driven so it may be that they've refused for a seemingly trivial reason which boils down to the computer says no.

It could be that you've got into an age bracket they don't want, or a car they don't want, or similar that doesn't necessarily correlate to increased risk.

UncleHonj

We had the same message for a policy which should renew mid April 2023. But they only declined one of our two cars, a 22 year old BMW, but offered insurance for our 2008 Renault Espace which runs from the same date. We are both oldies but only one claim 5 years ago. I also phoned Churchill but neither the call centre person nor his boss had any idea why. 
So I did a quotation on Compare the Market and the best quote offered was from... ..Yes, Churchill. Bonkers. I think we will go elsewhere.

BEBELUCA2017

Insurers don't have to offer to renew your policy just as you don't have to accept a renewal proposal if proffered.

FlatFour

As my insurance had gone up slightly this year, I started doing a bit of a shop-around.  First stop was the broker A Plan.  They took a day to get back to me, and they failed.  Hard.  They said most insurers wouldn't provide a quote and the ones that did were almost four times the cost of my (already slightly higher) renewal.  No reason was given.  I ended up renewing with my existing provider.

Nothing's changed my side, same cars, albeit all a bit older, same address, no incidents or accidents.  Quite puzzling really.

One of my cars is now 11 years old and the other is 24 years old.  No indication was given that just one of the cars was a problem.

I do wonder if perhaps a mistake was made when entering my details, though without any feedback as to what the issue was, I will never know.  I considered myself a good risk for an insurer.  No accidents in over 20 year - and that one was a no-fault - (touch-wood that continues) and a clean licence.

saker75

I had this with M&S Bank a couple of years ago. I had a lifestyle change and went from being high-risk 2.25/hr commute on M25 to relocating to rural Oxfordshire and rarely using the car. M&S wouldn't insure me and were very apologetic about it. NFU Mutual were brilliant though. 

Grumpy_chap

DullGreyGuy said:

You do need to be careful on answering Qs going forward, it wouldnt need to be declared on the traditional question set about insurance ever being cancelled etc however some do explicitly ask about renewal terms not being offered and that you would have to say yes to

You are normally correct when it comes to insurance matters, it is just that the comments about future policy questions differs from a recent similar thread.  In that thread, the conclusion was a decline to quote was no different to all the panel members on a comparison site that didn't quote and that never needed to be declared.  Is there a subtle difference this time?