Surely this cannot be allowed!? Churchill car insurance.

bex88

Hi all, I am fuming.

I've been helping my younger brother look for another car that wasn't going to put his insurance up too much. He had an MX-5, which is a 2-seat and cheaper therefore on insurance but he wanted a diesel hatchback. So after doing lots of searching and quotes on his Churchill account, on the Make a change part, we found a Fiesta that was not too bad compared to others. You fill the form in and it asks for new car reg, mileage you plan to do in it (we put same as before) etc.. and it asks if you've bought the car yet, which we put no (as we hadn't) and it says it will generate and save the quote. 
£373 increase. Ok that's allright. So we went out straight away and bought the car. 
Once we got back, went back on the account, got the quote up, tap Update Policy and it takes you through the same questions all pre-filled in and asks what the month & year the car was bought. We put August 2023. Continue. "Your policy will increase by £630".......! What!?

So I tried a new quote, putting 'Not bought': £373
Then straight after, changed it to 'Bought': £630

How can this be right.. literally nothing else has changed. The quotes are on the same day, even within a minute of each other.

I've then been on the Customer help Whatsapp chat for 3 hours and they are as useful as a chocolate teapot, basically saying they can't do anything about it. 
It's extremely misleading, we wouldn't have bought the car if the original quote was £630, or even something around that price. 

And to top it all off, I even did a new quote on a comparison site and Churchill was the cheapest with a price around the same as it would be with the extra £373 added on. So as a last resort he may have to pay to cancel the policy .... and reopen a new one with them......... >_<

NINJA59

But if it is not bought there is no specified time of the risk having to be taken on by the insurer. If you then switch it to bought with a very short timescale then they will increase the price dramatically. If it is over 20 days out then the policy is likely to be much closer to the 373 than 630.

bex88

NINJA59 said:

But if it is not bought there is no specified time of the risk having to be taken on by the insurer. If you then switch it to bought with a very short timescale then they will increase the price dramatically. If it is over 20 days out then the policy is likely to be much closer to the 373 than 630.

Sorry, I don't really understand what you mean?
There is no rhyme or reason for the policy to jump up to almost double when the provisional quote was so much less, with nothing else changed...
The policy is already 3 months in (on his old car). We were doing quotes on the Churchill account when you go on 'Make a change'. You state the day you want the policy changed from, in this case, Friday 25th. You tick 'not bought' because.. we hadn't, and it gives you the quote and states it will be saved in the account so you can accept it later when you put the purchase date in. So why would it jump to double, just because you then buy the car? (in this case, on the exact same day of getting the original quote). It is very misleading and we have raised a complaint with them.

NINJA59

bex88 said:

NINJA59 said:

But if it is not bought there is no specified time of the risk having to be taken on by the insurer. If you then switch it to bought with a very short timescale then they will increase the price dramatically. If it is over 20 days out then the policy is likely to be much closer to the 373 than 630.

Sorry, I don't really understand what you mean?
There is no rhyme or reason for the policy to jump up to almost double when the provisional quote was so much less, with nothing else changed...
The policy is already 3 months in (on his old car). We were doing quotes on the Churchill account when you go on 'Make a change'. You state the day you want the policy changed from, in this case, Friday 25th. You tick 'not bought' because.. we hadn't, and it gives you the quote and states it will be saved in the account so you can accept it later when you put the purchase date in. So why would it jump to double, just because you then buy the car? (in this case, on the exact same day of getting the original quote). It is very misleading and we have raised a complaint with them.

Any insurer that has to take on a risk in a shorter timescale will make you pay more, end of story (rather like if you need to get a gift quicker or delivery sooner it is a distress purchase). The worst possible being on the day.

In the insurers book and to give you an idea of their potential logic (and some of it is a bit of a guess, but fairly close to their logic):
a) the person involved is disorganised, an organised person would have prepared for a changeover of vehicle well in advance (or prepared a new quote)
b) because they are disorganised, they are likely to be rushing and in rushing mistakes are more likely to happen 
c) if they are disorganised in rushing about their insurance, is that how they drive? You might not, but that is their perception.

The bit of not bought or bought, is really simple if you put not bought the insurer can give the absolute minimum premium possible, there is no timescale of risk, you are simply researching. Equally they may not take full account of the specification of the car involved, the colour etc. etc. Once you change to bought with a date then there is a timescale of the potential risk having to be taken on by the insurer involved, the closer the date the higher the premium because of factors like I have explained above.

Your complaint won't get anywhere, as fundamentally there is nothing to complain about and they are unlikely to fully in detail explain (they give an oveview of factors that impact premiums) the decision making as the person responding is unlikely to have such information and even if they did have that info or go to a person with that information they won't tell you as it is commercially sensitive information.

user1977

NINJA59 said:

bex88 said:

NINJA59 said:

But if it is not bought there is no specified time of the risk having to be taken on by the insurer. If you then switch it to bought with a very short timescale then they will increase the price dramatically. If it is over 20 days out then the policy is likely to be much closer to the 373 than 630.

Sorry, I don't really understand what you mean?
There is no rhyme or reason for the policy to jump up to almost double when the provisional quote was so much less, with nothing else changed...
The policy is already 3 months in (on his old car). We were doing quotes on the Churchill account when you go on 'Make a change'. You state the day you want the policy changed from, in this case, Friday 25th. You tick 'not bought' because.. we hadn't, and it gives you the quote and states it will be saved in the account so you can accept it later when you put the purchase date in. So why would it jump to double, just because you then buy the car? (in this case, on the exact same day of getting the original quote). It is very misleading and we have raised a complaint with them.

In the insurers book and to give you an idea of their potential logic (and some of it is a bit of a guess, but fairly close to their logic):
a) the person involved is disorganised, an organised person would have prepared for a changeover of vehicle well in advance (or prepared a new quote)

But in this case, they did get the quote in advance...

I agree generally there's not much to complain about though.

NINJA59

user1977 said:

NINJA59 said:

bex88 said:

NINJA59 said:

But if it is not bought there is no specified time of the risk having to be taken on by the insurer. If you then switch it to bought with a very short timescale then they will increase the price dramatically. If it is over 20 days out then the policy is likely to be much closer to the 373 than 630.

Sorry, I don't really understand what you mean?
There is no rhyme or reason for the policy to jump up to almost double when the provisional quote was so much less, with nothing else changed...
The policy is already 3 months in (on his old car). We were doing quotes on the Churchill account when you go on 'Make a change'. You state the day you want the policy changed from, in this case, Friday 25th. You tick 'not bought' because.. we hadn't, and it gives you the quote and states it will be saved in the account so you can accept it later when you put the purchase date in. So why would it jump to double, just because you then buy the car? (in this case, on the exact same day of getting the original quote). It is very misleading and we have raised a complaint with them.

In the insurers book and to give you an idea of their potential logic (and some of it is a bit of a guess, but fairly close to their logic):
a) the person involved is disorganised, an organised person would have prepared for a changeover of vehicle well in advance (or prepared a new quote)

But in this case, they did get the quote in advance...

I agree generally there's not much to complain about though.

But the original quote did not have a date of change for that change to start, therefore like it or not the answers to the questions changed and the insurer revised their offer as a result of that answer being changed.

If I was getting a new quote or was doing a mid term change of vehicle I would have a date stipulated for it to be from not just generally looking as I would have done that long before. Maybe I should have stipulated that bit in my reply, additionally I would be pushing it out as far as possible.

The overall point still stands though from an insurers perspective the list provided above is highly likely what they are thinking and the closer you bring the mid term change of vehicle to or a new quote will always significantly impact the resulting premium. A as I deal with broker these days a) they hate it b) they regularly advice customers to contact them as soon as possible to get the best price...

bex88

Whatever the reasons we are to believe, it is absolutely wrong in my (and everyone else in my family / friends / colleagues I've told this story to) eyes. I guess we all don't fully understand how it all works, but I do know that it's definitely misleading. 

The quotes I got I put the changeover date for a week later. I played with that date after seeing the price increase when I ticked the box to state it was purchased, I pushed the changeover right out into September - it made no difference at all. In fact, the furthest date I chose came back with an even higher increase of premium.

It forced him to cancel his policy in the end and open up a new one... yep, with Churchill at the lower quoted price from the comparison site, which was worth it, even with the cancellation fee. Only downside is now the past few months previous policy will not count for his no claims and will have to start again.