Marmalade young driver insurance

JLG1968

I took out a pay as you go young driver insurance with marmalade for my son in October last year. You pay for the first 1,000 miles (normally quite high) and then pay according to the safety of your driving for subsequent 1,000 miles. I received an email from them at the weekend to say they had miscalculated the "top up" amount and you will need to pay 3 times more for your additional mileage. Has this happened to anyone else out there?

DullGreyGuy

Someone else made a very similar complaint on here last week however didn't name which company it was, just it was a PAYG provider... they offered a fee free cancellation if they didn't want the revised rate

TheWildManOfMethodism

That's interesting. A couple of days ago, our 20-year-old daughter got the same message in her first quarterly update email since taking out a policy with Marmalade last November for her first car. They said the same thing about a system error, and while assuring her she didn't have to pay any arrears, her top-ups will increase from around £180 to £500. 

This seems very dodgy to me. Surely the acceptance by both parties of the quote and the policy means that a contract exists at the prices originally quoted? At this point it must have gone past the 'invitation to treat' - or am I wrong? Otherwise, what is to stop them or any other company just making up figures?

We are going to help our daughter write a suitable email to them. We note that the tone of some of their responses to criticisms on sites like Trustpilot is constructive, so here's hoping. 

Ollie222

We're in a similar situation, we took out PAYG car insurance for our 17 year old in October last year and like so many others we got an email a week or two ago telling us that there had been a system error and that the additional mileage prices had gone up from £85 to £350 per 1000 miles.

We're currently in the process of going through a complaint with them as while it was originally mentioned that the cost could be updated every quarter we were told that the change would usually be a small amount and in my mind this is not a small increase.

Had we known the potential increases in cost then we would not have insured the car using this method.

This problem is clearly affecting a lot of people so it'll be interesting to see if any resolution is offered.

Keep us posted on how you get on.

TheWildManOfMethodism

Update: Marmalade completely refused to budge, because they couldn't go against their underwriter, they said. Well maybe so, but it does seem like a huge error affecting a good many people if they are to be believed, which really makes me wonder how it wasn't spotted before. And when I start thinking like that, I begin to doubt the veracity of Marmalade's story. It all rather looks like sucking in naïve young people who are new to the world of motor insurance with a good price and then hitting them with a sucker punch. 

Anyway, my daughter is geting quotes from other companies and is going to cancel her Marmalade policy before they hammer her for her next thousand miles.

Ollie222

Thanks for the update and it's what I'm expecting to happen too.

Are you going to take it further to the insurance ombudsman or not?

With the amount of miles my lad will do sadly I don't think we'll be much better off cancelling and going elsewhere for insurance but we would have been had we known before taking the policy in the first place.

TheWildManOfMethodism

Just a quick update to say that in the end our daughter went back to the price comparison websites and got a quote from Admiral for an annual policy without a black box that equated to the same monthly amount that she was paying Marmalade before their 'system error'.

Marmalade wouldn't accept cancellation by email and told her she had to phone up to cancel, which made me think they were going to try to keep her with a modest reduction, or put some pressure on her. However, she put the call on speakerphone and as I listened in, they pretty much rolled over. All they did was ask why she was cancelling, and she replied it was the price hike. We reckon they've had loads of cancellations due to this.

I don't think we'll bother with the Insurance Ombudsman, I really don't expect to get anywhere with them given Marmalade's story, and in any case our daughter is much happier now.

Ollie222

Thanks for the update, it's appreciated.

For the moment I think the costs to change will be similar to staying put but hopefully in a few months when my lad is 18 this will change so I'll review it again then.

Another friend's lad who has just turned 18 has also just moved to Admiral and I thought the premium was good.