Car insurance - will be cancelled as you havent provided required documents

vaughanfriswell393

Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone else has had similar issues with the car insurance companies recently?

Im sick of (insurance companies in general..but psb)
A: waiting on the phone for over an hour at a time to get through to an agent... they presumably dont have enough staff to do the call centre work. (Several of the insurers all the same issue). 
B: having to chase insurance companies for the renewals paperwork.  Martins money says get your insurance renewal sorted upto a month before, but if the current provider only sends out the renewal 2 weeks before renewal its hardly fair on the consumer surely?  Why dont they send out automatically renewal paperwork 1 month in advance by law?
C: request for NCD proof from old supplier (surely automated?) doesnt come through from old supplier.  New supplier wants it but i cant provide it as i havent got it from old provider.  New supplier says will cancel policy within 14 days.   Old supplier called, emailed, chat online messaged etc etc but no NCD proof sent through.  Therefore im being penalised because the insurance companies wont speak to each other in the background and tell what a users NCD is etc.  Why am  i having to do all the running around for something that should be on an insurers background database that all can see (Not customer facing)? 
the continual phone calls asking me to renew - when i have already renewed with new providers.  I tell them to remove data from their systems (They should have 28days under GDPR?)  but more calls.   

I have a car, van and bike (all due renewal fairly close to each other) and having to go through all this 3 times with 4 different providers has been a mega pain.  (Info - Multicar doesnt provide savings for my specific use cases sadly - someone will ask im sure ! )

Surely most of this should be automatic. 
Surely the insurers should all speak to each other?  (some clearly dont or wont allow other insurers to speak to them). 

GRRR  - annoyed consumer 

cw8825

Having worked on the other side of this allow me to explain.

Point A is partly a result of Point B

The majority of phone calls are unnecessary and the answers can be found by looking at the policy, or can be handled online.
The amount of customers who are doing this however they also don't usually go through to the correct department, which leads to longer waiting for customers who actually require assistance.

Point B

Assuming you know when you renewal is, you can get a quote save it, then compare for when the renewal comes through.
14 days is more than enough time
Yes you want to be proactive but your just contributing to Point A

Point C

There is no central database for NCD, if there was it would be subsidised by you paying a higher premium. 


Point D

If you renew with a new provider great, but how would your current insurer know? they are not mind readers

DullGreyGuy

cw8825 said:

Point C

There is no central database for NCD, if there was it would be subsidised by you paying a higher premium. 

Actually there is @cw8825
https://www.mib.org.uk/managing-insurance-data/mib-hub/ncd/

What I dont know is the quality of the data in it, how widely used it is etc as it came about after I left personal lines insurance. 

vaughanfriswell393 said:

Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone else has had similar issues with the car insurance companies recently?

Im sick of (insurance companies in general..but psb)
A: waiting on the phone for over an hour at a time to get through to an agent... they presumably dont have enough staff to do the call centre work. (Several of the insurers all the same issue). 
B: having to chase insurance companies for the renewals paperwork.  Martins money says get your insurance renewal sorted upto a month before, but if the current provider only sends out the renewal 2 weeks before renewal its hardly fair on the consumer surely?  Why dont they send out automatically renewal paperwork 1 month in advance by law?
C: request for NCD proof from old supplier (surely automated?) doesnt come through from old supplier.  New supplier wants it but i cant provide it as i havent got it from old provider.  New supplier says will cancel policy within 14 days.   Old supplier called, emailed, chat online messaged etc etc but no NCD proof sent through.  Therefore im being penalised because the insurance companies wont speak to each other in the background and tell what a users NCD is etc.  Why am  i having to do all the running around for something that should be on an insurers background database that all can see (Not customer facing)? 
the continual phone calls asking me to renew - when i have already renewed with new providers.  I tell them to remove data from their systems (They should have 28days under GDPR?)  but more calls.   

I have a car, van and bike (all due renewal fairly close to each other) and having to go through all this 3 times with 4 different providers has been a mega pain.  (Info - Multicar doesnt provide savings for my specific use cases sadly - someone will ask im sure ! )

Surely most of this should be automatic. 
Surely the insurers should all speak to each other?  (some clearly dont or wont allow other insurers to speak to them). 

GRRR  - annoyed consumer 

Consumer insurance is a highly commoditised distress purchase where people will switch from a household brand to an unknown offshore setup to save under £5 per year. Inevitably this has caused a race to the bottom in prices. 

A) Many sellers of insurance are intermediaries not the ultimate insurer and so the only way they can become more profitable is either 1) cutting operation costs or 2) becoming much better at risk selection and getting deals with profit commission from their panel noting that this increases costs due to all the experts needed to design the selection criteria.  As a consequence most go for option 1 and one of the easiest costs to cut is headcount. If people bought on quality rather than price alone there would be more choices but they're restricted to the HNW sector who aren't price sensitive. 

They are required to produce them 14-31 days in advance, they are free to choose where on that time line they pick. There are equally those that complain that 31 days is too far out and come the day they've forgotten about it and so auto-renew

C) insurers normally accept the schedule from your renewal notice which states how many years NCD you have

D) Has never happened to me once

400ixl

A) Can't think of the last time I had to actually speak to anyone, can pretty much do everything via chatbots or online chat with real agents these days.

Pretty much always able to go online and see the renewal quote from my current insurer around 21 days before the renewal is due. Even able to do the whole not happy with the renewal quote online with the last few insurers. They even have a still not happy option when they give their better quote and give an even better one.

C) Can't say I have had to provide proof of NCD for over a decade, so assume they are updating the central database. The people I know who have been asked, have tended to be using the bottom feeder insurers who are always looking for a reason to upsell.

So my experience is most is automatic and the insurers do speak to each other. Maybe its the insurers you are selecting, based on price alone rather than customer experience maybe.

dunstonh

B: having to chase insurance companies for the renewals paperwork.  Martins money says get your insurance renewal sorted upto a month before, but if the current provider only sends out the renewal 2 weeks before renewal its hardly fair on the consumer surely?  Why dont they send out automatically renewal paperwork 1 month in advance by law?

Martin is not the law.  Two weeks is plenty of time to deal with your insurance.     

 the continual phone calls asking me to renew - when i have already renewed with new providers.  I tell them to remove data from their systems (They should have 28days under GDPR?)  but more calls.   

They are not required to remove data just because you ask.    They are entitled and required to retain pertinent data for liability and regulatory reasons.

I have a car, van and bike (all due renewal fairly close to each other) and having to go through all this 3 times with 4 different providers has been a mega pain.  (Info - Multicar doesnt provide savings for my specific use cases sadly - someone will ask im sure ! )

I have 5 vehicles and rarely have any of the issues you have.   Maybe you are using the lower quality budget firms.