Car insurance Renewal - check detail

nannamoon

Last month I renewed my car insurance and added my daughter to it.  I ticked the box ‘son/daughter’ but by mistake I put in her date of birth incorrectly…. I entered my own year of birth instead of hers.  Normally I would thoroughly check the document but a few months ago I was widowed and things have been much harder since and obv I wasn’t paying attention… The insurance company phoned me to say their underwriters had reviewed this (Abt 6 weeks later)..I explained  and they said they need to charge me £86 for the update.  I said it was a genuine mistake and I need a week to think about it… thinking I would look around and get cheaper insurance but nothing found.. Guess I will just have to pay up!

CliveOfIndia

Depends on the age of your daughter, as well as her driving history and amount of experience.  But on the face of it, a fee of £86 (assuming this is for the year) doesn't sound at all bad.  Presumably this is comprised of the fee to make an adjustment to the policy, as well as a slight increase in the premium to cover the increased risk due to her age/driving history.

If you've already looked around for a cheaper deal based on her correct details and can't find a better offer, then surely it's a no-brainer - pay the extra amount and carry on.

nannamoon

My daughter is 42 with 22 years driving experience, no claims apart from windscreens…. This particular insurance was on my husband’s car, which was transferred to my name after he died.. I kept it and insured it until I could make up my mind what I wanted to do with it…  She has been on my own car insurance for a couple of years with no claims.  So, yes I will pay up but it just seemed a little harsh for the slip of one digit..  

Albermarle

nannamoon said:

My daughter is 42 with 22 years driving experience, no claims apart from windscreens…. This particular insurance was on my husband’s car, which was transferred to my name after he died.. I kept it and insured it until I could make up my mind what I wanted to do with it…  She has been on my own car insurance for a couple of years with no claims.  So, yes I will pay up but it just seemed a little harsh for the slip of one digit..  

It is not really clear.
Are you saying they are charging you £86 just because they had to change the date ( so just admin)?
Or are they charging you because they recalculated the risk when you said she was actually younger than you first put?
Or a bit of both.
I added my daughter to my policy in the middle of the term. There was a £15 admin charge and a £40 added annual premium. ( she was around 27 with a clean license) 

CliveOfIndia

Albermarle said:

It is not really clear.
Are you saying they are charging you £86 just because they had to change the date ( so just admin)?
Or are they charging you because they recalculated the risk when you said she was actually younger than you first put?
Or a bit of both.
I added my daughter to my policy in the middle of the term. There was a £15 admin charge and a £40 added annual premium. ( she was around 27 with a clean license) 

My guess would be that it's a bit of both.  You'd almost definitely expect an admin charge, and the OP originally said they entered their own birth year by mistake, so the daughter is younger than originally stated on the application - although, at 42 years old, I'd be a little surprised if that in isolation made much of a difference to the premium.

These admin charges do hack me off though.  I recently had to make a minor, non-material change to one of my policies, did it myself online, no effect on the premium, but they charged me a £30 admin fee.  Why?  There was no cost to them, they didn't even have to print out a new certificate and post it to me as it's all online.  £30 to use a nanosecond of their computing time, grrrr.

nannamoon

They didnt mention her history - purely that she was similar age to myself and i had said she was my daughter…I confirmed she was -  so Admin charge.  Needless to say I wil check in future and wont be using Tesco again!

CliveOfIndia

£86 does seem pretty steep for just an admin charge.  And it's an odd number - admin charges are usually fixed at something like £15, £30, £55, something like that.  The fact that it's not a "round" number would lead me to believe that there's an element of increased risk playing into it as well - perhaps something like a £30 admin charge and a premium increase of £56.

nannamoon said:

They didnt mention her history

The person you spoke to on the phone wouldn't have gone into specifics, and indeed probably doesn't know the specifics anyway.  All that's happened is the underwriters will have re-assessed her risk based on the new information and come up with a new price accordingly.

I'm not saying that Tesco are any better or any worse than any of the numerous other insurers - but if, by your own admission, they gave you the best deal, it would seem daft to boycott them in future.  Absolutely you should shop around every year, and more often than not you'll find that the company who was cheapest this year won't be the cheapest next year.  But it's daft to cut off your nose to spite your face, as it were.

Ectophile

I think it's one of those cases where the best option is to hand over your credit card details and pay up.

Because the alternative is that they cancel your policy for giving them false information on the application.

Then when you go to another insurer, one of the questions they will ask is if you have ever had an insurance policy cancelled.  And at that point your £86 fee will look cheap.

nannamoon

Yes I do agree but I was just really annoyed at myself that I didn’t check.  It was literally one digit.  I put a 5 instead of 8. I explained my circumstances that lead to that - I didn’t do  it on purpose. .  I will ask though what the breakdown was - or was it just admin charge

eschaton

The difference between the 5 & 8 is circa 30 years. 

Not exactly a single digit. 

nannamoon

It is a single digit and your maths correct. My point was - I should have checked but my brain wasn’t in gear for a very good reason.