Motor Insurance data bases.

sibutty

Has anybody ever had their insurance cancelled because of incorrect information held about them on one of these databases that underwriters use to validate your insurance?  
My story. 
After following the brilliant advise of Martin Lewis on how to make sure you get the best insurance deals using comparison sites. I proceeded to get my insurance within the 20-27 day window and sure enough the premiums coming back to me were  very competitive. After deciding which provider best suits my needs I went with Go Skippy. I purchased the insurance online everything went well and got on with my life secure in the knowledge that my car would be insured when my old insurance ran out. Too easy. 7 days later Go Skippy cancelled insurance. No warning,  just email saying refund in 3-7 days. Confused by this I rang them up to find out what was going on. I was told by someone in another country that the underwriters said I had failed to disclose a cancelled policy. This not being true I had to find out why they had found this info. Turns out Policy direct had wrongly placed this info on Motor insurance database two years ago. I contacted them and they assured me they will correct info and sent me a letter to show Go Skippy that info was incorrect. Provided proof to go Skippy who the forward info back to underwriters. Another 48 waiting for response. After 48 Go Skippy contact me to say they need my insurance policy doc from current provider to prove I am currently insured. Not sure why when data base must show I am insured. However., send Insurance docs requested.  Told I must now wait 48 hrs for response. In the meantime my insurance renewal is getting closer reaching end date on 20 Feb. I am now worried I won't be insured in time so try comparison site looking for another provider. Now insurance premiums have risen by £200 however can't get insured because Go Skippy has placed cancellation marker on data base because of wrong info they found placed by Policy direct. I am now stuck in a Kafkaesque nightmare having never had a cancelled policy and not being able to get the issue resolved in any reasonable time frame and now the premiums have gone through the roof.  Is this a common theme and could it be a deliberate grift by the insurance underwriters and so called Brokers? 

XRS200

sibutty said:

A Is this a common theme and could it be a deliberate grift by the insurance underwriters and so called Brokers? 

Definitely not common.  Not sure how it could be a deliberate grift.

DullGreyGuy

sibutty said:

Has anybody ever had their insurance cancelled because of incorrect information held about them on one of these databases that underwriters use to validate your insurance?  
My story. 
After following the brilliant advise of Martin Lewis on how to make sure you get the best insurance deals using comparison sites. I proceeded to get my insurance within the 20-27 day window and sure enough the premiums coming back to me were  very competitive. After deciding which provider best suits my needs I went with Go Skippy. I purchased the insurance online everything went well and got on with my life secure in the knowledge that my car would be insured when my old insurance ran out. Too easy. 7 days later Go Skippy cancelled insurance. No warning,  just email saying refund in 3-7 days. Confused by this I rang them up to find out what was going on. I was told by someone in another country that the underwriters said I had failed to disclose a cancelled policy. This not being true I had to find out why they had found this info. Turns out Policy direct had wrongly placed this info on Motor insurance database two years ago. I contacted them and they assured me they will correct info and sent me a letter to show Go Skippy that info was incorrect. Provided proof to go Skippy who the forward info back to underwriters. Another 48 waiting for response. After 48 Go Skippy contact me to say they need my insurance policy doc from current provider to prove I am currently insured. Not sure why when data base must show I am insured. However., send Insurance docs requested.  Told I must now wait 48 hrs for response. In the meantime my insurance renewal is getting closer reaching end date on 20 Feb. I am now worried I won't be insured in time so try comparison site looking for another provider. Now insurance premiums have risen by £200 however can't get insured because Go Skippy has placed cancellation marker on data base because of wrong info they found placed by Policy direct. I am now stuck in a Kafkaesque nightmare having never had a cancelled policy and not being able to get the issue resolved in any reasonable time frame and now the premiums have gone through the roof.  Is this a common theme and could it be a deliberate grift by the insurance underwriters and so called Brokers? 

Third brand new user in a couple of weeks to use the phrase "Kafkaesque nightmare" despite never seeing it on this forum before.

Different sellers of insurance use CUE and various other databases in different ways, some now seem to do live checks during the quote process, others only post inception or at claims stage. Some read from the dbs but dont add data to them others are the reverse. 

Finding inconsistent information in the db will equally trigger different responses. Most the time its undeclared claims and given the insurer would cover them had the claim been disclosed then they give them X days to explain else they'll adjust the price to factor in the claim. One aspect of your case that is different is that you were still before the policy started and so terminating it is less of an issue -v- had they found it out a week after the policy had started which may result in you driving without insurance if you dont religiously check your email. 

Insurers want to sell insurance, not cancel policies and refund the premiums however they must make sure the right price is being paid for the risk they are taking on and that the risk they are taking on is what they believe it is. If the other intermediary has confirmed it was an error on their part and all else is fine then it's just a matter of time to grind through the process. Unfortunately when one issue is found it's typical that they then look harder to make sure there arent others. 

CUE may not show your current policy, as noted above. The MID would but Go Skippy as an intermediary is unlikely to have the access to query your vehicle on it, their access will just allow them to add insurance details to the cars they've sold policies to. 

sibutty

Thanks for the reply but it definitely isn't less of an issue for me. I have had to spend hours trying to resolve something through a broker because the underwriters won't speak direct. This, is in my opinion why Britain just doesn't work anymore. We spend too much on middle men all wanting a cut of ever dwindling resources. 

DullGreyGuy

sibutty said:

Thanks for the reply but it definitely isn't less of an issue for me. I have had to spend hours trying to resolve something through a broker because the underwriters won't speak direct. This, is in my opinion why Britain just doesn't work anymore. We spend too much on middle men all wanting a cut of ever dwindling resources. 

Then why did you choose to go with a middleman rather than a direct insurer like Aviva, Direct Line, Churchill etc?

Seems odd to complain about middlemen when you are perpetuating them... you actually used two middlemen, the comparison site first and the broker second. If you clicked through from this site then its three middlemen as this site is an affiliate marketing company so gets paid for the links you click and go on to buy from. 

sibutty

What choice do you have when the likes of Aviva or Churchill and the rest of the cartels do not compete on price. I was with Aviva and their renewal price this year was £800 pounds rising £50 from last year. I have 15 years no claims 56 years old driving for 35 years I don't drive a fancy car. All of the compare sites showing premiums starting from £350 upwards. 
The second chapter of this story is that I still have not got insurance because go Skippy have now just told me that the MID enforced cancellation marker is still showing 3 week after it was supposed to be removed. 

DullGreyGuy

sibutty said:

What choice do you have when the likes of Aviva or Churchill and the rest of the cartels do not compete on price. I was with Aviva and their renewal price this year was £800 pounds rising £50 from last year. I have 15 years no claims 56 years old driving for 35 years I don't drive a fancy car. All of the compare sites showing premiums starting from £350 upwards. 
The second chapter of this story is that I still have not got insurance because go Skippy have now just told me that the MID enforced cancellation marker is still showing 3 week after it was supposed to be removed. 

Whos competitive or not very much depends on if you fit in their target customer definition or not and that too changes over time (as you yourself do). Thats no different for direct insurers as it is for brokers and other intermediaries. If one company was cheapest for everyone there would probably only be one company

Direct Line, Aviva and Admiral have been very competitive for in the past for me. In fact for Home insurance, Aviva charge us circa £600 and our next nearest quote this year was £1,500. 

Personally dont have issues with middlemen as they can bring their own value to the table, you seem to have to agree given the broker has managed to undercut the direct insurers for you.

They're saying the marker is on MID not CUE? Did they possibly say MIB, which is the organisation that runs the MID, CUE and a few other similar databases. 

I've always used MID from the perspective of a claims technician looking for the insurer of a third party vehicle. Certainly in our view it doesn't show a policy being cancelled or not. I've not worked with MID from an underwriting perspective so dont know if they hold more but I doubt it for a variety of reasons. CUE is the normal DB for sharing things like cancelled policies etc.

sibutty

I have provided broker with requested info and they now say it should also show the name of the other driver on the policy. You would have thought this info could have been requested at the same time. My wife has never taken out a policy so would never have a cancellation against her name. But hey! when you enter never never land what's a little bit more of your wasted time going cost. 4th  letter later 23rd phone call still no insurance. What an efficient and streamlined service we get in country.

sibutty

Go Skippy have deliberately run the clock down on a premium the algorithm generated and they didn't want to honour the premium. So now because the 20-27 day window as closed insurance quotes are now £200 dearer.  In my opinion this is a rigged system.  Go Skippy should have been honest from the start and just said that the premium offered was too cheap for them. It would have Saved me three weeks of nonsense phone calls backwards and forwards to god knows where in the world just to get information from Somerset Bridge insurance based in this Country.