Help! and a warning about Dial Direct insurance

iBeast

hrdservices wrote: »

I feel obliged to offer a courtesy warning to anyone using car insurance by dialdirect.

These people will charge you for everything from change of address, change of anything, not telling them when you last went to the bathroom.

Before I even got my car insurance with them, they threatened to charge me for not producing my proof of no claims discount. I emailed and phoned a couple of times but no one was available, and when I eventually got in touch with someone they were so rude I wondered why they were even in the car insurance business.

Eventually I took out my insurance with them and had to pay for a change of address (£30), and to cancel my policy, yes another charge of £75 and then some.


Beware, beware, beware.

I don't see what your moaning about, first of all if you change your address your changing the risk on your policy = Change of price.
when you change details of the policy and they charge you an admin fee, how else are they meant to make a profit?
Next is the NCD, so if you say you have 5 years e.g. and you dont send in proof what are they expected to do, just cancel it straight away?
Cancellation fee? your in a contract.

AngryBird46

for the second year running I have fallen for DD scam -
Last year I accepted a competitive renewal quote - allowed the payment to go through - then a month later they sent me a letter threatening to cancel my cover and charge me a cancellation fee unless I paid an extra £140 (approx) - they then took the money out of my account my auto renewal. I managed to get them to apologise and reimburse the money.

This year I did the same thing - accepted a competitive renewal quote - They took the money out of my account and sent me a cover note. Then without warning or notification they cancelled my policy whilst I was on holiday - I received a letter of notification in arrears the day I returned. They said that Covea had refused to underwrite my cover, due to "new information" on the 28 July 23 days after my renewal date and 6 weeks after DD had first sent me the renewal quote. I had 2 minor parking bumps 10 months previously due to tiredness due to shift work- I have since changed jobs - all the claims had long gone through - Surely 10 months is enough time for Covea to accrue all the information on my claim ? and surely both Covea and DD have a liability to gather all the information on my account before offering me a renewal quote? So now they are offering me cover with another company - but Oh guess what? I have to pay an extra £140 !

GTG

I am hoping to find someone with a Dial Direct home insurance policy with family legal protection. I think its offered as standard.

I would like to know if landlord and tenant disputes are covered if one has to go to court i.e. the insurance will cover your solicitor etc.

I am talking about landlord and tenant as in leaseholder against one's landlord. For anyone that does not know, a leaseholder can also be referred too as a tenant as well as someone renting a property.

Dial Direct are one of the few insurance companies that do not offer a download facility for their policy documents on their website. Apparently they offer specimen docs after you have had a quote. I did not get a copy but it could have been at fault here.

If there is anyone out there that could help I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you

rs65

GTG wrote: »

Dial Direct are one of the few insurance companies that do not offer a download facility for their policy documents on their website. In other words you cannot see the small print first!

Dial Direct are a broker, not an insurance company. You will probably need to know the actual insurer to be certain what the cover is.

GTG

rs65 wrote: »

Dial Direct are a broker, not an insurance company. You will probably need to know the actual insurer to be certain what the cover is.

Thanks rs65, Axa Insurance.

rs65

Try this page

http://www.axa.co.uk/insurance/personal/home/policy-details/

There are sample documents there but Dial Direct will have to be the ones to tell you exactly the cover they get from AXA.

I assume you are looking to buy insurance. Have you tried AXA directly?

David_InsDef

rs65 wrote: »

Try this page

http://www.axa.co.uk/insurance/personal/home/policy-details/

There are sample documents there but Dial Direct will have to be the ones to tell you exactly the cover they get from AXA.

I assume you are looking to buy insurance. Have you tried AXA directly?

This is very unlikely to be the Axa cover in force under a Dial Direct policy. It will be a panel wording to which all Dial Direct's underwriters have subscribed.

GTG

David_InsDef wrote: »

This is very unlikely to be the Axa cover in force under a Dial Direct policy. It will be a panel wording to which all Dial Direct's underwriters have subscribed.

Thanks for your contribution David but what does that mean?

Thanks

David_InsDef

GTG wrote: »

Thanks for your contribution David but what does that mean?

Thanks

Apologies, insurance garb is a bad habit!



Let's say Dial Direct (who are a broker - as has already been highlighted) use 10 different insurers, in theory each of those 10 insurers would have their own 'standard' policy wordings and it would be very unlikely that any 2 of them would be identical in terms of the cover they provide. This would be difficult for a broker like Dial Direct to manage so instead, they put together their own policy wording that all of their insurers agree to - so they're all offering identical cover through Dial.

The link above is Axa-specific and links to their own-brand policy wording. A home insurance policy bought via Dial Direct is highly likely to have a different policy wording (even if the insurer behind it is also Axa).

I haven't gone through the process but I'm pretty sure that if you go through a quotation on the Dial Direct website (or a price comparison site) you'll be offered a copy of the sample documents after you've done the quote but before you buy the policy.

GTG

Thanks for the comprehensive reply David. I appreciate how concise your first reply was now, however unintelligible it was to me then.

I had a quote a little while ago but don't recall the offer of specimen docs. However I have been on the blower quoting the quote number and they have promised to send me them. I had better go and correct my post above now in that respect.

Thank you once again for your time and the resulting helpfullnes from it. I shall definitely try and use my new found knowledge at the next dinner party I attend.