Admiral Insurance Complaint

atrixblue.-MFR-.

Eddy12 wrote: »

Having stumbled upon this thread, I had to add my story.

In November 2010 a car drove into me, and I don't know how I restrained myself as he tore the front of my 7 series BMW off. I got onto Admiral, and to my shock found out I was only insured 3rd party. It was a mistake, probably going back to a comparison website, and me not checking that the cover was incorrect. Anyway...

Admiral put me onto a solicitors firm, and TO THIS DAY I am still waiting for them to fix my car. Naturally all insurance companies advise their customers not to admit liability, which is why this fiasco will eventually have to go to court.

My car still isn't fixed, and to be honest isn't properly roadworthy, but at over £2k for the repair, I am not going to fork out for this myself.

Admiral have nothing to do with it now, but the service as a whole was completely inadequate, not fit for purpose, and I fell like the victim in a scam.

Shame on you Admiral for not seeing your part of this through.

so you blame them for not checking your documents were correct?

no admiral wont fix your car, and liability is still in the pipeline.

when they said you purchased 3rd party only, you next port of call was to deal with it yourself communicating with the person who hit you insurance company, or got a accident management company involved.

you were the mistake to you policy for not checking it when it arrived and again checking your cover before you purchased on the internet.

paulwhitte

Hey guys,

I've had a similar problem to reverend2009 above...but wondered if anyone can offer any advise. I've sent the following email on the FSA and also to watchdog to see if they can help or offer us some advise, but your thoughts are very much appretiated too,

To Admiral:
"Hello,

I am writing to log down a complaint I have regarding Admiral cancelling our insurance policy. I have already spoken to several people from customer services, including a manager in the Swansea Callcenter (I apologize I cannot remember his first name however his surname is Parlour).

Within the last month I had received a promotion at work and as a result me and my partner needed to move from Tunbridge Wells to Orpington. We had to move quite quickly and as a result even had to pay rent on our old property (the address I believe you have on file which is *****) as well as our new home which is ******. My girlfriend is currently 8months pregnant and with moving but still paying for our old property, as well as dealing with the pregnancy etc we have had alot on our minds and as a result had forgotten to update yourselves with our new address. I completely concede this is my own fault and I should have contacted you immediately to advise of our new address.

Subsequently, and I am still unsure how this has happened but the direct debit you were due to take from my girlfriends bank account was rejected. As far as I was concerned I had asked her if the insurance had gone out and she advised me that it had. I took her word as gospel as quite frankly there is no way that I can physically check myself (and in hindsite I should have taken the policy out from my own bank account). You then sent us a letter to advise the payment had failed, and you would try again in 10 days. We obviously never received this letter, and I understand it was returned to you via Royal Mail advising as such. Because we didn't receive this letter (again completely not your fault I understand this) we didn't know to transfer funds into her bank account for the admiral direct debit to be taken as should have been.

The next thing I heard from yourselves was on the 20th September 2012 where I received my FIRST email from Admiral to advise me, "There is a problem with your policy. Please contact us to discuss". I called you immediately (well my partner did) to enquire what the problem was. We literally called within 20 minutes of receiving your email. We were told in no uncertain terms the direct debit had failed, and as a result we can either pay £2000+ by Sunday or our policy would be cancelled.
This is completely unreasonable as all of the 4 people I have spoken to from customer services have agreed with me that asking someone to pay £2000 midmonth is not something many people would be able to do.

As soon as we realised there was a problem we have called you 5 or 6 times to discuss this and see how we can resolve the matter - however Admiral cannot offer us any resolution at all (other than the above which really isn't a reasonable resolution as agreed to by pretty much everyone from customer services I have spoken to). We are not refusing to make payment at all, and it has been a genuine error which has resulted in our policy now about to be cancelled in 2 days time. We cannot feasibly knock £2000 out of the air and as a result are going to have to let our policy cancel.

What upsets us is the facts below:
1) Admiral did not make reasonable efforts to contact us to advise that the direct debit had failed. You have sent me a letter or letters which HAVE been returned to you (although Lisa in customer services went away to check and then said, "no we haven't received them back"..only to receive an email an hour later saying you have received them back". As soon as you received them back, or at the same time you could have sent me an email to ask me to call you which I would have done straight away and this would/could have been avoided. Nobody even tried to call me to discuss. I understand the main emphasis is on a customer making sure payment is made on time, which is fair enough, however the financial regulator also advises companies have to make, "reasonable efforts to contact the customer". I think they will agree that 1 returned letter with no email contact until it was too late or even as much as a phone call is not a, "reasonable effort" from your side.
2) Secondly we were never told that we would forego our right to a direct debit scheme if we miss 1 payment. This was never advised over the phone which I think is quite a crucial thing to advise to a customer. Do Admiral really think that people don't have problems in their everyday lives? For example if a customer had been a victim of card fraud, and as a result payment failed and they had no means to transfer funds. Would it be fair to cancel their policy or demand an excessive amount? This is not a banking error so would your stance still be the same that, "we can only overturn a cancelled direct debit if we receive a letter from the bank saying it was their error". Surely this cannot be the case, and as mentioned above it will be interesting to hear what the FSA think about this.
3) We didn't recieve emails or calls until we had 3 days to make a FULL payment of our policy. The miscomunication I have received from Admiral has been very poor. As mentioned above Lisa advised you hadn't had any letters returned - then an hour later I receive an email saying you had received them back? I asked for a manager callback then received an email saying someone had tried to call - which they didn't as I had my phone on me and called straight back to ask to call to him (but nobody knew who he was). I also then to make matters worse received an email asking me to call "within 7 days" as there was a problem with my policy. If I had have left it 7 days my policy would have been beyond saving, it would have been cancelled without my knowledge and I would have risked breaking the law by driving my car unknowingly.

Any other financial organisation whether it be a bank, mobile phone company or sky, BT etc if you miss a single payment then will contact you and restrict your service until you make payment. I understand you have made some (small) effort to contact me, however rather than restricting our service or charging us an admin charge on top of what we owe - you are cancelling our policy. If I called any of the organisations above and apologised and made an offer to make full payment for my arrears immediately they would accept the money and my policy would continue as normal. I understand there is a limit to this and you would not expect a customer to regularly miss payments without any repercusions however for missing 1 payment (unknowingly) to then pretty much cancel our policy this is completely unreasonable.

People have mittigating circumstances in life and I cannot understand how a company can not have some form of policies to take this on board. I'm not expecting Admiral to go above and beyond for me - ALL I want is to continue to be a customer of yours. My partner Nicola had her policy with yourselves, then when my policy came up for renewal with another insurer I decided to change my policy to admiral multicar because you seemed to offer us a very competitive deal. Nicola also renewed her policy with you having made no claims in the last year. Before this instance all in all we have never missed a payment (this is including Nicolas policy as well as the last 2 months since our multicar policy started). I work in customer services for one of the biggest BMW dealerships in the country and have recommended Admiral several times to customers as you offer fantastic deals. I would always have stayed loyal to your company - however Admiral doesn't want to know about this. I don't expect you to even take any of the above into consideration - however in pure and simple terms I want to stay an Admiral customer. I want to continue with my policy and pay you the remainder of the £2000+ over the next year as stated.
Rather than this you would rather cancel our policy and receive next to nothing from us. I understand £2000 isn't going to break your companies finance however how can you expect to be a sustainable company by ignoring the "little people"?
By cancelling our policy you are losing us as customers, losing our money, our recomendations. I just cannot understand how this can be. As mentioned previously every customer service advisor I have spoken to from Admiral has said they, "Completely understand", "Completely believe this was just human error" and also that they, "Wouldn't be able to pay £2000 midmonth especially with a 3 day deadline".

With the weekend you have left us in a situation where ALL we can do is take out a policy with another insurer - however the only problem with this is that Admiral seem to have some sort of monopoly over multicar policies on the same policy. All other companies you need individual policies to then receive a discount, or the only other exception Aviva require you to be over 25. What are we supposed to do? All we can do is take out 2 seperate insurance policies now which is unreasonable mid month. You are cancelling our policy 2 days before either of us get paid. What do we do on Monday and Tuesday? How do either of us get to work?
I repeat we have had THREE days to sort this out.

I'm not expecting you to do anything further for me with regards to my policy, however I wanted to put my complaint above in writing. I have contacted watchdog and I will be forwarding this email onto the FSA who I understand regulate your company. If they are unable to help I will be taking the matter to county court because Admiral have really left us in between a rock and a hard place. As mentioned at the top my girlfriend is 8 months pregnant, this is all unwanted stress for her and myself when ALL we want to do is pay you the money we owe and continue as normal. This was a genuine error on our part, however having a policy of 1 strike and out seems extremely unjust and nobody from Admiral has been able to explain anything otherwise to me so far.

Regards,

Paul"

To Watchdog:
"Our direct debit payment for Admiral Multicar Policy was not taken from our account due to a lack of funds in the account. We did not realise this.
We have been in the process of moving house in the last month and had meant to contact Admiral to advise of our change of address. They apparently wrote us a letter saying the payment had failed, but we didn't receive this and the post was returned to Admiral. This was sent/returned on the 1st September.
I then did not receive any communication (which I actually received) until the 20th September. I received an email asking if I could contact Admiral due to an error with our car insurance. I called immediately and was told the direct debit had failed, and we would need to pay £2000+ by Sunday (3 days) or our policy would be cancelled.
My girlfriend is 8 months pregnant, and I have spoken to at least 5 people from Admiral to plead with them not to end our policy and allow us to pay the overdue funds and re-setup the direct debit as was before. I do not expect them to be out of pocket or have to chase for money, however and as every person I have spoken to from Admiral can agree to - it has been a genuine mistake and as soon as we realised we contacted them straight away.
They have advised it is company policy if a direct debit fails 2x it will be cancelled and you forego your right to have a direct debit setup moving forward.
Any other financial organisation whether it be banking or even mobile phone would allow you to pay your overdue and re-set you up - even with a warning about future problems.
All we want to do is continue our policy with Admiral.
Alternatively they are going to cancel our policy on Sunday, leaving us with no insurance and more annoyingly the fact that admiral are the ONLY company who offer multicar policies (for customers below 25 year).
I work in the motortrade and as mentioned above I have pleased with Admiral to allow us to pay the monies owed straight away, but they won't even allow us to make this payment. The ONLY option they have given us is a payment of £2050 or the policy will be cancelled in 3 days (Sunday). I work for the motor trade and cannot understand how a company can be sustainable by rather than trying to keep customers who are loyal and willing to continue with them, as opposed to cancelling our policy and losing our money and our custom. Nobody from customer service or even the manager I spoke to (Mr. Parlour from the Swansea callcenter) could offer us any alternatives at all. They just told us to take out insurance with another company.
This is not fair, and has put myself and my pregnant partner under great stress and worry what we are going to do to resolve this.
Please help watchdog."

RJG77

Did you know that Admiral renew your home insurance without your permission. I just found out 7 months later after moving overseas.

Of course I didn't close the insurance policy which was scheduled to close a month after I left the country. Admiral however have other ideas. Admiral home insurance send a letter to your address informing you that the policy has been renewed, the premium increased and the excess changed.

Unless you actively terminate the policy the direct debit will just continue... and of course the direct debit will not be named Admiral but some other non descipt company.

Admiral home insurance, having no doubt received a change of address notice when writing to me, then had the audacity to issue a final notice demanding a cancellation fee and months premium despite insuring a property that was subsequently insured by another insurance company for the new tenants.

Naturally, even to get hold of Admiral on the telephone is a mission particuarly since there is no overseas number to dial. WHen I finally did get through I was presented with an unhelpful, sarcastic and miserable fool from the credit control policy who explained that although they were insuing my house contents which are situated on the other side of the world I would have to pay GBP92 to cancel the property... which I reluctantly agreed to do. GBP 92 is worth every penny of not having to deal with this unethical, sneaky, dishonest company.

Moral of the story: DO NOT USE ADMIRAL HOME INSURANCE... imagine how sneaky they must be when a customer tries to make a claim.

worried_jim

RJG77 wrote: »

Did you know that Admiral renew your home insurance without your permission. I just found out 7 months later after moving overseas.

Of course I didn't close the insurance policy which was scheduled to close a month after I left the country. Admiral however have other ideas. Admiral home insurance send a letter to your address informing you that the policy has been renewed, the premium increased and the excess changed.

Unless you actively terminate the policy the direct debit will just continue... and of course the direct debit will not be named Admiral but some other non descipt company.

Admiral home insurance, having no doubt received a change of address notice when writing to me, then had the audacity to issue a final notice demanding a cancellation fee and months premium despite insuring a property that was subsequently insured by another insurance company for the new tenants.

Naturally, even to get hold of Admiral on the telephone is a mission particuarly since there is no overseas number to dial. WHen I finally did get through I was presented with an unhelpful, sarcastic and miserable fool from the credit control policy who explained that although they were insuing my house contents which are situated on the other side of the world I would have to pay GBP92 to cancel the property... which I reluctantly agreed to do. GBP 92 is worth every penny of not having to deal with this unethical, sneaky, dishonest company.

Moral of the story: DO NOT USE ADMIRAL HOME INSURANCE... imagine how sneaky they must be when a customer tries to make a claim.

Its called auto renew and by now (5 year old thread) I would imagine that all insurance companies do it.

dacouch

Try sending them a short and polite letter explaining the situation and enclosing proof you did not require the Insurance eg proof of you moving abroad.

If you do the above they will see there was no risk of a claim to them and probably refund the premium possibly less an admin charge.

Write a nasty letter and you will probably get no where

Dukesy

I've been insured on various cars with Admiral for around five years now, and tbh have never had a problem. Recently I had to make a claim as someone wrote my car off and Admiral have been very easy to deal with the whole time, good contact, helpful and even gave me very nearly what I asked for as a settlement.

Tbh, no-one is ever going to start a thread just to say 'yeah, I tried them and they were ok', only when someone has a real strength of feeling will they make threads like this. Everyone will have a different experience with things like insurance companies, and I feel sorry for those who have had a rubbish time, but it's only a small percentage of their customers.

HateAdmiralNow

16 May 2013
Con-Artists!! - BEWARE OF THEIR AUTOMATIC RENEWAL POLICY!!!
I just got charged £22.50 for cancelling a renewal I did not ask for, they just automatically renewed the policy. I only found out because they wrote to me when my bank didn't authorise them taking the money from my account. I pointed out that not only did I not ask for or authorise a renewal (I shop around for the best deal every year), but in any case I would have the right to cancel any policy within 14 days. Admiral first said it was because I was 7 days into the new policy and it was a pro-rata payment for the 7 days of cover, NOT a cancellation fee. However when I asked how much my policy was for this year, and divided by 365, it worked out at £1.37p per day (£9.60p for the week), NOT the £22.50 they were asking for. I pointed this out and offered to pay the £9.60 as a good will gesture, but then they said there was a cancellation fee within the 14 days and they could not take just the £9.60. They can't make up their minds on how their own system works.
I pointed out that I had no notification from them that my policy was ending OR being renewed. Apparently, although they always insist on having your email address, they do not email you, write to you or call you. They have their own "portal" on their website where they write to you to notify you. So unless you happen to go to the Admiral website and log in to your "portal" you'll never have any other contact from them to advise you your policy is ending and being automatically renewed!!
I mean, if they insist on having your email address, why don't they just email you? They didn't hesitate to write me a letter when they couldn't get the money out of my account, so why didn't they write to notify me my policy was coming to an end? Because they want to automatically renew your policy and take your money, and then CHARGE you if you cancel the renewal once you find out they've taken the money out of your account. WHAT A SCAM.
When I said they were very dishonest and I would not pay the £22.50 out of principle, I was also told I had to pay within 2 weeks or it would escalate. So I've now had to give them my bank details again so they can take my money to cancel a renewal I did not ask for and I was not notified of, or possibly face Court.

Quentin

You rant about this, but it's down to you!

(You will have agreed to them autorenewing when you took out the policy - it was up to you to tell them if you decided not to renew)

vaio

If punters pay it then they will carry on doing it

If punters complain to them (& the FOS if necessary) then (eventually) they will change their business model

LaD101

I really did my price comparison shopping and Admiral came up best for price... there is a very good reason. They are pathetic. I am trying to be neutral but they are what they are. When joining a man phoned me back and sold me a couple of cheap little extras, fair enough, but I asked for my mid month payments to be changed to the 1st of each month as my partner and I prefer this. "Yeah that's no problems sir!" yada yada. I'm sure you see where this is going... didn't happen. I assumed it had, mid month they try to take the cash, I didn't have it ( I get paid weekly) letter comes through saying the direct debit has been missed.

I phone again, this time a lady who spreads the missed payment over the rest of the policy, changes the date to the 1st and sets up the direct debit again. Phew! Glad that's sorted! I go on my two week holiday leaving £300 in the bank for the payment on the 1st, wouldn't want a repeat of last time.......... Didn't get set up.

I call back today actually, (first day back in UK), angry now, as the direct debit is cancelled, they want £360 in a 8 days or it's £46.50 cancellation fee and the outstanding payment that had to be spread and the September payment. It's a D20 they say so you can't just pay the two payments over the phone and be up to date, there is nothing we can do. Utter Garbage.

I asked why there was no communication of this issue via email or a phone call.

We sent you one on the 8th of September...
No you didn't I have my email open...
Oh, well sometimes it can go to your portal...
Sometimes! Why didn't you send it to my email I have registered?
Well, sometimes we send it to your portal...
But if I believe there to be no issue why would I check the portal?
Sorry that's the way it is

Well you know what? If I can stop one poor soul signing up to this incompetent circus that is Admiral then I have not wasted my time. Remember fellow consumers, you get what you pay for.