AVOID Hastings Direct

Helen_J_3 · 27 May 2010 at 9:28AM

These are the most incompetent set of people I have ever had the unfortunate opportunity to come into contact with.

Short story ongoing claim meant when I got the renewal through it had no year's no claims. Claim's now been sorted, in my favour, so I requested for them to send me proof of this so I could pass it on to my new insurers. I waited 3 weeks, no sign of the letter, so I rang them up asking where it had got to. Sorry was the answer, no one sent it, I'll send it now. Great.

A few days later a letter arrived, however it said no claims entitlement: 0

Why on earth would I request a no claims certificate if I had 0 years? :mad:

So I have to ring them again. Administrative mixup is the excuse, another one will be sent. Finally received it yesterday, and surprise surprise they've messed up again. All it says is confirmation of the settling of the claim and my no claims discount has not been affected. THIS IS NOT PROOF OF NO CLAIMS :mad::mad:

I've checked with my new insurers and it has to be a certificate like the renewal form. So now I have to ring Hastings again and try and get a proper no claims discount letter.

Why can't anyone take the initiative in this company? Surely when the first letter was typed someone should have realised that no one would request proof of no claims if they had 0 years. So why send a letter to that effect?

The second letter, as an insurance company I'm pretty certain they know that that is not sufficient proof of no claims. SO WHY SEND IT?

I would warn anyone considering taking a policy out with this company they have absolutely no idea what they are doing. I could tell you many administrative !!!! ups, failures, errors and the like during my very long year of being insured by them.

You have been warned

Lost2 · 27 May 2010 at 9:44AM

do you think they messed you about because you have insurance somewhere else

Oscar_The_Grouch · 27 May 2010 at 9:52AM

Lost2 wrote: »

do you think they messed you about because you have insurance somewhere else

No - It's because Hastings Direct are well known to be absolutely useless.

Q: You've mucked up the rates for several thousand policies & undercharged people. What do you do?
A: Cancel all the policies!!

That got them a £750k fine from the FSA.

rudekid48 · 27 May 2010 at 3:17PM

Oscar_The_Grouch wrote: »

No - It's because Hastings Direct are well known to be absolutely useless.

Q: You've mucked up the rates for several thousand policies & undercharged people. What do you do?
A: Cancel all the policies!!

That got them a £750k fine from the FSA.

That's a touch harsh Oscar. That did happen a couple of years ago and they have gone through an MBO since then so although the trading name is the same it is in effect a completely new company.

Boy_from_Brazil · 27 May 2010 at 3:51PM

I recently left the employment of Hastings Direct as I had to move house with my family.

I must say that they have had some dogs abuse on this site over the last couple of months and most of it is totally unwarranted. Yes there are times when they make a mistake and unfortuantely (but quite typically I'd say of a lot of service organisations) these mistakes often get compounded for the same person by further errors.

They have gone through a hell of a lot of change over the last 18 months or so. The FSA fine alluded to above has made them re-evaluate the way they trade and they now do so in a way that most other insurance companies aren't doing. They really do believe in TREATING CUSTOMERS FAIRLY and whilst there are some administrative mistakes made their underlying principles are sound.

This is a company that was bought by the Management at a time of deep recession when others would have walked away and left hundreds unemployed. Yes, they probably stand to make a nice profit at some point in the future but good luck to them for that.

Having worked there for a number of years I can honestly say the company I left is a VERY different one to the one I started working for back then and that I was sad to leave.

Good Luck Hastings Direct - I hope you achieve greatness!!

Oscar_The_Grouch · 27 May 2010 at 4:07PM

Thanks for your post, Boy. The problem is that the MBO didn't dispose of the dead weight in the customer services area; something that a robust and enforced audit process may have helped with. If they'd eased the useless staff out through sanctions, warnings and a procedural dismissal, they could have easily trained new staff correctly and mistakes like this wouldn't happen.

From the outside, Hastings Direct is still the same, old, rubbish using a slightly updated "Harry" and a tired policy wording. Regardless of the changes inside, these aren't shining though and the public don't care how nice the place is to work; they care about the service provided.

Quentin · 27 May 2010 at 4:56PM

Boy_from_Brazil wrote: »

I must say that they have had some dogs abuse on this site over the last couple of months and most of it is totally unwarranted.

There are some more unbiased reviews of Hastings service here:

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews2434.html

This week's ones include these comments: very unhelpful: do not use: nightmare

raskazz · 27 May 2010 at 7:10PM

I do tend to agree with Boy From Brazil on this.

They are not the best insurer/intermediary by a long stretch but they are infinitely better run than when David Gundlach offloaded the business. At that point they were a catastrophe waiting to happen, and the !!!!-up on their Highway scheme was the low point.

Since then the boardroom was cleared of overpaid fatheads and many people had to re-apply for jobs. Neil Utley and Peter Cullum are not people who expect mediocre results from their investments.

Anyone can find uniformly poor reviews online for any insurer/intermediary - the only time people want to write online reviews of insurers is when they want to let off steam. I would point to the Ombudsman's published complaints data as evidence that they have cleaned up their act. The following are percentages of consumer complaints upheld by the FOS for Hastings and other comparable firms (from http://www.ombudsman-complaints-data.org.uk/):

Hastings - 23.00%
Admiral - 38.00%
BISL - 63.00%
Direct Line - 38.00%

Woby_Tide · 27 May 2010 at 10:13PM

Quentin wrote: »

There are some more unbiased reviews of Hastings service here:

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews2434.html

This week's ones include these comments: very unhelpful: do not use: nightmare

Because consumers are renowned for going on the internet to praise companies as opposed to whining like !!!!!!y when things go wrong. Whilst stuff like Amazon and Trip Advisor seem to get reasonably balanced views on a product by product basis, those reviews that concern companies seem to always be 99% vitriol based on bad experience.

I.e. someone would write a nice review about their hotel, but at the same time slate the service they got from Thomson/Thomas Cook etc. Seems to be a fairly common trait

AVOID Hastings Direct

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