UKH

Hi.

Looking for insurance provider recommendations, based on customer service and claims handling.

Just come off the phone to our current insurer who would not deal with me despite being a covered driver and the car's registered keeper (plus previous correspondence in my name). My wife is the policy holder.

In reply to Flinticus:

I don't think you are going about this the right way.

Any suggestion we give will be most likely irrelevant as they may not insure you for a reasonable premium.

There doesn't seem to be any logic to why one big brand company may insure you for £700 and another want £5000 for the same level of cover.

Better to do a comparison, take the cheapest five, publish their names and level of cover they're offering and see what feedback you get and go from there.

My most recent was with 1st Central. They were fine. Replaced my windscreen with no push back. So I would recommend, but they tried to double my renewal so I went elsewhere.

In reply to Flinticus:  what are you expecting them to do?  You’re not the policyholder.  They have a contract with your wife, not you.  It would be complexity wrong of them to deal with anyone else.  The only thing I would expect would be that they would send roadside assistance in the event of accident or breakdown if that is covered by the policy.

In reply to Flinticus:

Whilst I can't offer assistance with your current situation, based on my own experience this year with Direct Line I'd walk everywhere rather than deal with them again.  A change of car at around renewal time led to them failing to renew the insurance as instructed, something that I only discovered when it was pointed out by the police three months later.

Friends who used to be insured with them have reported similar inefficiencies and absurdly high renewal quotes, and all now have their insurance with someone else.

So based on my (and their) experiences, I can only recommend that you take a direct line to another insurance provider.

T.

In reply to Tony Buckley:

I was with DL 15 years ago and I walked away. They may be different now (doesn't sound like it) but they kept asking for evidence that my car had a factory fit alarm.

I sent them a pictures of the alarm ECU etc, but then they wanted a mechanics report that it was the original unit and it was in working order.

As expected a mechanic wanted to charge for this so I just accepted that my car wasn't insured against theft for that year.

Never used them again.

In reply to Flinticus:

Don't touch Trinity Lane Insurance with a barge pole, they don't understand the content of their policies and apply really weaselly clauses in flagrant violation of guidance from the ombudsman.

In reply to Flinticus:

For future reference your wife needs to authorise you to speak about the policy. We usually use comparison websites, but then phone up to manually add myself as authorised (free).

Had your problem several years ago trying to cancel a policy they wanted to auto renew, as we had found cheaper cover elsewhere. I ended up cancelling the direct debit and just waiting for them to cancel the policy for non payment, they very threateningly told me this wasn't possible and that I was committing an offence by being double insured, but actually it's worked fine just cost them several (increasingly threatening) letters.

In reply to Tony Buckley:

I too had problems with Direct Line. Had a claim to replace a damaged alloy and tyre.

- They (their own repair service which they try to insist that you use) fitted what was obviously a second hand alloy despite claiming it was a new part.

- Incorrectly fitted the balancing weights damaging my brake calipers.

In the end, after a report to trading standards, they offered compensation. Come renewal my insurance went up 110%.

In reply to Tony Buckley and others with experience with Direct Line:

iirc (sorry, no, I haven’t “got a link to that” and I’ll accept any evidence-backed-up rebuttal of this) their upper management and executives treated their staff with worse disposable disdain than the more widely reported Sports Direct and Wetherspoons during the 2020 lockdowns