UKC

So I bought a new car 10 days ago, insured it online using the help of 'compare the market' or 'money supermarket', one of those. Anyway the cheapest quote came in from Hastings direct. So I paid the whole yearly quote rather than monthly and off I was driving around with my daughter, happy to have a new reliable car.
Today, 10 days after taking out the policy I got a phone call from them asking me for evidence of my no claims. I stated I had no no claims as I have worked abroad for almost 20 years, I stated this on the questions online and was asked if I had any time driving as a named driver on someone elses insurance, which I have, whenever I have visited over the years I have driven my parents second car on my fathers insurance, but I 100% remember clicking on the zero for no claims, absolutely.
He then went on to say that this quote was for 7 years no claims, which is false. I then went a little crazy with them as when I asked why this would be the response was, 'oh, did you fill it in through a comparison site, this can sometimes happen when using these thrid party sites'. Obviously I wasn't impressed, as if I had a killed someone over the last 10 days they would have void my claim and I would have gone to jail.
Anyway, you get the general idea of what was being said. And so they tried to squeeze me for another £183 ontop of what I'd just paid. I refused, and began my rant about making an example of them by reporting them to watchdog and trading standards etc. I mean, how many people are driving around who think they are insured but ae not insured because of errors like these.

After about 30 minutes of talking to robots I asked to go through to loyalty and someone who was going to deal with this as I refused to pay more. After making it very obvious I was going to make a thing of this rather than just pay, and would rather cancel my policy and have a refund then pay extra I ended up walking away with a new policy for less than my existing one with 7 years no claims.

Now if that does not show what horrors these companies are I don't know what is.
Firstly I was insured, but not covered because of false fed info on the no claims thing.
Secondly they wanted to charge me another £183 or my policy would be no use.
and then in the end I got my policy for £28 cheaper with no years no claims than I did with 7 years.
I believe all because I made a stink.

So this afternoon I have been online looking around and there are lots of stories of people doing exactly what I did, but having crashed their car, some into others, weren't covered and lost their license and in most cases having to sit their test again.

Shocking!!

In reply to Dominicandave:

Just had similar, Carol Nash motorcycle insurance. Been with them since Carol and Malcolm Nash's time, but now pretty poor. Got a crazy cheap requote, turned out a few days later I had been uninsured, so they honourwd the very cheap quote, however it missed out some details which I had told them, or which were on my policy previously. They still trying to charge me for these corrections, calling them midterm changes to policy, while I'm suggesting they listen to their recordings of my calls...

Hard work really,

In reply to Dominicandave:

Insurance companies are scumbags shocker.

In reply to Dominicandave:

just changed mine. quote from new insurers was £150 cheaper, so I went with that. Surprise surprise when I cancelled, the old insurer was desperate to do a deal. It's just a game to them. If they'd been upfront, they'd probably have kept me.

PS Hastings messed me around some years ago. incompetents

In reply to Dominicandave:

So did the policy documents, that would've been sent to you and will be available online, say "0 years NCD" or 7 years? If the latter, why didn't you call then and say "hey, this is wrong."? If the former, then there's no need for you to worry - they simply priced it wrong

I suspect that the vast majority of people you've found online who ended up getting prosecuted for taking out insurance with false statements probably knew exactly what they were doing, but decided to protest their innocence online - having dealt with the aftermath of a systems blip that gave people a quote for the minimum possible premium (£136) even if they were 17 with nine points, then I think the likelihood of a widespread fault that gives people the wrong cover, and then there's apparently no audit trail to prove the error, is pretty small. In our case the fault was found inside 24 hours and that was because it was over New Year. We agreed to honour the couple of thousand policies we'd sold, and it cost us a million quid in excess premium - it had happened once before in 15 years of that particular price comparison website.

In reply to andy:
Interestingly the original policy details on my online account have been deleted and replaced with 2 new documents. One stating New policy, the other stating, Cancellation of policy.
Worryingly I have just looked into this after you asked and they have put a date of cancellation of the original policy as 3rd July, which was the date I took it out. And the new policy from today.

I'm very very angry about this and glad you brought my attention to this. Looks suspect as hell.


And this is not a cheap policy. I am 43 year old and am paying £500 a year. So ......................

In reply to Dominicandave:

It also means you have "had a policy cancelled", which means you have to declare that for every quote you get in future for life (and it'll be logged with one of the bureaux, so they will know) and it will bump your insurance up for life.

The lesson is check BEFORE the policy commences. And check again. They *are* out to get you.

In reply to Neil Williams:

I'm sure there is a difference between 'had a policy cancelled' and 'cancelled and policy'.......

I can't be held accountable for this, and people change insurers all the time, I don't think what you point out is relevant, although I have noticed the question asking if I've had a policy cancelled before. Two different things I think.

In reply to Dominicandave:

I think there is (or used to be) an Insurance Ombudsman, so maybe try contacting them.

In reply to Fraser:

I would definitely contact the ombudsman, we did when the wife's policy was canceled.
I was a named driver but she forgot to tell them about my 3 points. When she sent copies of our licenses in they rang her at work stating she had 30 mins to get home before they canceled the policy.
It was an easy mistake and she offered to pay the difference but they refused.
I re insured her that night and it went up by £200 due to the cancellation.
Ombudsman sorted it though and got the cancellation removed from her record and got her £300 compensation for the hassle.
Apparently they are supposed to give reasonable notice to cancel not 30 mins in the middle of the working day.

In reply to Fraser:

Well I've come out of it better than I started as my policy is now cheaper than I began with after throwing up a stink. This is the madness of it. They called to try to get more money from me, yet they left giving me a premium cheaper than what they did originally.

In short, it is costing me less to get insured with no years no claims than it was costing me with 7 years no claims, with the same company, almost £200 cheaper.

I dunno, but I would hate any of you guys to get caught out by this, fortunately I didn't have a crash but just a headsup!

Do it over the phone, or in person.

In reply to Dominicandave:

And what is your audit trail (not theirs), if you use the telephone? Unless you record the call (and tell them you're recording it).

What is needed is for price comparison websites you send you a copy of your responses to their questions. And then to take responsibility for their cock-ups. After all, they're taking their cut.

In reply to Dominicandave:
We took Hastings direct to the financial ombusman service and after nearly a year won they where forced to payout - they are often the cheapest - and they are almost certainly the worst. I wouldn't touch them.

Keep your paperwork, always send an email to confirm the telephone conversations you have, always ask for a reference for the call or at least get the name of the person you are talking to.

In reply to cander:

and download and print out a copy of the policy document as soon as you possibly can!

In reply to rallymania:
And never go with the cheapest just for the penny-pinching opportunity. Always sets my alarm bells ringing.

In reply to Dominicandave:

The Num Num children drive without insurance. it saves them £5000 a year.

In reply to Dominicandave:

Maybe I'm missing something, but it looks to me like there's been no strict mis-selling - more a failure to check the version of the form on the insurer's own website.

I've had a few near misses in this regard myself. Filling out a form on a claims comparison website, getting lots of quotes from various insurers, and then finding that there is a mismatch between the form I filled in and the data that has been fed to the Insurer. For example, I tell money-supermarket I do not have an intruder alarm, and then find the Direct Line quote is predicated on my having an intruder alarm.

The answer is to use the comparison site to find promising leads, but then to always go through the forms on the actual insurer's website. I really don't see how the insurer can be blamed for failures in claims comparison websites' ability to interface with their forms.

In reply to Dominicandave:

Definitely sounds like they cancelled your policy and created a new one to me.

In reply to thebigfriendlymoose:
No, the comparison site sends you to the actual company site once the actual agreement is done through the Hastings site. Compare only find the quote for you. The short of it is they tried to squeeze another £183 out of me, saying that I had said I had 6 years no claims, which I didn't. Once I didn't just pay up and made a song and dance of it they offered me a lower quote with '0 years no claims' than they had in the first place when they said I had '6 years no claims'.
How many people do they get in a panic like this per day, who just pay up. It's not difficult to see what they were up to.

Go figure!!

In reply to Dominicandave:

That doesn't make sense, wrote it while preoccupied, but you see what I'm saying. The comparison site only comapres the prices, it send you to the company site once you pick the quote the offered. There you fill out the forms.

In reply to Dominicandave:

Its possible something underhand was going on its also more likely it wasn't IMO. Legally its your responsibility to check the details on the policy that are transferred on to the insurers web site. I for on always do that very carefully. They then send you the documents after payment and again you are asked to check the documents. Whilst an error was made on their side it was also made on your own.