Whatever Happened To Loyalty?

My car insurance was due to expire and because I didn’t have time to look into other options before we went on holiday to Florida, I ended up just leaving it, even though I could see that the amount had increased by a significant amount.  Now I have the Car Insurance Blues.

I was reconciling my bank accounts last night, when I saw that there were 2 separate charges on my credit card for the insurance company, so I totalled them up, checked that they agreed in total with the quotation, which they did, and then out of curiosity I checked how much they had increased.

THIRTY FOUR PERCENT!

How can an insurance company justify putting up their charges by 34% when I haven’t as much as called them since I took out the policy a year ago, let alone had an accident or driving offence.

It was then that I noticed they had the model of my car wrong, it was listed as a Rover 75 instead of a Rover 45, which is a lower model.

How they managed that I don’t know, since when you get a quote you enter the vehicle registration, and they look up the model on the central database.

Well I thought, it must be worth calling them to see is I can at least get a lower price, seeing as how my model is a cheaper one than the one they have listed.

BIG MISTAKE!

So I called them, and it seems that not only can they not offer a lower price, this is the best that they can do, but my model of car actually costs £45 ($70) more to insure than the more expensive model.  Go figure…

The operator did say that as this was within the 14 day cancellation period (actually the last day, just my luck), that they would waive the £40 amendment fee, but in order to have the car legally insured with the correct model, I need to now pay the extra £45 so that I am insured for the correct model.

I asked about cancellation, since this is now going to be costing me more like a 50% increase, but it’s going to cost me £50 to cancel the policy.

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

I really really hate being used and abused like this, but an rather between a rock and a hard place, not knowing whether to just pay even more and stick with them, or say “STUFF IT” and look for another policy.

If I do stick with them I will have to pay an extra £45.  If I can find a cheaper policy elsewhere, I will have to pay an extra £50 to cancel, but then I can hopefully save £50 on what they are trying to charge me, so I will be better off.

So whatever happened to loyalty these days? 

It seems that with car insurance in particular you are better switching companies every year rather than sticking with the same company, which is the general consensus, which costs these companies a lot of time and effort in continually updating records.

It really doesn’t make sense does it.

I will update this to let you know how things work out, but for now I have the Car Insurance Blues.

Car Insurance Blues is a post from: Off The Record With Debbie & Tony