24vcossiemat

Forgive me for this! I'm about to have a right rant!! but its well worth reading!!

I sold my granada a while back, so I been running around in a car only worth about 5-600 quid, Insured it fully comp with them.. last weekend I smashed the car up, filled all the forms in online to make my claim. to cut a long story short the car got declared a total loss by them and they offered me 860 quid.. fair deal really I thought, minus my 350 excess I will get 510 quid.. or so I thought!! they sent me an email saying-

We are offering you 860 minus 350 excess HOWEVER (in block capitals) WE WILL ALSO DEDUCT THE REMAINDER OF YOUR ANNUAL PREMIUM WHERE APPLICABLE AS IN ACCORDANCE WITH YOUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS..

now baring in mind I took the insurance out one and half months ago I would be receiving 147.87 quid for my written off car!! fucking tossers, I don't think so!!

So what they where telling me was they where going to take off me the entire years premium, take away my written off car, sell that to copart, take away 20 % of my no claims and give me 147.87 in return... I had a right argument with them over the phone and told them to get fucked.. whats the point in having fully comp if you have no chance of replacing the car once written off. I may as well not have bothered claiming, kept my no claims and broke the car for spares on ebay, i'd have got 500 for it!
My reason for putting this is.. I know there are a fair few young people on here that may have just passed there test, bought a nice 3 grand car and be paying 3 grand to insure it.. by what they are saying that young lad could take fully comp insurance and write off the car and get NOTHING in return due to having to pay the remainder out of his settlement.. its well out of order.. So watch it people!! Swiftcover are robbing us!! It is in all fully comp insurance policies with them.

JamesH

iTrader: (21)

That sucks, just goes to show, read the small print

24vcossiemat

yeah, they said it is on page 36 of your terms and conditions.. lol

JamesH

iTrader: (21)

Cheeky cunts

D16PJM

i don't think its just them, if paying for a policy monthly i believe its standard practice by them all to take the outstanding balance from what you are awarded.

24vcossiemat

they never used to though. robbing tossers

lukeytheduke

is it me or does that not make sense mate?? If you crash in month one they will take the 11months remaining? So that means u are still insured for those 11months but have to pay for it in one go?dont they realise if v had the money to pay upfront in the first place we would!it seems well harsh that mate. I got a tidy low mileage mk3 fiesta u can have for your remaining cash but how are u suppose replace like for like with only 150quid when your original car was 600. I thought they had legal obligation to sort of replace like for like??

burnhamshaun

iTrader: (2)

I'm sure they do as people who pay in full would be due a refund by what your saying is wrong

Rax

iTrader: (1)

Thats what I thought too.Sounds like your getting a shit deal and would of been better not claiming ect.

jameswrx

So what you're in effect saying is if you'd payed up front for the insurance and crashed on FC after 1 month you'd expect a rebate of the remaining insurance?

It sounds perfectly normal procedure what is happening. The policy costs £xxx whether you pay upfront or in instalments, why would you think you'd get a refund of the cost of using the policy?

STUCOS

iTrader: (8)

Normal procedure,nothing odd there,

cheeRS stu

RS Grant

iTrader: (1)

I was going to put something exactly the same as this... I really don't see a problem here.


Cheers,
Grant

Matt Baxter

iTrader: (37)

I take it you be getting another car, so I assume you can just change the policy over to the new car and all it would cost is an admin charge? Assuming you get the same type of car again

rik-rs

think i saw on a few policies ive had if you pay monthly and have a crash they want full payment off you or something...

silver

A 350 excess on a 500 quid car?

Why claim in the first place?

S3an

AND lose your no claims in the process !!

S3an

Put Another way £500 for your car, They pay you that out, (instead of the £860 they offered) minus The excess £350 then the rest of the policy to pay for, i reckon you still owe them about £200

mk1turboestate

iTrader: (2)

i had a crash last year and never had to pay anything, that was with privalige, i got paid out within 14 days and the 3rd party didnt admit liability till well a year

simo2k2000

He might have crashed into someone or damaged property

Dlatch!

imo
was pointless to claim in the first place
i only have my banger insured fully comp with a high excess so i get it cheap and am covered to drive other cars.
if i smashed it up i would just call the scrap man and take the money

DanW@FastFord

iTrader: (1)

So if they paid out in full would you have minded paying monthly for insurance you owed them, despite no longer owning the car?

If so, then you'd be out of pocket to the same extent in the long run.

Otherwise there would be no reason for anyone to pay annually, as you could just make a claim a week into the policy, and then cancel it.

If that happened premiums would either go up MASSIVELY or all insurers would quickly go out if business.

The issue is really with you not understanding (or reading) the policy, rather than a fault with Swiftcover.

Probably not what you want to hear, but if you think about it it's perfectly reasonable.

rallycross

that is how it normally works, any payout is less the full premium (ie if you have not already paid in full).

no such thing as cheap insurance!

did you have to claim? was there 3rd party damage involved? its not worth claiming on old bangers.

24vcossiemat

i shall be staying with them as i have now paid for the year, but my problem is really that if i was 17, just bought my 3000 quid fiesta, paid 2.5 to 3 grand to insure it then wrote it off, i would expect to be able to replace it with the payout, thats what fully comp is for!!
as for it being a slightly pointless claim, i know what you all mean, but my work is so quiet at the mo i am paying out more than i have coming in so no money spare, hence why i had to claim, both me an the misses discussed not bothering but we are fucked without a car, hence fully comp insurance.. like a few are saying the point of fullly comp is to reimburse you for your loss. i havent claimed in 11 years so I think its a bit bad to leave someone without a car when they are paying for the right cover.. the idea of me putting this thread up is to warn others to read the t and c on there insurance so they dont end up in the same position as me.. i am waiting for them to get back to me with a decision on whether they will let me keep paying the monthly and give me the 500 in full so i can at least replace it with some form of car... however i do understand that in the t an c it says that if you claim you are obliged to pay the instalments in full for the year on most policies, so people are claiming then cancelling the insurance direct debit and the company loses out, i am the kind of person that has never done this.. i was with norwich union (aviva now) for 17 years with 2 claims in that period, but when they changed to there stupid foreign call centre's i changed to swiftcover as they where i bit cheaper, maybe i should have stayed where i was... but you live and learn i suppose

Thank you all for your input though.. its nice to see others views!! thats why i like this website..

xr_craig

iTrader: (2)

If you had paid the 2.5k upfront then you would be able to buy the car like for like. It's only like finance/a loan really, the only difference is it's not for the car. If you get paid out you wouldn't have the finance so i suppose you could finance a car for similar terms instead.

I really can't see the problem.

Camel Fiddler

Used to work in insurance. Standard practice to be honest. However, if you insured another car with them then the policy would remain live and they'd have no reason to take the full years premium in one go like that. Worked for where I was and may work here too

Jamie_EscortSport

DAMMM, i just took a fully comp policy out with them. cheerz for the heads up though

Rich1880

I had a similar experience, they took the remaining years premium out of the offer, but also because I claimed the insurance was then brought to a end. Once they settle your write off will the insurance end?

Psycho Warren

iTrader: (5)

I was under the impression you could carry on the policy until the end in a new car?? ve done that in the past.

Or has it now changed so that a total loss claim is automatically a termination of the policy????

vaughant

iTrader: (1)

Think your pretty much bang on with that Warren.

On a slightly different point,my mother had her car written off and she paid up front in full for the year.
The damage was minimal and she loves the car so accepted a slightly reduced payout and kept the car.
The only issue was that the insurance company then refused to continue to insure the car,which I found odd?I suppose they see it as she should have taken a new policy out with someone else.
She offered to re insure with them but they point blank refused,strange?

Easily the worst insurance company out there are fortis,avoid them like the plague as they are the most useless people to deal with ever.
I was doing a bit of recovery work in my last business and they were the biggest pricks in the world.
We recovered about 4 cars insured through them and because they didn't react quick enough,they felt that they didn't need to pay us for the recovery work.
Their answer was to "chase the client up for the money THEY owe you".
The cars were sheds and I ended up scrapping them for less than a 1/10th of the owed recovery.

These were the only company that did this,everyone else just turned up and paid,no questions as we'd provided a service at a very reasonable price,I'd say around 1/2 what the police recommended firms were charging.

We did eventually get some revenge,albeit small.

We recovered a newish Mondeo for a known customer,sadly found out it was insured through them,but within an hour of it being recovered,they were on the phone trying to collect it.
It was a Friday about 4pm so I said if they don't turn up in 1 hour I was closing up for the weekend and they would then owe me 3 days recovery.they claimed this was unreasonable so I pointed out the fact that they owed me for 3 other cars and she slammed the phone down.
7.30am Monday I get a call saying theres a driver there to collect the car,even though we don't open until 9am.the driver turns up with a cheque for £115,which he claims entitles him to remove the car.
Obviously I laugh in his face so he gets on the phone,to be fair he doesn't give a fuck.
I inform them of the charges,£250 recovery,£50 a day storage plus vat,as there's no set price for recovery,no guidelines or recommendations despite what anyone tells you.
About 10 mins later the driver turns up with a new cheque for the full amount.
Nice to have people by the balls occasionally!!!

Psycho Warren

iTrader: (5)

some insurance companies wont insure rebuilt write offs full stop. Nothing to do with your mum specifically.

Rick Astley

Perhaps you should setup an insurance company and see how long you last with people taking advantage of your dumbass loophole. Clown.

vaughant

iTrader: (1)

I think that may have been the case.she insured it elsewhere no problems though.
Still driving it now with no issues,car now owes her £0.00p!!!!

24vcossiemat

ive never had an issue insuring a cat d car i had, just told them and they agreed to insure, but the payout would be less if the worse happened, but with it being a cat d i paid less for it.. that was not the car i just smashed up by the way.

mcst

Same here, was standard practice when i worked in insurance.

Ginge !

My sister bought a corsa when she passed her test, paid a grand for it and 850 for insurance, she crashed into a wall damaging the wing ad bumper, the insurance company collected the car and declared write off, they offered her a grand minus 350 excess BUT discovered it was cat d so reduced value to 500 quid minus 350 so she got a cheque for 150 quid after spending 1850 on a car within weeks so decided it's not worth owning a car as insurance is pointless for what it costs, I bought her another corsa and they transfered the insurance for no admin fee so it's harsh but it's life I'm afraid

R4N SS

iTrader: (6)

exactly, been there, done it years ago.