Feeling A Bit Tucked Up By Bennetts

But you were happy to pay £41 in the first place, I think £30 admin fee is acceptable. What did you expect, someone to has to be paid to do the admin work

 

This is an area where the companies/brokerages don't really compete on an open playing field. Direct Line are currently using their advertising to promote the fact that they have no admin charges, but it's a while since I've found their car/house insurance to be competitive for me.

£30 is in the "sort of acceptable" range and certainly not a level at which you could take them to task for charging more than they could possibly spend - they would justify it by dividing up the cost of IT resources in some way, not just staff time on the phone/keyboard, which could not possibly be enough.

Carole Nash charge £50 to cancel a policy - something which we should all know by now is absolutely vital to do if you are selling a bike and not switching the policy to another.

 

All depends on the company. Some insurance companies will charge you a flat £30 "admin fee" for any change you make. So for example you put a private plate on your bike. Thats £30 straight off just for them to change the details. Others let you make any changes you want and charge no admin fee - even stuff like adding exhausts etc. or moving policy to a new bike.

Worst I had was the other year when I wanted to add my 996 to my R1 insurance. I was paying £60 a year (yep, sixty quid) to insure my R1. I was 6 months into a 12 month policy. The company wanted £120 in order to "cancel" the existing policy!!! 120 quid to cancel a policy which had only cost me £60 in the first place and I was already half way through. I was expecting maybe £30 to pay in order to pay off the extra months, but not DOUBLE what the policy cost me in the first place. The thing was, they had me over a barrel as my bike NCB was tied into that policy and so I couldnt setup a new policy without cancelling the old one. In the end after much haggling and complaining they dropped the "cancellation" fee down to £60.

I then moved to another insurer and insured both bikes for £120. Even that pained me a bit, as I can only ride one bike at once and only want them 3rd party insurance, so why should I pay twice the cash when there is no extra risk to the insurance company. In fact there is probably less risk as the 996 is slower than my R1 and maybe that might me im less likely to crash?

 

I decided to add commuting, about a week after the policy actually started. They wanted to charge me a £45 admin fee. Said I'd rather use my 14 day cancellation and start again without it. They then advised me I'd get charged it anyway for cancelling. Sneaky small print.

 

Ther is also a tax element in policy set up, you pay the tax only on the premium not the admin costs

Last co I worked for we were charging £45 for the annual 'policy' which, when you recoved the t&cs showed £20 'management administration fee' and the rest ins premium incl 6% tax (which cannot be recovered)

Ie 2.5% incease in 'contribution' as you always paid the same amount but now the tax that was due isnt...kerching across 5m policies with an average charge over the boom of £85

 

Dodgy ground charging within the cancellation period, its only if you have made a claim they can hold funds

 

This has been building up for a while:
How to fight rising insurance admin - Money Saving Expert

It all takes so much time too - having to check what the admin charges might be, when you get the insurance quote, or, on the other hand, having to argue about it when hit with a charge. Taking it to the Ombudsman would take even more time.

Re the 0844/0871 numbers, often used by insurers to sting you for contacting them after taking out a policy (quotes through an 0800 number are common of course) - it's always worth checking the insurer's website closely to see if they have an alternative normal national number for calls from outside the UK (sometimes they manage to block this for UK callers, but not always). Another approach is to use the saynoto0870.co.uk website to find alternatives - it often helps - although the name of the website is a bit dated because a lot of tariffs now charge nothing for 0870.

 

Might just be quicker to name the good ones if any, as the list of bad ones could take forever.

 

I just received a renewal notice from Bennetts, so checking online through Compare the Market a new policy with them would cost less than half the renewal quote. On pointing this out I got an immediate reduction to the quote but it was still over £100 more than online for a new policy. So I renewed online, phoned up Bennetts to tell them I was't renewing my existing policy and the very nice man on the line asked why and when I explained he went straight to my new policy, checked the details for me a pronounced everything was in order for the change over.

So after adding EU Breakdown Cover my renewal was still less than half the quoted renewal price but over double the lowest Compare the Market policy.

I guess you get what you pay for, up to a point, then get ripped off if you just let it automatically renew.

 

I had this with the company I went with, I will be leaving them when it's up for renewal. Did not have it with the cars

 

I always do a new customer quote with my existing insurer as they usually place higher value I.e bigger discounts for new customers than the value they place On loyalty to existing customers .

It would be an interesting company that broke the rules and charged new customers more than existing ones - I. E. took a position that said our customer service and product are so good you pay a premium to enter but we will reward your loyalty in the years to come by being cheaper to existing customers.