Bye bye Direct line (1 Viewer)

[m1chae1]

Hello all,

Been looking for insurance for my first motor home (picking up tomorrow!!!).
Thought I'd try Direct Line as both my wife and I have our cars insured with them.
Went through all the waffle - multi car, can't use the no claims but discount for this, discount for that.
I thought, this is sounding good.
Told him the reg., 54 plate Autocruise Starblazer, clean licence, 56 years old, not a mass murderer, Waffle, waffle...
'just hold on a second, sir'
He comes back on the line, 'Sorry sir, we can't insure you on this vehicle.'
I ask him why not.
It's not that particular vehicle, he says, but we've had a lot of claims from drivers of these vehicles this month, I don't know what they're doing.
What's that got to do with me? I ask.
Oh nothing. Sorry.
I tell him it's not his fault, but obviously I'll bear it in mind come renewal time on the cars.
Phones Adrian Flux. All sorted. £217 fully comp.

Mike

 

[****]

Had 11 years with Direct Line who were great. Only thing i needed was a windscreen replaced and two chips fixed in all that time. Each year the policy went up a few quid. Not a deal breaker but i am also collecting more NCB. Did a meerkat search one year and saved £100. No offer from direct line to match and no asking why you leaving after all this time. How can they expect loyalty is they show no customer loyalty. Each year car, van or bike i will get another free toy from the cheapest. Sod them

 

[JJ]

Adrian Flux served me well for many years...

Won't get much sleep tonight then as you dream of the open road.

Welcome to Fun.

JJ

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[Puddleduck]

We were also with Direct Line for many years. When we got the motorhome we asked them for a quote....... yes, we do insure motorhomes, oh, not that model (Chausson RHD). I do wonder if they DO actually insure motorhomes! Went with AIB and put the car insurance through them as well when that was due. We had a claim for storm damage and all was handled well by the underwriter (ERS). It didn't affect the premium the following year so I was very pleased.

 

[pyro]

I spend a lot of time dealing with claims against insurers for clients, and Direct Line are in my opinion about the worst of a very bad lot Frankly their claims payout reputation is awful, their customer service abysmal, and their "selected repair partners" frequently flout manufacturer and ombudsman rules. A dreadful shower.

My own personal experience with AIB has been excellent, contrasting rather bleakly with Comfort Insurance who are about to receive a writ (an interesting story to be told at another time, as I don't want to prejudice the case)

 

[mjltigger]

I had direct line on my Mondeo. Circumstances transpired to give me 2 claims in 6 months both fairly high value. They treated me brilliantly and I was very happy with the service. They don't insure van conversions so I never put my van with them and for the past 2 years they haven't been very competitive on price but for service I can't fault them. I hope they get their pricing sorted so I can go back to them

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[pyro]

Like so many "direct" insurers, direct line tend to focus on certain categories of risk. This means they are relatively competitive in terms of premium when you check all their boxes, but they are totally inflexible when it comes to anything that doesn't fall into their neat categories.

So far in my practice experience, and this is not my speciality by a long chalk, Direct Line are worse than any other insurer I can think of - by a factor of about 3 to 1. Typical complaints (upheld in court) include their attempts to unlawfully coerce claimants into using their "approved repairers", under valuation of write offs and clerical mistakes that can carry catastrophic consequences (e.g. wrongly denying that the innocent victim of an accident was driving without insurance cover, resulting in their arrest at the scene of a very serious accident and their being labelled as criminals in a local newspaper). Yes, we won, and the damages were very substantial, but when does a victim of any accident deserve to be handcuffed to a hospital bed? In another case, a new premium Honda car was seriously botched by their so-called "approved repairers" using pattern parts and throwing it all back together. Honda factory engineers inspected the work and found over 140 faults, some life threatening (steering related). Took 6 months and a court hearing to force Direct Line to admit liability, and cost them twice what it would have cost to have replaced the vehicle. To me, it's never personal and mere routine, but to the victims of these co*ck ups, the uncertainty of having to go to court coming on top of an accident and being let down by their supposedly trusted insurer is a traumatic experience.

Of course all insurers have their idiosyncrasies, but Direct Line are up amongst the chosen ones in terms of complaints. Individual brokers are usually valuable intermediaries when it comes to claims handling, treat their clients with greater respect and are a lot more flexible in terms of negotiating policies for those with "unusual" needs. In our case, we needed to be able to leave our M/H unattended at our (secure) property in Portugal for extended periods, not just the paltry 36 hour limit specified in the deceptively advertised "365 day EU Cover" offered by Comfort. None of the widely advertised policies covered this, but AIB shopped around and negotiated an excellent package tailored to our individual requirements. And it was far cheaper than Comfort.

 

[2bob]

Adrian Flux served me well for many years...

Won't get much sleep tonight then as you dream of the open road.

Welcome to Fun.

JJ

check there web if you ins with them something about some of the ins company they deal with gone to pot

 

[Lenny HB]

I wouldn't want to insure a Motorhome with Direct Line as they do not have a specific Motorhome policy, I would rather go for a company that offers proper Motorhome policies.
Direct Line were part of RBS now been separated into a separate company. If anyone doesn't want to deal with Direct Line they had better steer clear of Churchill, Privilege, Green Flag & Sainsburys insurance as well, all the same lot working from the same call centres.

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[Jasz]

If you are with Direct Line with a car and the renual premium has gone up significantly, it is always worth a phone call. Both myself and my wife had ours reduced, with hers going lower than the previous years premium.

 

[Xabia]

If you are with Direct Line with a car and the renual premium has gone up significantly, it is always worth a phone call. Both myself and my wife had ours reduced, with hers going lower than the previous years premium.

I refuse to,insure with companies who continually quote very attractive premiums for new business but increase renewal premiums for existing policyholders, relying upon their inertia regarding searching for alternative quotations - Saga come to mind for one and clearly there are others.