Rant - As if insurance companies aren't already making enough

stoofa

stoofa

stoofa

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Bit of a rant I'm afraid.
I have a policy with Admiral.
For the first time in a long while I actually renewed with them at the beginning of the year as they were the cheapest option.

I have started the process of changing my car - a new Octy vRS is on order as a replacement for my current one.
I have a private plate on the car - nothing special.

So I get my plate put back on retention (seperate rant possible on the charge to do this from DVLA, but that is a different subject).
I phone up Admiral to make a simple change - the plate on my policy.
A 30 second change to the database which I heard him make there and then.
He's emailing me a replacement policy.
Yet they charge me £17.50 to make this simple change!

In about 3-4 weeks time I'll be calling up again to change my car and of course there will be an increase in premium, there is bound to be as it's a new car.
But they will charge me another £17.50 for making a change to the policy!

So what appeared to be a cheaper renewal has now been increased by £35 for the year because of one 30 second change to the database and one that will take a couple of minutes.

Now I know they aren't a charity, but I feel that my premium should include them keeping the databases up to data as required.
They shouldn't be charging for simple 2 minute changes to the database for say a numberplate change, an address change etc.

A silly little rant I know - but £35!!
 
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Only £17.50 to do a change.... Most charge £25 upwards. You'll probably find they are actually charged to make changes onto the various central databases.

Try cancelling a policy mid-term... that makes you weep if you look into the charges added, especially through brokers.
 
If it makes you feel better, I was once refunded about £150 more than I should have been when I cancelled a policy mid-term with Diamond (part of the Admiral group).

Feel better?
 
Hate those suprise charges. Its fine if you know beforehand (some might but I hadnt seen it anywhere) but any charge seems like a git when its sprung on you. Also depends just how much you saved with them. For me I saved over a grand with admiral so the charge might seem like a kick but its by far the lesser of the evils.
 
I'm going to have to go through this process when I change my car because of my private plate. With the DVLA charge to change the plate and put it on retention and insurance admin fees it's gonna cost over £100....

I'd imagine your the sole reason for global warming as well xillian with that garage!
 
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They charge me 17.50 too, i thought that was quite cheap.
 
Peerzy said:
I'm going to have to go through this process when I change my car because of my private plate. With the DVLA charge to change the plate and put it on retention and insurance admin fees it's gonna cost over £100....
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The price we pay for private plates huh....

Peerzy said:
I'd imagine your the sole reason for global warming as well xillian with that garage!
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Glad to be of assistance, if you look out of the window today you'll see it's glorious outside :)
 
My girlfriend wasn't charged when she changed to her private plate with her insurer, and the one I work for doesn't charge anything either. At least now I know why so many customers sound surprised when I tell them there will be no admin fee for changing it over :)
 
They are robbing gits; I was charged a £35 admin fee to add a named driver to a bike policy last weekend (no premium increase). The galling thing is the premium was only £90 to start with, and there was only 6 months left to run.
 
The fees are all shown up-front in the insurers/brokers terms of business letter.

There's no way in the world I'd go with someone who charges fees at this sort of level - it's absolutely disgusting and daylight robbery as they're earning commission as well.
 
merlin said:
The fees are all shown up-front in the insurers/brokers terms of business letter.

There's no way in the world I'd go with someone who charges fees at this sort of level - it's absolutely disgusting and daylight robbery as they're earning commission as well.
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So you would go with a company that potentially charges you £100 more for the premium but offers no fees for other stuff like admin charges compared with a company that is £100 cheaper to insure but would charge £17.50 for every change?
 
I threatened to leave my Insurer when they said about charging for a car switch = no charge. Might be worth a try.

Alternately leave the plate for the new car and only pay once?
 
freak2002 said:
I threatened to leave my Insurer when they said about charging for a car switch = no charge. Might be worth a try.

Alternately leave the plate for the new car and only pay once?
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Threatening to leave the insurer wouldn't have helped.
I renewed in January - no way I'd get the 10 months of premium back in whole.
 
This annoys me very much, too. I had to pay £17.50 just recently to switch to my private plate, then I just paid £17.50 to switch to my new car, and will have to pay another £17.50 to put the plate back on it once the documents come through, on top of the DVLA fees!

Absolutely completely pointless paper pushing fee junk.
 
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