Are Esure and 1st Central That Bad?

BigToe

BigToe

BigToe

Associate
Joined
5 Apr 2006
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567
I've got my insurance renewal coming up at the end of the month and naturally I've been hunting for better deals.

I've been with Admiral for three years so far, but this time the renewal has come out more expensive than the competition. Esure and 1st Central have both come out around £125 cheaper, and that was after calling Admiral and getting some discount.

After reading the policy though, both only cover a maximum of 7 days European travel as standard (Admiral has 30 days consecutive and 90 days total), and both have considerable admin fees for changes to policy. I'm probably going to be travelling across Europe this summer for two weeks and so I would have to purchase the second week. Further to this, I read nothing but bad reviews about them with regard to transferring NCB, making alterations to the policy, and claiming. Saying that, I think a lot of these reviews come from people who don't bother to read the small print and it would seem that Admiral have their fair share of bad reviews too. I've never claimed with Admiral, although I did change address and car a couple of times over the last few years and that was a painless experience. Another point to note is that Admiral comes with legal cover as standard rather than a £30 option as with the other two, although I'm not sure how useful this is with companies like Helphire; please correct me if I've misunderstood.

What are your experiences with these companies? Bearing in mind that my renewal is a shade over £500 with Admiral, the savings to be had by switching are not insignificant.

Thanks in advance.
 
Ive had a 1st central policy, didn't have to claim, but they were significantly cheaper for me. I changed car on the policy with little bother, with my login I reprinted the cert online so I couple apply for tax that day.

I accept that every insurance co you have to claim from will be a royal pain, I can't see you've got much to loose
 
Ive had a 1st central policy, didn't have to claim, but they were significantly cheaper for me. I changed car on the policy with little bother, with my login I reprinted the cert online so I couple apply for tax that day.

I accept that every insurance co you have to claim from will be a royal pain, I can't see you've got much to loose
 
Simon said:
1st central is a Gibraltor based company and got poor reviews when I looked a few months ago
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Yeah the reviews are pretty dire, as are Esure's. But then, after a bit of research it would seem Admiral have a load of bad reviews too. I suppose it's not often that people sign up to praise a company though.

Matt82 said:
Ive had a 1st central policy, didn't have to claim, but they were significantly cheaper for me. I changed car on the policy with little bother, with my login I reprinted the cert online so I couple apply for tax that day.

I accept that every insurance co you have to claim from will be a royal pain, I can't see you've got much to loose
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Good point. I have 7 years NCB and thankfully have never had to claim, but you never know what might happen.

Dr F33lG00D said:
Lloyds of London, what what what...

What?
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What indeed my dear Watson.
 
Do yourself a quote with exactly the same details but change the first name on the quote. Could be your twin brother? Get the quote, guaranteed to beat your renewal. Call admiral, ask them what's going on and they will match your price. Done this with my last 4 renewals with admiral.
 
Matt82 said:
Ive had a 1st central policy, didn't have to claim, but they were significantly cheaper for me. I changed car on the policy with little bother, with my login I reprinted the cert online so I couple apply for tax that day.

I accept that every insurance co you have to claim from will be a royal pain, I can't see you've got much to loose
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Why bother paying for a service that is crap when you need it though?

A better policy will save far more grief than its additional cost, its why I would never get insurance through Adrian Flux.
 
Simon said:
Why bother paying for a service that is crap when you need it though?

A better policy will save far more grief than its additional cost, its why I would never get insurance through Adrian Flux.
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I have never experienced dealing with an insurance who are actually any good at what the did and its all due to massive cost cutting, trying to get as few people as possible to cover as many jobs as possible, the service is never better than dire, in my experience of years doing motor insurance litigation
 
mr tommo said:
Do yourself a quote with exactly the same details but change the first name on the quote. Could be your twin brother? Get the quote, guaranteed to beat your renewal. Call admiral, ask them what's going on and they will match your price. Done this with my last 4 renewals with admiral.
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Interesting idea, I'll give that a go this evening.

Simon said:
Why bother paying for a service that is crap when you need it though?

A better policy will save far more grief than its additional cost, its why I would never get insurance through Adrian Flux.
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Any recommendations? I'll see if any are reasonably close in terms of price.

I have since discovered that although Esure was showing up as zero compulsory excess when comparing quotes, it turns out this isn't true and once I work my way through the checkout it's actually £150 bringing the total excess to £400. The Admiral quote was for a £250 total excess so I'll have to see how they compare when this is bumped up to £400. Not that I particularly want a £400 excess, but I suppose I have survived for 7 years without claiming so far.
 
Increasing the excess to bring the overall premium down is (IMO) a false economy. It only takes that 1 claim... Bearing in mind a claim will increase your next premiums anyway, I'd spend the few quid difference and make sure that I could afford to make a fault claim if I had to.
I'm pretty sure adding £150 to the excess won't save you anywhere near that much off the premium.
 
mr tommo said:
Do yourself a quote with exactly the same details but change the first name on the quote. Could be your twin brother? Get the quote, guaranteed to beat your renewal. Call admiral, ask them what's going on and they will match your price. Done this with my last 4 renewals with admiral.
Click to expand...

Nice idea, but didn't work unfortunately. The guy in retentions told me he'd done his absolute best on the renewal and was shocked at the difference in price I'd managed to find. Of course, he would say that but his quote was considerably cheaper than the Admiral Group ones I found online.

Dr F33lG00D said:
Increasing the excess to bring the overall premium down is (IMO) a false economy. It only takes that 1 claim... Bearing in mind a claim will increase your next premiums anyway, I'd spend the few quid difference and make sure that I could afford to make a fault claim if I had to.
I'm pretty sure adding £150 to the excess won't save you anywhere near that much off the premium.
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Last year I had just TPFT as it worked out a lot cheaper. I had bought my car for less than £800 and so didn't feel it was worth forking out the extra for something I probably wouldn't claim on anyway.

This time around, fully comprehensive works out less. I've done a fair bit of work to the car to get it running and riding nicely, but I don't know if this adds to the value of the car in the eyes of the insurance company. I would probably have to pay more to buy a car in the same sort of mechanical condition as it is now.

I suppose my logic is that last year I couldn't claim if I pranged it. This year I have the option, but it's never going to be a huge sum anyway unless the insurance company considers what I have spent on it. If my logic is off, let me know!
 
Anyone using the manufactures insurance? I did not use the Skoda one their quote was £200 more than admiral's but some of the guys on the Skoda forum really rate them.
 
I am with 1st Central, recently had to change my address and it was done quickly and fuss free, admin charge was low due to the change of address making the insurance cheaper. I don't know what they would be like in a claim of course, but they were significantly cheaper than anyone else, so worth a punt for me.
 
Zillio said:
Anyone using the manufactures insurance? I did not use the Skoda one their quote was £200 more than admiral's but some of the guys on the Skoda forum really rate them.
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Skoda's insurance is provided by Zurich, who I used to work for. It's up there with the best insurers, particularly when it comes to claims management (no 3rd party service to deal with), but certainly not the cheapest.
It was up to my team to convert the new Skoda's (and Honda, Mazda, Audi) Drive-Away policies to full-term - not easy when most are only concerned about price, especially when some drivers are far from Zurich's target Market; Attempting to convert a 17 year old male, brand new RX8 driver to part with £27,000 (!) for a Fully-Comp policy was a bit silly, but that was the premium that the system spat out...
 
Discrimination by 1st Central Insurance!

I want to make an official complain about a company car insurance: 1st Central Insurance. The company insists that they are going to cancel my policy as I did not provide them with visa entry or official documentation that I was issued with when I moved to the UK. I am from Poland and being in EU such documents do not exist. I am confused as to why they are asking only me for these documents when my husband Spanish nationality was not asked to do that. I believe this is a type of discrimination towards me and a good opportunity for the company to charge me a cancellation fee of £75, despite the fact that it was explained to them that Poland is in EU, we do not need visa and it is quite hard to provide such documents from 10 years when I arrived to this country. I strongly believe it is a scam especially that the company did not want to give me a reference number for my complaint and I was ignored and transferred to a different department.
At the end, after my long research, I found my old ticket from 10 years when I arrived to UK and I was still refused and they are quite adamant in cancelling our policy. It is not the first time I am having a car insurance, but it is the first time that I have been treating this way and I have come across with such procedures
 
Well I can give some input on Esure.

Not sure if this is good or bad as Ive never had a claim prior to this.

I crashed my car at end of last year. While in for assessment an accident management company (provided by esure) gave me a brand new Mercedes courtesy car for 6 weeks. My car was declared a write off. I received a cheque about a week or so later.

The person I crashed into refused any liability and since then the case has been in dispute. Esure sent other people to see me and I gave them my account and they have dealt with it on their end. However this has dragged on now for about 8 months.

Ive recently been contacted saying that they are handing my case to a Solicitor as they believe they have grounds to recoup all their costs as they strongly believe Im not to blame.

This has been a bit faffy but I don't think the process has been that bad overall. I got my payout fast enough and Im still with esure on my replacement car. Albeit with a higher premium.
 
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