I need to warn others to stay away from buying a car insurance policy with 1st Central Insurance. They might the cheapest and serve you well until something happens.

Back in June a woman pulled out of a junction without looking on a roundabout and went into the side of me, I was already on the roundabout and about to exit.

Her insurance company claimed full responsibility and told 1st Central I wasn't at fault. 1st Central went through a barrage of questions with me, never had this happen before, but I have 9 years no claims so haven't been involved in an accident for a long time.

All was okay till they passed me on to the existing claims team. They are arrogant and rude, they won't listen to you and couldn't care less. Without having my car inspected (just had photos taken of it, again never seen this done before) they wrote it off and offered me £1420.

A week and a half after I had still been driving my car about, I rang the claims team to ask for an update. The bloke on the phone was rude he said on the spot that my car shouldn't be driven and that I no longer have insurance on it!!!! I asked to speak to a Manager but apparently I couldn't as they were all in a meeting surprise surprise.

Most worrying thing was my son had the car 20 miles away from home and not having a hire car, I had to borrow a friends transfer my insurance policy at a cost drive to were my son was and swop cars and drive an uninsured vehicle back.

The next day the third party insurance company managed to get me a hire car, but my son who was under 21 couldn't drive it, so he ended up going out and buying another car which again we had to get the insurance transfer to for another admin fee.

Long story short Friday nearly 1 month after an accident which wasn't my fault and after HBS had taken my car for scrap, 1st central email me a letter to say they were taking over £900 for my insurance premium owed for the rest of the year and would only be sending me a cheque for £400 for a new car!! I couldn't believe it, rang 1st central existing claims spoke to the rude manager edited who confirmed that whether or not I had transferred my policy to another car they would have kept the rest of the years insurance, including if I didn't have a car on the policy as £400 to be honest isn't enough for a replacement.

I broke down into tears, couldn't believe through no fault of my own how they were treating me. Yesterday I rang them again to check what was going on, apparently the customer service team say my direct debits are still in place and they haven't been notified by the existing claims team that the claim had been finalised.

They put me through to the dreaded existing claims team, and I got a edited, he wouldn't let me speak, kept telling me that they weren't dealing with me any more only the Customer Relations team would speak to me, told me he couldn't care less that I couldn't buy another vehicle and eventually put the phone down on me!!!

So here I am a month on through no fault of my own I have lost a vehicle and had no pay out to purchase another one. I have now submitted a complaint in full including letter to the Customer Relations Team at 1st Central, copied the Financial Ombudsman in and made a report to them also.

Just beware 1st central are cheap for a reason !!!

You should have got the third parties Insurers to deal with claim for your car, given they accepted liablity and cancelled any claim on your own policy. Then you could have negotiated either a write off value without any deductions or a payment less than the write off value if you could have got it repaired.

If you claim on your own policy in this situation, you will have the remaining premium deducted from the write off value and be left in a worse position.

1st Central should have explained the options. Instead they appear to have just writen off the car, told you the value and deducted the remaining premium without you knowing. To make matters worse they cancelled the policy without you knowing about it.

Bad service and should be an easy win with the FOS re the service they provided. But you won't be offered much compensation and may feel it was not worth it.

Hi Jew71 and welcome to CAG

You now have your own thread here.

Please don't post in big blocks of text - use para spacing as it's far easier to read. I have added spacing.

I've also removed individuals' names and removed the derogatory remark at the end of the post. CAG cannot carry such remarks as they put our site at risk.

If any DD payments are taken which should not be, they can be reclaimed easily through your bank using the DD Guarantee Scheme.

You should have got the third parties Insurers to deal with claim for your car, given they accepted liablity and cancelled any claim on your own policy. Then you could have negotiated either a write off value without any deductions or a payment less than the write off value if you could have got it repaired.

 

If you claim on your own policy in this situation, you will have the remaining premium deducted from the write off value and be left in a worse position.

 

1st Central should have explained the options. Instead they appear to have just writen off the car, told you the value and deducted the remaining premium without you knowing. To make matters worse they cancelled the policy without you knowing about it.

 

Bad service and should be an easy win with the FOS re the service they provided. But you won't be offered much compensation and may feel it was not worth it.

I don't think 1st Central have cancelled the policy.

If they have it's worth taking this up with the Ombudsman as cancelling after a write off is a big no no now days

I don't think 1st Central have cancelled the policy.

 

If they have it's worth taking this up with the Ombudsman as cancelling after a write off is a big no no now days

You may be correct, as the OP just said that cover on the car was stopped. But they did this while the OP still had the car and could have been using it on the road. This surely would not have been compliant with FCA rules. They should have got the car from the policyholder, before cancelling cover on it.

Sounds like a complete mess up and they have treated the OP like an idiot.

Having read your experience with !st Central I am so relieved I have cancelled my renewal.

As they say..you pay for what you get.....

Having agreed a price for my renewal and having it in writing from 1st Central..I had to call to make a temporary change which would come into effect from renewal..in 3 weeks. It was to advise one of the additonal drivers had now passed his test and now had a full licence.

1st Central raised the agreed premium an extra £300!! Even though I had advised them only a week ago of the changes and the agent I spoke to was fully aware of the changes and quoted the new price. I was on the phone nearly an hour...fortunately Id found an 0800 number...

The agent I spoke to confirmed that I had spoken to them a week ago and that the change in the addtional driver was on file...however they would not honour the quote.

I cancelled my renewal immeadiately....and even though I have had to pay more elsewhere..I am glad I have.

If they cannot get a simple renewal quote right...I dread to think how they would handle a claim....

The previous post seems to confirm my fears........