I rescently brought my first car, a little Fiesta 1.25 and so I sorted out some
insurance last week through Admiral.

I did the quote and brought the policy through their website. Having
never brought car insurance before I was very very careful when
filling in the details not to make a mistake. I was so careful I even
had a third party double check everything before I confirmed and payed by
credit card.

The policy documents came through this week and I checked them
carefully. Everything is OK except they have incorrectly printed the
documents as saying that I have a 'one' years no claims bonus when
obviously it should read 'zero'. This is in direct conflict with
information printed elsewhere on the same document that clearly and
correctly states that I have only held a driving license for 7 months,
and therefore could not possibly have one years no claims!!! I am 100%
sure all the details were entered correctly and so is the third party, there is
absolutely no doubt in our minds that the mistake is at Admirals end.

I rang them yesterday to point out the error and spoke to someone in a call
center who was only interested in telling me that as it was a web polity if their
were any mistakes they were mine. He said that their would be an admin charge
of over £50 to amend the details!!!

Obviously I hold him politely to go to hell and that if they insisted
on taking that action that I would cancel the policy. I will try again
later and see if I can speak to a manager / someone more reasonable.
My question however is this. The polity documents state that if you
cancel within the 14 day cooling off period (which I will if they wont
budge) that they can still charge you over £20 as an admin fee for
setting up your policy. This rang an alarm bell in my head. Firstly
the idea of a cancellation admin charge seems to go against the
principle of a cooling off period? and secondly I wondered if under
web distance selling regs that this might be illegal?

Any advice would be greatly apreciated.

Kind regards,

Rob.

If you did this on-line - don't you normally get an email with all the details that you agreed to - sent to you by return ?

I would check this before taking it any further - failing that try piriform "recuva" to try to recover the webpage that you used when you signed up ....

Recuva is available as freeware at http://www.piriform.com/recuva

Rob

I suspect you have done everything correctly and there is no problem with the documents. Sometimes when you arrange cover without any No Claims discount, Insurers will offer an introductory discount. This is often shown as 1 year on your documents. I have known this to be the case with other Insurers and expect it is the same with Admiral

Contact the Customer Relations or Quality Team, whatever they call it. Their telephone no. is 0800 952 1300

Make a complaint about the service you received when you phoned. The person should have been more professional and explained the process properly. Many staff in these call centres do not have a clue about Internet processes and associated documents.

In regard to any admin fee for cancelling within 14 day cooling off period, I think this is dodgy. If the policy does not meet your requirements, you have the right to cancel, without any charges.

I am pretty sure when you call their complaint handlers you will receive correct information and an apology. Don't be afraid to ask for compensation for the hassle you have encountered. These complaint teams usually have store vouchers available to them. Ask for £50 voucher of the store of your choice. They will find it difficult not to offer something. If you don't ask you don't get!!

Hope all goes well

Huckster

Hi Huckster,

Thanks for your advice. What makes me think that this is a mistake and not the offer of an introductory discount is that my brother took out his first policy with Admiral last year. He still had the documents and they were identical except that they correctly listed zero no claims!

The other thing that makes me think this is that the covering letter asks me to send proof of my past no claims, which obviouly would not apply to an introductory discount.

I will try my luck on the number you gave, hopefully I can get to speak to someone reasonable. At the end of the day its in their business interest to resolve the situation as this is an expensive policy (being a young driver with a first car) which I will just cancel if they want to be difficult. Thats why I wanted to know about the cooling off period / distance selling etc. If it comes to it I want to be able to make the threat of canceling to see if I can get the situation resolved.

Many thanks,

Rob.