Club Discount Insurance Scheme

[tDR]

Ps, I love you

 

Wasn't there a film about that?

 

Mental note made to bug you come the start of next year near renewal time!

 

Cheers,

 

Brian.

[Homer]

Well cant reply to my original post on the insurance subject as loads of posts between May and Sept seem to have dissapeared from the thread (Mods ?)

 

Nope, you were posting in a different thread mate

[JohnK]

I just thought id report my recent dealings with sky, as a heads up to others.

 

I renewed my policy back at the start of June, paying the ammount in full. As the car was for sale I was expecting to cancel before then end of term and was aware of the extortionate charges for doing so (25% for 1 month!) and excepted this.

 

The car sold at the end of June and a call was made to Sky to cancel the policy a couple of days before the first month of insurance was up.

 

The person I spoke to said that was fine and would make a note of the call as I needed to send back the certificate and confirm the cancelation in writing. This was done and the letter arrived at Sky just after the first month of insurance was up, but I did note in the letter reference to the phone call and the date the policy was to be canceled from was within the fist month.

 

This is where it all started to go wrong.

 

After about a month and no money refunded I made contact several times and was given a variety of excuses as to why I hadnt been refunded. Finally after another 2 weeks or so (my memory on precise dates is a little fuzzy) I was told a refund had of £xxx had been authorised.

 

This ammount was about £100 less than I was expecting and I had to make a couple more calls to find out why. In the end I was told I had to provide proof I had sold the car on the date I wanted insurance canceled and not the date the letter arrived with them, regardless of the phone call I had made to cancel and their staff acknowledging there was a note of that call and my wishes.

 

The proof was supplied and the ammount adjusted, and I finally recieved my money at the end of last week, MID SEPTEMBER!

 

All in all Sky held MY MONEY for almost 3 months, which I could have earnt interest on, and it has also cost me money to call them several times.

 

The ammount is not a lot to some I know, however I am buying a house and every penny counts at the moment.

 

If i was 3 days late let alone 3 months late in paying them, im sure I wouldnt have insurance.

 

Also please dont think that paying monthly would have helped as Sky, along with many others im sure, take out finance in your name to cover the premium and you pay the finance company not Sky so could end up in much worse position.

[TLicense]

My dealings with Sky this year haven't been very satisfactory either.

 

You're quite right in that they do take out finance in your name to cover your policy if you do pay month by month. However, someone either Sky or Amber finance (the company Sky use) fecked up in my case and set-up two direct debits.

I called both Sky and Amber to find out what was going on, and my oh my what a surprise they pointed the finger at each other. Never in my life have I heard some of the slopey shouldered excuses that were being bandied around.

I was told the best thing to do was to claim against the DD guarantee and get the bank to sort it out. Fair enough I said, how much am I going to get knocked off my premium next year because of this? The reponse was "it's not our fault". Well feck me, it's certainly not my fault!

In the end I sorted it all out with my bank, and managed to get my money back about 3 weeks later (was told it would take less than 24 hours!).

 

Then.... last week I was going to the coast for a long weekend with my girlfriend when I got pulled over by the police. They'd driven past me in the opposite direction when their number plate recognition software had shown that I was driving a car without valid insurance. After about 45 minutes of sitting in the back of the police car protesting my innocence (I told them I had a certificate of insurance and always made the payments so what more could I do?) I was told that the insurance company had cocked up and entered my number plate incorrectly, getting one of the letters of my plate wrong.

I arrived home on Monday only to find a new certificate of insurance on my doorstep. (The original one had the correct number plate on it anyway) so they know they fecked up, but did I get a call? Did I get a letter of apology? Nope, not a dickie bird.

 

I'm sure that come next year as a good will gesture Sky will accept no commission on my policy and give me a nice big discount for my inconvienience.

 

 

I've just had a thought actually. Is it possible to raise a dispute on the traders section against Sky? Perhaps that would be the correct forum for these kind of discussions, and would ensure (hopefully) satisfactory responses.

[Safely Insured]

Hi,

 

it is disapointing to read both bits of feedback above. I have PM'd both members requesting their details and I will look into both cases straight away.

 

Thanks

 

Ollie

Sky Insurance

[Safely Insured]

I just thought id report my recent dealings with sky, as a heads up to others.

 

I renewed my policy back at the start of June, paying the ammount in full. As the car was for sale I was expecting to cancel before then end of term and was aware of the extortionate charges for doing so (25% for 1 month!) and excepted this.

 

The car sold at the end of June and a call was made to Sky to cancel the policy a couple of days before the first month of insurance was up.

 

The person I spoke to said that was fine and would make a note of the call as I needed to send back the certificate and confirm the cancelation in writing. This was done and the letter arrived at Sky just after the first month of insurance was up, but I did note in the letter reference to the phone call and the date the policy was to be canceled from was within the fist month.

 

This is where it all started to go wrong.

 

After about a month and no money refunded I made contact several times and was given a variety of excuses as to why I hadnt been refunded. Finally after another 2 weeks or so (my memory on precise dates is a little fuzzy) I was told a refund had of £xxx had been authorised.

 

This ammount was about £100 less than I was expecting and I had to make a couple more calls to find out why. In the end I was told I had to provide proof I had sold the car on the date I wanted insurance canceled and not the date the letter arrived with them, regardless of the phone call I had made to cancel and their staff acknowledging there was a note of that call and my wishes.

 

The proof was supplied and the ammount adjusted, and I finally recieved my money at the end of last week, MID SEPTEMBER!

 

All in all Sky held MY MONEY for almost 3 months, which I could have earnt interest on, and it has also cost me money to call them several times.

 

The ammount is not a lot to some I know, however I am buying a house and every penny counts at the moment.

 

If i was 3 days late let alone 3 months late in paying them, im sure I wouldnt have insurance.

 

Also please dont think that paying monthly would have helped as Sky, along with many others im sure, take out finance in your name to cover the premium and you pay the finance company not Sky so could end up in much worse position.

 

Hi,

 

I have now had chance to look into this one.

 

It doesn't appear as bad as it is described above. In order for me not to divulge personal information on a public forum I will PM you with the details, please feel free to post this on here if you wish.

 

I will just say that we certainly have not withheld money for a unreasonable amount of time.. insurance companies work on a 30 days account basis with their brokers, we therefore did not received the correct refund until the end of August and it was refunded in early September.

 

With regards to the cencellation date of the policy, an insurer will only cancel from the date the broker receive the documents back however we have anaged to back date this following receipt of further documentation from yourself.

 

regards

 

Ollie

[JohnK]

I was told by one of your staff that the manager that deals with refunds only comes in every other Friday.

 

If this is true id call that one of the unnecessary delays, if it isnt please educate staff not to tell customers this.

 

I look forward to reading your comments in the PM.

[Safely Insured]

My dealings with Sky this year haven't been very satisfactory either.

 

 

Hi,

 

again I've had a chance to look into this one.

 

Firstly, yes we do use an external licensed credit broker when paying on a month by month basis.. this is fully explained to the customer and it is the customer's decision whether they want to enter into this agreement. A lot of brokers use external credit agencies and for the vast majority of customers this works well with no problems.

 

This aside, there have been mistakes made in your case. It is difficult to see where the mistake lies with the duplicated direct debits but as your broker obviously responsibility to fix these mistakes lies with us. We certainly should have sorted this out for you at the time, not make excuses and pass the buck.. My apologies on behalf of Sky Insurance for the this. We welcome feedback like this as it helps us to see where we are going wrong and how we can improve. We have since changed providers which allows us to access customer's details and make amendment.. this will hopefully improve the service we offer for customers paying by direct debit.

 

With regards to the registration number.. yes again this is an administrative blunder.. things like this do happen though, thankfully it is very infrequent. We received a phone call from the police and we confirmed the vehicle was insured and obviously picked up on the fact that the registration number was wrong on our system. Your policy was incepted in July with the registration showing as a T rather than a C.. a common mistake made on the telephone.. this is why we ask that you check details carefully and make amendments when you spot a mistake.

 

May I just point out that you would have received and signed a proposal form with the incorrect registration number on and returned this to us 8th August (still showing incorrect registration) . I am not having a go here but that is a fact.

 

Once we had been made aware of the incorrect registration number (by the Police).. we corrected this on our system and have sent out an amended certificate of insurance with the correct registration number.

 

I hope that goes someway to answering your concerns.

 

Regards

 

Ollie

Sky Insurance

Edited September 16, 2008 by SkyInsurance
typo (see edit history)

[Safely Insured]

I was told by one of your staff that the manager that deals with refunds only comes in every other Friday.

 

 

 

Hi,

the manager who deals with this is in everyday but he looks at refunds every Friday.

 

Wit regards to our PM's.. it appears the problems stem from one letter which wasn't received by yourself so you were unaware of the amount you were being refunded.

 

If you need me to look into this any futher then please PM me.

 

regards

 

Ollie

[JS2004]

Hi guys,

 

I recently took out insurance with Adrian Flux (covered from Wednesday, 4 days ago) and was happy with the price due to my circumstances (new driver, first car etc) with an agreed milage clause.

 

however now ive got this lovely car home my dad has decided he wants one, and until then he wants to drive mine hehe - but if he does any milage he clocks up goes against my limited milage as it appears to be against the car, and not the driver (which i guess makes sense).

 

My question is - on the documents it says a 14day cancellation period from inception or something.. if i called and tried to cancel within 14 days to switch to another company who offer more milage (or let me add him as named drive) does the 20 - 25% cost for time "at risk" come into play or not - due to it being less than 14 days?

 

Additionally in my haste and excitement I didnt realise Sky insurance are the clubs insurers so they may be able to beat the adrian flux price.

 

I have the feeling ill have to take this hit as experience for being a bit too enthusiastic and jumping the gun

 

my dads gutted though as his insurance doesnt cover him for other cars due to it being commercial vans, regardless of his 25+ yrs driving experience.. yet my sister who passed her test 1 yr ago and has 3rd party fire and theft on a saxo - IS insured to drive my supra.. seems a bit weird hehe

[Neil_M]

I just tried to get a quote from Sky Insurance... However they don't insure anyone in Northern Ireland .