Name: Aviva
Rating: 2.04

“QUELLE HORREUR! Horrendous experience over years, which is ongoing, and was reconfirmed when I telephoned them again yesterday to get some information. Despite having European breakdown cover, AVIVA left my neighbour and me stranded in Belgium for three days in 2014 after the clutch on the insured vehicle failed. After they arranged to collect the vehicle and taken to a repairer, they then refused to repatriate the vehicle or us. Rather than remain holed up in a pokey hotel for the rest of our lives, I ended up forking out cost of train fares and taxis to get us home, which was over £400. When AVIVA finally decided to repatriate the vehicle, it was delivered in a filthy mess and in pieces, with further damage to the panels where their lifting or securing equipment must have been applied prior to or during transportation. After about four days on the telephone, I finally got through to a decent gentleman, a Mr M in the CEO’s office, who accepted responsibility and sought to resolve matters. I recall Mr M mentioning that AVIVA had been experiencing many problems with their agents, RAC in Europe. Mr M said, “In terms of making you feel this is okay, let's imagine a situation where I was to sort out a garage (for the repairs). I am going to take a bit of leave and will try to get this car sorted. Mr K who manages the complaint team ... I am not going to ask him to manage (this) as a complaint. ... Write a summary email which details the expenses which you think you have incurred. ... The Motor claims team will call you to find local garage approved by them. … Send me an email with your expenses.” He also arranged a hire vehicle. The poor car then spent months at repairers only to be returned with yet more problems, e.g. air noise coming through rear door/window, air con problems (e.g. blowing hot where cold should be), missing cap, etc, all of which had been in good condition before the clutch failed and AVIVA arranged for it to be collected from the autobahn. All this while, costs increased, what with phone calls and the numerous times I had to go to and from the repairers, which was a 15 to 20 mile round trip. In the meanwhile, my mother died unexpectedly in 2015, and priorities shifted out of necessity. In May 2016, on the very morning it was to be collected by AVIVA's panel repairers to put right what they had done wrong (wind noise etc), the vehicle was hit whilst parked, by joy-riders who were having an early morning fling hitting as many parked cars as they could up and down the suburban streets. Within hours, and without even sending out an engineer to assess the damage, AVIVA wrote the vehicle off, branded it Cat. D, and so proceeded to undervalue the vehicle for settlement purposes, and ongoing insurance purposes. That is to say, rather than (a) repair the vehicle, or (b) replace the vehicle with something equivalent, or (c) reimburse us for the replacement value so that we could replace the vehicle ourselves with something equivalent, as AVIVA had contracted with us to do, they proceeded to de-value the vehicle permanently, so that if a claim was ever made in the future, they would pay only a fraction of what it would normally be worth without the Cat. D. AVIVA undervalued the replacement value of the vehicle at a rate that was approximately 25% less than its true value. (The make and model of this particular vehicle holds its value very well, particularly with such low miles as this one.) They put many hoops in front of me which I had to jump through, in terms of providing evidence and so forth and, without producing any evidence of their decisions, continued misguided, in a state of total denial, rejecting all the facts that were presented to them, in favour of their own pre-determined outcome conducive only to them. What is more, as part of their “offer” if we were to keep the vehicle, AVIVA sought to deduct £1,120 allegedly for salvage etc. which figure, upon enquiry with the salvage company, turned out to be about £960 more than what they confirmed they would have paid. That is to say, while the salvage company said they would have paid £160 for the vehicle, AVIVA sought to deprive us of another £960 on top of that, that is £1,120 in total. Nothing made common sense or rang true and it quickly became obvious that whichever path, there was a formula which AVIVA were adhering to, and that honesty, fairness and that the insurance ‘contract of utmost good faith’ which we had with them did not come into the equation. What was certain was that we would lose out while AVIVA would make £100,000,000s in profit. So, this is how AVIVA treated its customers who had never been in an accident. With no resolution in sight, I attempted to escalate the matter to Mr M in the CEO’s office. But, Mr M, I then learned, had moved on to a bigger and better position within the company. Instead, a Mr S took over, and proceeded in the same vein as his colleagues/subordinates to kill off any chance of settlement. To add further insult to injury and old wounds, Mr S proceeded to undermine and renege on every honourable thing that Mr M had done previously in 2014 and, in addition to his and his colleagues’ various attempts to rip us off (in 2016), he also refused to reimburse me for any of my losses relating to the 2014 episode alleging, quite incorrectly, that our contract had been with RAC and not AVIVA, and that RAC had already rejected the claim in 2014! All of this was untrue since Mr M had already been dealing with the matter and, having taken responsibility for the matter, asked me to send through receipts (which were ongoing), and was already authorising payment of other invoices provided by third parties. As for no claims bonus and the drivers' insurance record/history generally, AVIVA advised in 2016 that so long as they were able to successfully claim from third party’s insurers, none of that would be affected by the 2016 incident. So surely all losses would be recovered from the third party insurers, right? So then, what was the problem? Part of the answer to that was unravelled yesterday. Well, unbeknownst to us, despite AVIVA having all the third party details, the new guy in the CEO’s office, Mr S, reluctantly confirmed only yesterday (6 September 2018) that, in truth, AVIVA had made no claim at all against the third party insurers - a crucial fact which he chose to withhold in 2016. In the meanwhile, AVIVA has proceeded in the interim to make misleading statements on insurance documents that I had been in an accident in 2016, thereby creating a manifestly incorrect and libelous record about me which, as readers will no doubt appreciate, negatively impacts upon me personally and financially. Since then, and with matters unresolved, AVIVA have proceeded to increase the cost of insuring the vehicle by £100s, and we are £1,000s out of pocket. For AVIVA to deny any responsibility for all the distress and loss that they and their agents have created, using such underhand tactics in the process, is thoroughly dishonest and unethical. According to the legal doctrine of 'estoppel' (based on both common law and equity), AVIVA were estopped from refusing to pay out in 2016, after having finally and quite sensibly elected to resolve matters in 2014. Yet, they proceeded once more in 2016 to breach their agreement and that doctrine, and compound it with a further breach of the insurance contract of ‘utmost good faith’, only to leave us “stranded” for a second time. They have learned nothing, and it is “Quelle horreur” all over again. Certainly the Financial Ombudsman, which AVIVA love to direct customers to, is no reliable avenue to achieve a just and equitable outcome, since they themselves are grappling with reports about their own inexplicable and apparently unethical conduct, evidence of which was uncovered in a Dispatches investigation earlier this year. Who pays the Piper …”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“Guys, Aviva is cheap for quotes but beware of this company. They claim to pay out 95-98 with no independent verification. These and most companies invest more in claim prevention ( In name of Fraud prevention) rather than in their customers. You may find you policies cancelled by Aviva at the slightest hint you may file a claim. Beware!!!”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“I had 3 policy with aviva and they sent me a letter out asking about insurance documents and a woman cleaner sent them the letter back so they cancelled my insurance so I am now out of a job and can't support my family and will lose my house in few months time due to can't pay mortgage because of aviva”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“Wont pay out pension money been retired since December”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“Dreadful experience of AVIVA deliberately dragging out payment and settlement of claim when they admitted they were totally at fault: they were vexatious and caused maximum inconvenience and were arrogant. They even sent threatening letter via their lawyers after I chased late payment of the settlement - to which I replied with a very sharp letter! Finally got the funds from them for injury damages but it would have been easier getting blood out of a stone! DISGUSTING COMPANY - AVOID!”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“Telephone help line worse than any I encountered before. Incredibly long waiting in the queue for an answer and then to be cut-off halfway through a conversation - twice. No resolution to my issue 3 days on....”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“Very bad treatment of my claim against this insurer as they give extremely bad service and are very slow, arrogant and conceited! They are taking weeks to pay settlement of my claim to my solicitors and simply don't reply to queries - despite me formally accepting their offer! VERY BAD COMPANY”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“Unbelievably bad service - on hold in a call queue twice for an hour and cut off both times! Well after a bad experience trying to get through to Customer Service last week, this week is even worse! On hold in the call queue for 1 hour 1 minute and 23 seconds when there was a message that there was a technical fault and the call was disconnected. I've redialed and am still sitting in the queue and over an hour later get the same message that there are technical problems and I've been disconnected again! I am now giving up having been unable to speak to someone. Aviva, do you really think a wait of more than 2 hours is acceptable? What are you senior management doing about this? At least get a call back service working and get rid of that message "lots of people are calling us today; but we'll get you to one of the team as soon as they are free" if it is not going to be in a reasonable time.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“I have written twice to Aviva regards my P60 which I need for my tax return only to find out by phone you no longer supply them automatically. No reply to either letter. Aviva has to be the very worst company to deal with and if I could move my pension I would. Will someone in Aviva send me a link so I can download my certificate sometime this year would be helpful!!!”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“AVIVA hold my small Pension. I moved 2 years ago, so I immediately informed Aviva, they wrote back thanking me for informing them of my new address. This year my accountant needed my P60 forms, so I had to chase Aviva! well that is when the farce began it turned out they had been sending my P60's to my old address even though they had acknowledged my change of address in 2016. No one had forwarded post on to me from my old address! which just exasperated the problem. Three times I telephoned Aviva office for my P60's and told them of their error. They asked my postcode and told me that is not the address we hold for you!!!!Eventually one man emailed my forms but quoted "following on from your recent (RECENT!)confirmation of your change of address, please find attached your P60's as requested" so he did not believe that they had made an error. It seems the whole office needs a shake up, they need to be more responsive and see things through ~ come on Customer Services ~ get your act together and try doing some work ~ we are the ones paying your wages.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“They take too long to answer the phone. You are waiting in the queue for 30 minutes when phoning these people. Most people’s lunchbreak is 30 minutes so it is impossible to speak to them. On this basis i”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“Very poor customer service, offered no explanation for the huge increase of my car insurance renewal instead they tried to sell me more contracts and services. They also made me feel I was being dismissed as if they had better things to do or just couldn't justify the £230 increase they were asking for. I also asked them to remove my email from their contact list, received email from them today. Extremely unhelpful, fed up, avoid.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“Had a complex scenario on Home Insurance. Gave them the details upfront and answered additional questions. They provided a quote that seemed ok and said all I needed to do was phone up, quote the reference and give a start date to activate. I thought I was being pro-active organizing this a month in advance. Don't trust them! When we exchanged contracts I phoned up only to have them say the person that gave me the quote should never have done it as it was against corporate policy to issue such coverage for new clients - existing customers would be covered. Aviva Insurance obviously have some form of internal politics/ one-up-manship going on. I shared that I'm an existing Aviva Pension fund client ... but Aviva Insurance obviously couldn't care less about customers from other divisions. We were buying a home, but having an extension added before moving in. While work was done, we'd be living in an apartment less than a mile away/ visiting the site regularly. I get that this scenario adds risk and that some employees might make mistakes - but if their policy states they can accept the risk for existing customers - I expect that to include any Aviva brand/ division. My whole purpose of contacting Aviva was to consolidate business under one roof to make administration easier and lock in multi product discounts. As it stands, they left me in the lurch and refused to honor their original quote. Their loss - we are relocating from USA, so I'll be buying a new car and looking for car insurance too. They won't get that now ... and I'll be moving my Pension elsewhere. If you don't have a "straight forward insurance" need, or you expect a first class customer experience across all divisions - stay away!”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“Poor customer service, staff not helpful at all, had an electrical fire in the car under the steering column and the battery area, all the wire been burnt, aviva arranged an engineer to look into the car, (bill thursby) he was not consistent with his report, at one point he confirmed that its an extensive damage and on the other hand saying no resultant damage, can’t blame the manufacturers and don’t know the reason of fire, emailed aviva and the engineer so many times for a proper explained report and clarification on the points mentioned in the report, but no response from them at all. Engineer dealing with this matter was i think a trainee without any knowledge of cars who quoted the repairs to be around £1200.00 but the manufacturers quoted it to be more than £8000.00. Seriously. If aviva can’t blame the manufacturers for the fire then they also have no reason to say electrical breakdown as they don’t know the cause, policy doesn’t say that it’s not covered until you give a justification of fire. Closed my claim file without any reason and no proper reaponse from. Won’t recommend to anybody stay away from them.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“Poor customer service, staff not helpful at all, had an electrical fire in the car under the steering column and the battery area, all the wire been burnt, aviva arranged an engineer to look into the car, (bill thursby) he was not consistent with his report, at one point he confirmed that its an extensive damage and on the other hand saying no resultant damage, can’t blame the manufacturers and don’t know the reason of fire, emailed aviva and the engineer so many times for a proper explained report and clarification on the points mentioned in the report, but no response from them at all. Engineer dealing with this matter was i think a trainee without any knowledge of cars who quoted the repairs to be around £1200.00 but the manufacturers quoted it to be more than £8000.00. Seriously. If aviva can’t blame the manufacturers for the fire then they also have no reason to say electrical breakdown as they don’t know the cause, policy doesn’t say that it’s not covered until you give a justification of fire. Closed my claim file without any reason and no proper reaponse from. Won’t recommend to anybody stay away from them.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“Aviva own quote me happy an online insurance company. Appalling company might be ‘happy with the quote’ but that’s it. My wife changed her car tried to access account could’t - password reset tried no emails received to reset. Sent emails over several days (as online only and no response to any of them) - can’t speak to anyone even rang Aviva they wern’t Interested. As we now have the new car had to take a new policy out (obviously avoding quote me happy!) so now have a policy running on the old car that we can’t cancel - will put it all in writing to quote me happy and take it to the ombudsman - the worst customer service I have ever experienced avoid them like the plague!”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“BOILER COVER. Avoid at all costs. Took out a policy on 21 FEBRUARY and still I'm not covered. Long story short - 1st engineer failed to inspect most important part of system but told me everything was in order. Following a formal complaint which was upheld, a 2nd engineer from a different company was dispatched. Stated he had fully inspected system and all in order. Hearing nothing I contacted Aviva who confirmed all in order and cover commenced. 6 WEEKS LATER - a letter asking me to contact them re issues. 2nd engineer has filed a report citing issues with my boiler despite lying to me saying all in order. What is wrong with these people. 2nd formal complaint made nearly 2 weeks ago and not a phone call or e-mail to even acknowledge receipt. So 3 months further on and still no cover in place!!!! How difficult does this need to be. Should point out that British Gas have serviced this boiler for many years without issue. Wish I had never left them. Investment portfolios with Aviva about to be moved - if they can't get a simple boiler policy correct, what chance do I have of a portfolio being correctly managed?.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“I was at a sheesha bar and staff notified customers a vehicle matching the description of mine was damaged. I rushed outside to see my vehicle rammed by a third party stolen vehicle and police at scene. My vehicle was a brand new car but i had bought it from a auction and got it repaired but i wasnt the best at filling away all reciept. I also serviced from Mercedes and really took pride in looking after it. The police advised me to contact my insurance company as i was screaming my head off about what had happened. Later that night i got around to telling aviva what had happed, gave my crime ref and they started from the start of claim giving me inccorrct advice. They explained to me first i was entitled to a standard courtesy car because i had no driver details. After thought the next day i rang back explaining i wasnt in the vehicle at time Of accident so regardless its not my fault and the fact vehicle was stolen as i found out from Police. They then changed their story to giving me a like for like vehicle. After agonising long stretch of me waitiing they decided to investigate mainly because i think of the value of the vehicle and the fact they wanted nay excuse not to pay me out. I coopearted as much as i could and at the time could not find reciepts due to my lack of organisation skills however they kept penalising me the fact i never had the vehicle repaired to a good standard, never had recipts at that specific, damage from the accident was inconsistent and that my emails provided were not mine and declined my claim. They also called my claim fraudulent indirectly by outlining their terms relating to cancellation if policy and if a claim is invalid or exagerated.I complained and explained addressing all the points however they maintained their stance due to The high amount of pay out it would result in. I have proof of my vehicle as in perfect condition but upto their specifications it wasnt although mercedes never ever mentioned any major problems when servicing. Overall i would say PLEASE DO NOT TAKE OUT INSURANCE WITH AVIVA !!!!! They literally look for excuses not to pay out especially if its a new car and it will cost them fair amount. I would never ever take any policy out and will recommend to everyone not to take out any policy with aviva. I realised by my experience and further by researching amd found aviva is known for such scandals. If only i had researched before taking out insurance. Now i will be going to Financial Ombudsman Service. Please share my experience with all family and friends. I was gutted with my experience and heartbroken. They left me hopeless with no support and made me feel so vulnerable and it took me 6 months to mentally recover of the accident damage and their responses.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“Only given one star as I had no choice. In 2016 I had another driver hit me Aviva was my insurance provider but seemed to side with the 3rd party. After numerous rude customer service staff I lodged a complaint which was brushed aside we are now in 2018 and Aviva has been paid out but guess what I have received no payment back for my excess. Avoid Avoid”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“I know that Aviva may be one of many underwriters who play these games but something needs to be done. Being honest I advised my broker bennetts that I was going to add bar risers on my bike. These are fitted by the dealer and make the bike safer for me to ride. I was told that they would no longer insure me just because I added the bar riser to the bike. This is ridiculous and has caused me the inconvenience and extra cost for no good reason. maybe Aviva should have people in their company that understand the various modifications and the impact. There needs to be some further regulation that affects customers so adversely for no reason”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

Shipping & Delivery
Delivery Methods	Own Driver
Customer Service
Communication Channels	Telephone, Email, Live Chat
Queries Resolved In	Over A Week
Customer Service	1.2 out of 5

Aviva Reviews

Email: