“So here's a story on how Admiral Insurance illegally increased my premium by 37% for SPENT points they scrape themselfs from my old policy with them.
I bought a premium about a month ago from Admiral by using Confused.com. They've quoted me for something like £680 per year payable in advance which I have paid on that day. This will be the third year in a row with Admiral and earlier there were no problems. Generally I have already been driving for over 10 years and in the UK I have four years of discounts.
Yesterday morning, I get an mail from them saying that they're increasing my policy by £250 because I have 3 points for speeding from 2012! That's right because they are the 3 points exactly from 01/03/2012 and are SPENT and expired in March of last year.
Logging onto the official UK government website it clearly shows 0 points. I did call them and quoted the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 which basically says that SPENT/expired point are expired and I have no obligation to inform anyone about them.
I asked them how they found out about the point and they said that they worked it out from my previous policy ( yeah, in previous 3 years I was with them so they had that on record while the points where UNSPENT... )
They did not agree to reduce this amount and have my card details on file so will be charing me the extra £250! Fraud in broad daylight!
I have already been paying an INCREASED premium for the last 3 years for those 3 points, despite the fact that these points have expired Admiral wants an extra £250 from me. Dear colleagues that about 37% more on top of what I have already paid.
The case I described is already reported to the Financial Ombudsman and news papers but haven't had any replies yet as I am typing this.
Anyone knows of a lawyer who want to represent me in court against this fraud by Admiral?”
“Car Insurance being sold illegally - They dont allow to drive other's cars even if you are 25+???
I got their online quote for my wife's car, using gocompare.com. It never mentioned on the gocompare quote if she can't drive someone else's car. According to UK law, she can drive other cars, if they are insured in same category and the main driver is aged 25+. When I was buying this policy, none of their document mentioned if she can't drive other's cars. After going through the payment screens on their website and once I completed the payment process successfully, they advised to wait for a welcome email which will help me to register in order to see / view my policy documents. Wow....They sold me a product without allowing me to read the key facts before making the payment.
When I received that welcome email, it helped me to register and view the policy documents. When I gone through their policy documents, it says something like "she can't drive other's cars",
I can't believe these people are doing business in a country like UK and all the call centres in India.
It took me around three hours follow up calls talking to those jerks and I wasn't able to make them understand my reservation.”
“Completely robbed my daughter of £200 for cancelling insurance after a week because they wanted to charge extra £600 for not declaring my 3 points that are over 3 years old, it, outrageous legalised robbery”
“I can't even begin to describe how appalled I am by the service delivered by Admiral.
I myself am no longer insured with Admiral as of earlier this year after they tried to up my insurance on renewal by £350 per annum for absolutely no reason, and instead I chose to go elsewhere for the exact same cover for with a saving of just under £900. Shocking Prices.
However yesterday, on the 17th of December, four friends and I planned to travel from Newcastle to Glasgow for the day and decided to take just one car.
Unfortunately, as mine is the smaller car, we used my friend's who is insured by Admiral.
Two hours into our journey and on the homestretch to Glasgow the car began to judder doing 70mph. We slowed to just under 60, moved into the left lane in the hope that the poor weather conditions and speed had caused the problem, but that it had only been temporary. A minute later the car began to judder again and felt as though it was going to come to a complete stop, the check engine light came on, forcing us to pull onto the hard shoulder, hazards on.
So, on an anonymous stretch of the M6, the 5 of us got out of the car, clambered over the hip-high "guard barrier" and stood in the mud sandwiched between a busy motorway and a wooden fence that stood between us and a 10ft drop. Scotland. It was cold, it was raining and the trucks and lorries driving past made our car shake with their speed.
We were only a short walk to the nearest SOS phone so the driver and my partner headed down to report our location. The operator asked the driver what had happened, who she was insured with and importantly, who was in the car. At this point I feel I should mention that I am 38 weeks pregnant. He said he would call Admiral on her behalf as between the 5 of us, not one had a single bar of phone service, and get back to her on the SOS phone. Five minutes later, the phone rang and the operator advised the driver that he had contacted Admiral and made them fully aware of the situation and that they would send roadside assistance. This would normally be guaranteed to arrive within the hour, however as I was heavily pregnant and classed as a vulnerable adult, the job would be held as high priority and the police were also being sent to check on us. This call ended at 11:35
So we stood in the mud, with the rain only getting worse and waited. We hadn't planned to be standing outside and obviously weren't properly dressed for the occasion. My coat and scarf were drenched, my partner's Barbour might as well have been made out of water the amount it absorbed and everyone continued to get wetter, colder and more miserable as we waited, and waited, and waited.
By 12:20 everyone was pretty annoyed and there was no sign of any help coming at all. Five minutes later a police car pulled up behind us and asked to speak to the driver. They had been sent from Glasgow and were outraged that despite it being nearly an hours drive, they had arrived before the roadside assistance had, despite there being a garage on the next exit, less that 10 minutes down the road. One of the officers came over to check that I was alright, by this point I was very thankful to have found a packet of tissues in my coat pocket as I was freezing with my hair and clothes soaked through and sniffing away, I probably looked a pretty sorry sight. He told us to get back in the car to try and dry off and started indicating traffic to enter the middle lane so as not to pass so close to us.
They took full incident details and started radioing back to the station to ask if there were any other police cars in the area that could come and take us to safety. I wasn't in the police car but our driver said that they were both livid at one point telling the radio operator, "we HAVE to be able to do something... this is a joke, this woman should NOT be out here."
Fifteen minutes after the police arrival, a recovery vehicle pulled in in front of us and the driver got out to speak to the officers by the side of the car who demanded to know why the hell it had taken him over an hour to get to the scene from a garage down the road and why they had arrived first having travelled down from Glasgow City Centre. The driver told them that they'd have to speak to his boss; he was just there to do a job.
Things were looking up however, we weren't in the rain anymore and our clothing was very slowly changing from soaking and ice cold to damp and uncomfortable. However, the garage hadn't sent a mechanic to check the car, just a recovery van driver to take us off the motorway. So we climbed into the recovery van and waited the further fifteen minutes it took him to hitch the car up onto the back and finally, away we went.
The drive back to the garage took a grand total of 8 minutes. In the waiting room, only enough time had passed for us to each use the loo and almost finish a cup of tea when a mechanic advised us that the car was absolutely fine. He had removed the coil, given it a wipe clean and taken the car for a test drive, but the engine itself showed no damage. He said if the problem happened again, pull over for 10 minutes and then set off again, but everything should be okay, and sent us on our way. We got back in the car to finish our journey just before 13:00.
When we finally got close enough to civilization to get some signal, the driver found that she had a missed call from Admiral at 12:10 to say they had gotten hold of a garage and that someone was on their way.
So to recap, it took almost 40 minutes for Admiral to actually get in touch with someone, and then a further a half an hour for them to actually show up. The garage didn’t send road side assistance but instead a recovery vehicle with a driver who couldn't do anything to help. Not my idea of a priority. Not only is this over the hour they normally promise anyway, but they were perfectly content to leave five people, including a 38 week pregnant woman standing in the wind and rain for over an hour on the side of a very busy motorway. I am now full to the brim with cold and everything aches.
I don't even know what else to say about the situation. It was an absolutely unacceptable response for a company that charges outrageous prices. I will NEVER return to Admiral as a customer and the driver of yesterday's events will be changing insurer at the earliest possible date. The police did advise us to raise a formal complaint, although none of us were very sure what good it would do.
Disgusted doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
“I have Admiral 'emergency' boiler cover. My boiler failed on Sunday and since then it has been an absolute farce.
First they sent an engineer who seemingly had no idea of how a boiler works. Since then I simply can't get in touch with anyone at Admiral who can tell me what is going on.
If you have an inquiry, you need to speak to the 'claims department'. Problem is, you can't be put through to the claims department. You have to wait for them to call you within the next 4 or 5 hours. Even then, they call for all of two rings. 3 TIMES I haven't been able to answer their calls even though I have my phone with me.
They just leave a message asking for you to call them back. Even though that is impossible, you have to make ANOTHER phone call appointment for them to call you.
This is supposed to be an emergency service. My wife has anemia and she gets very cold. Admiral have left us with no heating for over 3 days so far. Lets be real, I could have got a plumber to fix it two days ago.
I have lost days to Admiral, but unfortunately, Admiral just don't care!!
If I wanted to buy a service, I would be put through to someone straight away. As I need to make a claim, they are not willing to speak to me.”
“somebody tried to steel may van. report to police, same day report to insurance company. not alow to repair tel wait.
Waiting for week no responded. called again . lost my claim info.
van in rented garage stay 10 days! no action. I paid for garage, recovery from my money.
to repair takes 3 weeks more. no replacement van given. after that canceled my insurance, because they not provided proper service. promised refund money by phone. after 2 weeks received letter, that no refunds be made!!! balance about £700 missed (stolen).
My advice - run away from that company.
Stanislovas Griskevicius Vistan Ltd”
“Abysmal experience, requested to change the valuation of my vehicle. They have not acknowledged or responded to this request in any way, despite managing to open and close a complaint about the appalling service, time I have been forced to waste chasing this for three weeks. Each time I have phoned they have fobbed me off promising call backs that never materialise, each date they promised to have resolved this by has been and gone, nothing but a load of lies and nobody taking ownership for what should have been a very simple request. I have been of the phone at least 25 minutes each time I have called and each time achieved absolutely nothing. So frustrating, going to switch insurers.”
“I payed my car insurance of £1700 fully comp in April and since then my car set on fire. This insurance company looked into and said there was no sign of a fire but I had the police and the fire crew there to put it out. I haven't heard nothing for nearly 2 months on this clam I have told this insurance company to get reviews from them but they have not done so. They have also told me that they don't cover for fire and now they are after over £300 off me for that clam witch I have just counciled due to me wanting to put the insurance on my new car but they said I can't as I need to pay them 1st so to be honest this insurance company are out to con people and all they have done is pass me around to loads of different people if I could give them 0 stars I would”
“I will never insure anything with this company ever again. Worst experience I have ever had. Communication is shocking all they can do is pass you on to someone else no one wants to know.”
“I have tired to contact the company for about one hour with no success. I am very disappointed that no message was given about the waiting time. In this case I will not use this company. I more than happy to try to use other insurance companies.”
“After ring to cancel as renewal was far too expensive compared to the first year, was talked round by getting the quote right down an was happy to continue. Was told if would auto renew at new quote but when it kicked in was at the higher price! Feel really let down and am cancelling immediately!”
“May be the cheapest home insurance quote - but for a reason!!! They find plenty of excuses not to pay out even though we took out separate bicycle insurance cover! Small print is misleading!!
Family and friends have claimed from other insurance companies before, but not as bad as this one!!
Best to pay more and know exactly what you are going to get.”
“Just a friendly warning to anyone thinking of going with Admiral for their car insurance. They may be cheap but don't expect them to do much good if you ever need them.
Someone drove into the back of me down a hill whilst I was stopped at a red light. He refused to give me his details and drove off. I contacted Admiral who tracked him down, and he is claiming I reversed into him back up the hill.
After 6 months of poor customer service, delaying and lack of contact, I have been told that unless I get it fixed using their garage (3x as expensive as others I have spoken to), and risk losing my no claims, then they won't take it any further.
The damage was not bad, in fact there was already a crack there which was exacerbated, so it's simply not worth the risk. I have had to drop the case.
The worst thing was that they also added that they are not confident they could win the case as there were no witnesses.
What is the point in having insurance if they can't win clear cut cases?”
“After being involved in a minor accident that wasn't my fault, which resulted in £400 of damage being made to my brand new car, Admiral made an absolute sham of the whole claim. Not only was it a frustrating process due to Admiral outsourcing their whole claim process to some outside companies, but they took so long to investigate the claim that the offending driver has had time to repair the damage on his van, which lead him to plead that he had not been involved in any accident. Admiral's lack of responsiveness also lead to a failure to gather CCTV footage from the scene of the accident because it took them longer than 28 days after the date of the accident to request the footage, which by this time has been overwritten on the CCTV system. They told me that they had sent out an engineer to the offending driver's home to inspect his van and reported back that there was no damage on the van whatsoever. This is a total pack of lies as I've seen the van since the date of the accident and it is covered in countless scrapes and dents. Since the engineer report apparently proved that the offending driver had not been involved in an accident, the only option they left me was to pay my excess of £500 and they said that I would be refunded my excess payment if they could find the offending driver guilty, which was never going to happen! I decided to visit a local garage to ask for a quote on how much it would cost to repair my car privately without going through the insurance, and this came to £400. So instead of paying my ludicrously expensive excess bill and to avoid being marked down as having made a claim (which would guarantee me a massively inflated premium the follow year and probably for the next 5+ years!) I decided to get my car repaired privately. This whole ordeal really makes me wonder why we all pay car insurance for, because when it comes to paying out for your car damage, insurance companies like Admiral don't want to know!”
“Had car stolen on private land got told once it had been collected courtesy car would be supplied. 2 weeks later I was still waiting then told that could not have car as the police could not find any clues then was told it would cost me 3 grand to get the car back even though I had a £150 excess. When I was put through to a manager who I told that is been told the insurence would cover all the costs by the chap who was dealing with the claim she called my a lier and put me on hold for 58 seconds then came back on said she had listened to all my calls and they had not promised me any of the things ( curtesy car, all costs covered) I found it strange that she had listened to 2 weeks of calls in 58 seconds so I questioned it only to be told she had been doing this job for 6 years and it was my vault I had left my car on the car park. To repair the car the bill was £ 6'380 and they wanted 3 grand off me so I cancelled the claim collected the car ( ( 340 pound ) had all fixed at local garage for £ 412. Please don't use admiral ive looked now and 70% of there car insurence claims are turned down”
