Insurance discrepancy - Help!

[eltax91]

All

Interesting predicament. I set up a new policy on Sunday with the meerkat people, stating all my personal details to the best of my knowledge. I selected a broker (cheapest) who then started a policy for me which was underwritten by Aviva. Premium was £408.

Fast forward to today and I get a call from the broker, saying there is a discrepancy between my quoted accident dates and that logged with the MIB. They were as follows:-
I said: 1/4/09 & 1/5/11
MID said: 1/4/09 & 28/5/11 (27 days later)

Now, on the meerkat website, you are only asked for "month and year", to which I answered "May 2011". Evidently the back end system just uses a hard coded 1st of the month for the quote. I clicked "buy" from the meerkat site and was immediately taken to a payment page on the brokers website, I had no opportunity to review the policy details, let alone change them.

The broker says aviva want an additional £75 in premium due to the fault accident being 27 days later than described. They won't budge, they say I owe the premium in order to be legal, or they will cancel the policy. With the cancellation fees and the time on cover, the cost of that is near enough the same as the premium increase.

So, what do I do about this? Do I have a case not to pay the premium? It's not my fault after all.

[FRMATT]

I would get in touch with the meerkats and suggest, in a constructive criticism kind of way, they need to improve their system. Then ask them to compensate the £75, as the discrepancy was their fault.

[graham22]

Sounds like an admin charge from the broker to correct their records.

Can't umagine the 27 days difference on a 2 year old claim is an underwriting issue - would understand is it was 1 Sept vs 28 Sept making the claim the difference between 1 & 2 whole years old.

Either way, I'm sure Meerkats would want to know about it.

[Gypsum Fantastic]

It's always worth raising issues like this on social media if you can. The desire to put on a good public image can make companies drop silly rip-off tactics.

[eltax91]

Gypsum Fantastic said:

It's always worth raising issues like this on social media if you can. The desire to put on a good public image can make companies drop silly rip-off tactics.

Yeh. I have tweeted the meerkat people, with as yet no response.

I too am so surprised by a 27 day difference over 2 years ago.

[KTF]

This is why it is always worth reviewing all the details after you have clicked through from the comparison sites as some can get lost in the translation.

Its also worth running through a fresh direct quote as sometimes that comes out less than via a comparison site.

Edit: You could have gained £70 cashback via quidco as well: http://www.quidco.com/aviva-car-insurance/

[405dogvan]

Not sure social media will help here - they cannot be too concerned that their customers will see a bad review when they think all their customers are interested in is a fking meerkat toy...

If there's a company with a lower opinion of their customers that the internet insurance/credit hawkers (meerkats, John Prescott, Go Compare, You're so money supermarket) I'm not sure I want to know

I purposely avoid using them - I'll often get a ballpark quote and then contact the end insurer via other means (don't always save money but I'm not feeding the children of imbeciles).

Getting back to the OP's issue - I'd raise it with the Meerkats - explain that you hold them responsible for the error and see where it takes you.

Proving they were at fault will be very hard - you'll have to rely on a 'guilty handout' here - that and the pleasure of telling your insurer to fk off after 12 months

p.s. did you get a toy then?

[dave7692]

Unfortunately I expect the Meerkats have a little clause somewhere that says that you need to check all the details with the broker before agreeing the purchase.

When I went through them earlier this year I ended up ringing (Swinton) prior to purchase and ended up setting the policy up over the phone as it seemed very complicated to do it otherwise.

[eltax91]

All

The broker has just called me back. It seems, that after they contacted the meerkat people and were knocked back, their management got involved (a senior manager called me) and refused to pay the commission that the meerkat's were due and have instead used this to fund the difference to the underwriter.

So, it's all solved at no cost to me, no matter how full of st they were on how they fixed it.

AutoNet Car Insurance, I salute you.

[dave7692]

eltax91 said:

All

The broker has just called me back. It seems, that after they contacted the meerkat people and were knocked back, their management got involved (a senior manager called me) and refused to pay the commission that the meerkat's were due and have instead used this to fund the difference to the underwriter.

So, it's all solved at no cost to me, no matter how full of st they were on how they fixed it.

AutoNet Car Insurance, I salute you.

Sounds good to me, as long as you don't pay any more who cares how they justify it

[405dogvan]

eltax91 said:

All

The broker has just called me back. It seems, that after they contacted the meerkat people and were knocked back, their management got involved (a senior manager called me) and refused to pay the commission that the meerkat's were due and have instead used this to fund the difference to the underwriter.

So, it's all solved at no cost to me, no matter how full of st they were on how they fixed it.

AutoNet Car Insurance, I salute you.

Nice result...