S2 Exige Insurance - Specialist or mainstream?

[Ganglandboss]

Tickle said:

Mary Singleton at Reis insurance is great with Lotus, especially as second policies. I switched from Adrian Flux a few years ago to Reis. Worth a call.

I have had a few policies with REIS. They wouldn't offer renewal terms after I picked up two speeding tickets in two days, which was fair enough, so I went to Flux and was with them a few years. My premiums started creeping up, so I tried REIS again, and they came in significantly lower.

I bought a Disco when I left the company car scheme, and insured that with them too. A few months into the policy, my OH was driving the car on a busy duel carriageway, and the n/s/f wheel came off as she crossed a bridge, bounced off the Armco, hit the door and wing, and continued rolling. When I looked at it, I could see the studs had sheared.

I had damage to the wing, door, brake disk, brake backing plate, lower arm, and the wheel.

The vehicle had to be recovered by the police as the recovery contractor REIS sent went to the wrong place. My description was 'on the A494, immediately after the River Dee bridge, heading towards Manchester'.

After being recovered to a nearby yard, the recovery firm suggested leaving the car there and getting it taken straight to the accident repair place when the insurer has decided which one it's going to.

I had a nightmare trying to get an update, all the time the car is racking up storage fees. Fortunately the police recovery contractor called to say he was collecting some police motorbikes from a dealership near me, so I only had to pay for a one-way trip.

REIS then told me I was not covered, as mechanical failure was excluded. I challenged this, quoting the policy wording to their call handler, who admitted she did not have the policy wording available.

It was clear that they had misinterpreted the exclusion for mechanical and electrical failure, believing it meant any claim for damage is excluded where mechanical failure is the proximate cause. They eventually accepted policy liability around two months later.

Their complaint handling was atrocious. They lied to me on multiple occasions (denying I was told certain things on calls, which I now have recordings of). They gave me £200 as compensation, accepting they took too long to respond to my complaint, but denying there was anything wrong with the way my claim was handled.

When I was first insured with them, I think the policy was underwritten by Equity Red Star. My recent policy was underwritten by Markerstudy, who know own REIS. It appears Markerstudy have bought a number of brokers, and use them as a brand to sell their own products.

I would not insure a skateboard with the bds.

[Gad-Westy]

Thanks again folks. I did look down the multi-car route. Admiral are okay on price on the Lotus but not any other car I own. LV give an excellent multicar price on the lotus but telephone numbers on my other car. I did try NFU on the back of various suggestions on here and elsewhere but their price was pretty high for the Lotus and off the scale for other cars. It's a bit of a shame actually as I'd have quite happily paid a bit of a premium to bring all these policies into one place as I hate this annual faff across three separate policies.

I think I'll end up going with LV for the Lotus only but have a couple of weeks to decided.

Just on this multi car thing, the cheapest quote I had to insure all three of our cars on an MC policy was with LV at about £1500 per year. Shopping around for each policy instead bring it in at Just under £800. Is this the norm or do I just not quite fit the optimum configuration for a multicar policy?

[kambites]

It seems to be about 50/50 for me whether a multi-car or individual policies are cheapest. At the moment they're on separate policies (one from Churchill and one from General Accident) but last year they were on admiral multicar.

Having said that, my quotes are a lot lower than yours so any difference tends to be a lot smaller in absolute terms (I think I paid £170 this year for the Elise). The Elise is actually quite a lot cheaper to insure than the Octavia for some reason, despite mileage being similar and both being used for commuting.

Edited by kambites on Monday 13th March 10:31