Cheap and Nasty (Direct Line)

Member Name: Pat-UK

Product:	Direct Line
Date:	11/11/06 (455 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap

Disadvantages: Nasty, Find every excuse possible to get out of paying

An insurance Company is only as good as their Claims service, because at the end of the day all companys are good at doing the easy bit "TAKING THE MONEY"

You get what you pay for, and when i took out my home and contents insurance policy in 2003 The last thing on my mind is if they pay out in the event of a claim, when buying insurance the main concern is "whos the cheapest"

Well guilty of the above, I took the cheapest as i'd been happy with their money taking service for my car insurance, every month they took their payment without fail so why sould I have any reason to question the quality of their service.

To my point, I had a fire in September 2003, and lost everything, from the first phonecall to theirs calims department I realised that cheaper is not better, it took the best part of an hour to get anything organised, the on hold music of "I did it my way" gets annoying after a while.

From then on in they tried to wriggle out of the claim, they tried several different excuses, ranging from "the wrong kind of roof" to the fact I had cancelled my last policy before it ran out (I HAD CANCELED IT, NOT MY INSURER), then they wanted credit card statments, telephone bills and it just got ridiculas.

It took them 2 years to decide they were not going to pay the claim,offered a pittance which did not cover a quarter of the cost of rebuilding and costs incurred to date (not counting the contents) or take the option of taking them to court, but after reading up on them I realised it would be imposible (have a read here www.directlinecomplaints.com and you'll see why it's impossible)

They sent a letter to the landlord of the house I was renting while I was waiting for my own house to be repaired telling them that I would be moving out in 5 days from the date of the letter (this was posted on a friday 10th and recieved on Monday 13) and said I would be leaving on the 15th. how nice is that.

This is just a few of the issues I had with them, you can read more on my story at www.directline2disaster.co.uk I have to finish it off but there is quite a bit of info there

Make your own decision, but dont just go for the cheapest, it's not worth it in the long run

Look here too for others that have suffered t their hands

http://lozworld.com/lozwords/aiab_especially_dire ct_line

Summary: I you never need to make a claim they are fine, otherwise they are awfull