| Product: |
General Comments |
| Date: |
26.07.00 (692 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: saves you money
Disadvantages: its free so they don't seem to care, they just want to sell you the car
Two years ago I bought a new Peugeot 106. I was particularly drawn towards this car because it came with two years free insurance. At the time I had only 2 years no claims bonus so this was a particularly good financial incentive for me. BUT now the time to pay for my own insurance is upon me once again, I have encountered a few potentially serious problems.
Firstly, the salesmen told me that at the end of the two year period, Peugeot would automatically offer me maximum no claims discount if I stayed with them. When I received my renewal through the post, I had a quote with no discount whatsoever. When I spoke to an assistant on the phone, she said full no claims shouldn't have been promised. Fraudulent misrepresentation by the salesman?
Secondly, be very very very careful about using your legal protection cover under this policy. During the last year I was unfortunate enough to have to use my legal cover against an uninsured loss claim. It is common practice amongst car insurers that using this cover does NOT lose you your no claims. Peugeot however like to think they're special and I was told by the assistant that another reason my quote was so high was that I had made a claim on my policy and hence had lost my no claims. To their credit, they did agree to give me my no claims but this is only because I hassled them into doing it. If I hadn't spotted it and questioned the quote I would have paid way over the odds.
Thirdly and most importantly, upon taking out my free insurance with Peugeot they, in my opinion, advised me negligently as to the best way of going about things. Basically, what they should have done was had my previous policy transferred to them so my no claims from the period before the free insurance remained intact. They didn't do this and made no effort to advise me of the implications AFTER the free insurance ran out. Consequently, some insurance companies will not accept that I have four
years no claims, but will only accept the two from my free insurance. When you consider the great difference in premiums between 2 years no claims and 4 years, this is obviously highly significant. To add insult to injury, when I challenged them about this, they said it wasn't their problem and they'd followed their own internal procedure. Sod you in other words.
So the moral of the story is that you shouldn't be so overwhelmed by the offer of free insurance that you don't do your research and ask lots of questions about the policy. Obviously free insurance can save you loads of money but don't be blind to the associated problems.
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