| Product: |
NFU Mutual Motor Insurance |
| Date: |
14.02.08 (296 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Good service
Disadvantages: Some niggles with my claim but only minor ones
Last year was the year of the insurance claim for me, one claim on my home insurance and after three years of cover with the NFU I finally had to make a motor claim when I was the front car in a three car pile up, at the time I was stationary as the car in front of me turned left and it was the rear car who hit the bloke behind me who then collided into the back of my car damaging the rear body work and as I have an estate car the rear door as well.
I have been with the NFU for three years since being made redundant from the bank where I had a company car. Nine months before being made redundant I had made a claim on my insurance for a small bump, if I had known that nine months later I would have needed to arrange my own cover I would not have claimed as when I did come to look for insurance most insurers would not consider me or the premium was extortionate as I had claimed within the 12 months, it did not matter that prior to that I had had 14 years of never making a claim. I had used all of the comparison sites to no avail and even started ringing companies direct where I started to get more reasonable quotes when my mother suggested ringing the NFU Insurance.
For those that do not know NFU Insurance is the National Farmers Union Insurance company, their head office is in Tiddington a village 1.5 miles outside of Stratford On Avon, I know this because it is the village I grew up in and I used to work for them when I was a student and my mother worked for them for twenty five years. I arranged the insurance over the phone and found the staff ember I spoke to very helpful.
They agreed to give me the equivalent of a four years no claim bonus which reduced my premium considerably down to £330.00 for an 03 registered Focus estate which was a lot cheaper than any other quote I had received. The only condition was that I could not protect the no claims bonus until I had that number of years with them without making a claim. Agreeing to proceed it took a matter of minutes to collect all my details and payment was made by credit card with no surcharge being made for using that method. A few days later the paperwork arrived in the post, in all it was a painless process. I opted for the home breakdown service as well which added an extra £70 to my premium and my motor insurance has a £150 excess on it.
Over the past three years the service has always been great, they have a good phone system when you want to renew your policy or make any changes and one of the things I like is that the person you speak to always end the call by giving you their name and extension number. Twice I have added European breakdown to the policy to cover me for driving holidays in France and this is a quick and efficient process as is the renewal policy. They do try and sell you their home policy at this time and discounts are available if you do have multiple plans with them.
The real test for an insurance company though is the claims process and while I was reasonably happy with how my claim was handled there is room for improvement. When I phoned to register the claim I was directed to the claims operator who started to collect the information over the phone, this is fine however it became apparent that the form they had to complete only had limited space for each question. As there were three cars directly involved and a fourth as a witness it did get rather confusing especially as it was clear that I was not responsible but not entirely clear who was based on the other two drivers statements as I had not seen whether the driver behind me had stopped before he was hit by the third driver.
I got the impression that things were a bit confused and this was confirmed when the phone transcript was sent to me to sign and also add my own comments. I was then also directed to their legal department who would deal with the recovery of my excess payment and for some reason I had to repeat the same information again and it was this part of the claim that really dragged on not helped by a couple of errors by the NFU.
With regards to fixing my car that was very smooth. A local garage contacted me to arrange to do the work and a hire car was promised, sure enough my car was collected and the hire car delivered at the same time and I had the hire car for five days in all. The quality of the work was good and I was very happy with the service I received.
Recovering my £150 really dragged though and at times it felt like if I had not been chasing them nothing would have been done. Initially due to confusion over the data collection they were chasing the wrong insurance party and in the end I really had to push them into threatening court action before it was resolved a full eight months after the accident. In that time my premium renewal went through, without the no claims discount and although I have had my £150 back I have to wait a further 21 days to get the discount applied and a refund paid, I have a feeling I may be chasing that in a weeks time.
Overall despite these niggles I would say that I'm happy with them as an insurer, the errors I can forgive because following a chase up call someone did take ownership toward the end and phoned me to confirm that the other party had accepted liability and that a cheque would be in the post. I also like the level of service that I get and the fact that the call centre staff are polite, professional and available if you need to contact them again, no cavernous maze of number pressing to negotiate.
For more information check out
http://www.nfumutual.co.uk/you/motor-insuranc e/car-insurance.htm
Policies can be arranged over the internet, phone or through one of their offices. You can also insure your horse or haystack.
Thanks for reading and rating my review.
Summary: Good motor insurance provider
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