Swiftcover - very swift (Swiftcover.com)

Member Name: clairelw101

Product:	Swiftcover.com
Date:	09/11/09 (34 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: cheapest at the time, all online, dealt with claim quickly

Disadvantages: All online

I'm sure most people have seen the recent adverts for Swiftcover featuring Iggy Pop, telling everyone to get Swiftcover-ed. However, when I first came across this company in 2007 I'd never heard anything about them, they came up on a comparision website.

I had an unfortuante accident with my previous car, diesel spill on the road which couldn't be identified to anyone so I had to take the hit when they wrote the car off and was dreading trying to insure a new (used) car with no no-claims etc.

I input all my details and the car details into several comparison websites and individual insurance companies and Swiftcover came up with the cheapest quote. I looked into them before I purchased to make sure they were genuine and that they had all the relevant governing bodies accreditation and then went ahead and bought the cover.

As swiftcover is an online company I go given a log-on for their website where all my policy documents were kept so that when I needed something (for example proof of insurance to tax the car) I could print it off there and then without having to make sure I hadn't filed it away in that "safe" place we all have! This is a really useful feature but be warned you may have to explain to the lady in the post office that its an online company which is why everything's in black and white if you haven't got a colour printer.

Then I got hit by a drunk driver and I thought uh-oh here we go, we all know that insurance companies are great at taking the money off you but not great at giving it back. I rang up the claim line and explained what had happened and they took all the details and said they would e-mail me the claim forms etc which I needed to complete and send back to them.

About 10 minutes after this I was contacted about a courtsey car and asked several questions before they agreed that they would deliver one to my house the next day. Sure enough this turned up and I must say the brand new merc looked good sat on the drive.

I also then received a call from the personal claims line who discussed my situation and how I was and started the ball rolling on that.

I filled in the claim forms and even though I had included a sketch of the accident I scanned this so I could email it back to them to save on the delays in posting.

The assessor came out to assess the damage on the car and this is when I there was a bit of a delay as they didn't fax the report over to the insurance company, but I was driving around in a brand new car so I wasn't too worried. They came back to me with a price, which I rejected and found similar cars in the area for more money so they upped the price (not a lot but every bit helps). Then sorted out transferring the money across to me which was better than waiting for a cheque to clear.

The money was in my back account before they had heard back from the other drivers insurance company as he wouldn't respond to them! But as he had been arrested and convincted for drink driving I think that went in my favour had it been a bit more difficult I would had to wait longer.

Overall I had a good experience with Swift cover and would recommend them but if you don't have internet access all the time then being able to get to documents when you need them isn't going to be easy as they don't post anything.

Summary: Cheapest for me at the time but everything is online