A Right Royal Screw Up.

[Tinkicker]

Insured little yeller for 3rd of Feb.  With Devitt.  Duly got the policy crap through the post, had a quick look at the policy details and ignored the reams of other terms and conditions and financial law BS that comes with the insurance docs.

 

Got home from work today and a letter was on my doormat.  It was a reminder dated 13/2, appears that they wanted to see my driving licence and proof of no claims.  Yup, amongst all the garbage in the policy envelope, there it was.  They said they needed the info.  This was a new one.  I have been asked about no claims before, but never my driving licence details via a government website.  Once, years ago had to send a photocopy.

 

Oh crap.  Fired up the PC immediately and jumped through the hoops.  Driving licence check code duly sent.  Code number for no claims proof duly sent by email.

 

Tonight, more at my leisure, I checked my emails.  It appears that as of today devitt are giving 7 days notice of cancelling the policy.  Shit.  Serious stuff.

 

I sent customer services an email pleading my case and pointing out I  immediately sent them the info via their contact email address as soon as I received the reminder.  It is pretty shit sending out a reminder by post on the thursday, and cancelling the policy on the following monday.

 

Moral of the tale, read through the boring crap. ...

 

I await developments...

 

 

[Simon Davey]

Fingers tightly crossed. 

[Fiddlesticks]

Never had to provide a driving licence before now.

If they don't stop the cancellation process I'd be cancelling it from my end before they get the chance, just so you don't have to answer that question "have you ever had insurance cancelled, or special terms imposed.." with a "yes" in the future.

[Mississippi Bullfrog]

That's very poor on their part. I hope you get it sorted. 

[Tinkicker]

Spoke to customer services this morning.  I am not in too much bother yet, but I have to pull my finger out.

 

They have confirmed my driving licence is class A and clean.

 

The code I got from Swinton account for ncb is not recognised.  I contacted swinton and they emailed me proof of ncb.

So I guess I just take a screenshot of the document and send it as an email attachment.

Cannot do more till I get home on the PC.  I am garbage with phones.  Hate them with a passion.

 

Once again..... RTF.

 

Edited February 18 by Tinkicker

[Bender]

59 minutes ago, Tinkicker said:

Spoke to customer services this morning.  I am not in too much bother yet, but I have to pull my finger out.

 

They have confirmed my driving licence is class A and clean.

 

The code I got from Swinton account for ncb is not recognised.  I contacted swinton and they emailed me proof of ncb.

So I guess I just take a screenshot of the document and send it as an email attachment.

Cannot do more till I get home on the PC.  I am garbage with phones.  Hate them with a passion.

 

Once again..... RTF.

 

Just screenshot your NCD on your phone and send that from phone or just forwarded the email from your phone.

 

Phone is just a teeny tiny pc with no proper keyboard.

[Yorky]

1 hour ago, Angela Collen said:

"are insurance companies in the dark ages ?"

Insurance companies work in whichever age is the most beneficial to themselves, and often intermingle them to suit.

Edited February 18 by Yorky

[Tinkicker]

Well screenshot attachment  and the relevent ref numbers has been sent to their customer services address with the hope they contact me if any other problems turn up.

 

They have not acknowledged the email in any way, nor any of the others.

 

Dunno whether this is good news or bad.

 

A quick missive telling me everything has been resolved would have been nice...

Edited February 18 by Tinkicker

[Ian Frog]

Hmm insurance company being polite or helpful ? I believe you have better odds on the lottery !

Cheers

Ian

[Tinkicker]

Finally gave them another call.  The guy I spoke to got all the details up on his screen.  Acknowledged I sent the required documentation and all good.  Nothing untoward.

The problems would have arisen if the policy termination notice time ran to its end.  Rarely does one come back from that without a lot of future pain from what I have read.

 

I hope everyone learned from my stupid lazyness.  RTF.

Just because I have never been required to send licence details for a long time, it does not mean that is the same with every company.

There is a lot to be said for staying with the same company.  Cuts out all this crap. All my vehicles are insured with same company except little yeller that they would not insure because it was a US import.  

 

I think I spent more time talking on A.G. Bell's hateful device today than I have in total for the last 10 years.

Edited February 18 by Tinkicker

[Bender]

Glad your all sorted in the end

[S-Westerly]

16 hours ago, Yorky said:

Insurance companies work in whichever age is the most beneficial to themselves, and often intermingle them to suit.

That would explain the unintelligible hieroglyphics then.

[JRH]

15 hours ago, Tinkicker said:

Finally gave them another call.  The guy I spoke to got all the details up on his screen.  Acknowledged I sent the required documentation and all good.  Nothing untoward.

The problems would have arisen if the policy termination notice time ran to its end.  Rarely does one come back from that without a lot of future pain from what I have read.

 

I hope everyone learned from my stupid lazyness.  RTF.

Just because I have never been required to send licence details for a long time, it does not mean that is the same with every company.

There is a lot to be said for staying with the same company.  Cuts out all this crap. All my vehicles are insured with same company except little yeller that they would not insure because it was a US import.  

 

I think I spent more time talking on A.G. Bell's hateful device today than I have in total for the last 10 years.

I know what you say about staying with the sane company.

I use Devitt as a broker and they regularly offer a different underwriter / insurer. If and when I change insurer there is no problems with NC etc as Devitt hold all my insurance details re NC accidents etc.

[bud]

That was a near thing.

Some insurance companies do like to make things difficult. My brother had a similar thing in his car insurance.

It was all done online. He received the documents in his inbox. But the proof of insurance went to the spam folder.

[Tinkicker]

Devitt are beyond the pale.  What an outfit.

 

Had one bloke on the phone confirming everything is fine.  Documents received.

 

Then this email arrived today.

 

Documents required to confirm your insurance policy

 

Thank you for returning your documents.

We are unable to confirm your insurance policy on the documents received as the correct documents have not been supplied or some parts are missing. 

• Need DLN or LIC summary from your end .

(If there has been a gap between the start of this insurance and the expiry date of your previous insurance, please let us know the reason)

 

Unfortunately statement of facts, policy schedules and certificates of insurance are unacceptable forms of No Claims Discount proof. However you can request your No Claims Bonus letter directly from your previous insurer.

 

What you need to do now

You will need to send us these items within the next 7 days.

Click here to upload documents.

 

Alternatively you can forward these to: [email protected]

 

What happens if we don’t get the documents we need? 

 

If we don’t get all the documents we asked for we will not be able to confirm your policy

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

Bharath Mohan Raj

0345 300 4870

Ext: 1005

North House | St Edwards Way | Romford | RM1 3PP. 

 

Phoned customer services once again and spoke to another customer service agent.  Oh thats just an automated message that comes up, you may get two or three of them, just ignore them.  In any case he checked again for me.  Everything is fine and dandy.

 

What a shower.  One hand does not know what the other is doing.  I have had enough.  I am considering selling little yeller on.  5 vehicles to insure every year is far too much.  In fact I am considering flogging the DT175 and VFR too and buying something like an Africa Twin in a year or two when prices have dropped signifcantly.  Bike market is in the toilet in the US and what happens there, happens here a bit later.

Edited February 20 by Tinkicker

[Tinkicker]

Well, I gave in and sent them a new licence check code once again.  The reason I gave in is the fact that the email and my reply is a convenient way of documenting that I have indeed sent what they asked for.  It only takes a couple of minutes to get a code.  Of more interest, DVLA records if the code has been read and when.

The last code was checked on the 19th of Feb.

 

Proof in writing that I sent it and they checked it.

 

I no longer trust Devitt as far as I could throw them.  What a piss poor organisation.

 

Take away from this is always read the paperwork and do not forget to send them your proof of no claims (even though you can only use your no claims on one vehicle - probably why they ask you if you own other vehicles) and Driving licence check code.  

 

Here is where you get it..

View or share your driving licence information - GOV.UK

[Tinkicker]

Indeed.  I just got the paper copy of the email they sent on Monday, saying they are cancelling my policy.

 

It will be kept, along with everything else..  I am starting to make a case for the financial ombudsman to delve into, should my policy be cancelled, on the grounds that as the email containing the notice to cancel actually arrived before the reminder document landed on my doormat, clearly I was not able to rectify the mistake that the reminder was issued to advise of.

In addition, I made  several attempts to adhere to the scope of the reminder letter, only for further demands to be made, despite agents of devitts previously admitting everything was now resolved.

 

I absolutely do not expect to have to put this into practice, it is just poor admin at devitts causing it all and everything will turn out fine.  However, it pays to be prepared.

 

From what I understand, given the grievous long term implications of a cancelled policy, the financial ombudsman takes a very dim view of unfair cancellations.

 

I wish I had not been lazy and read through those policy docs....  Rest assured, once the policy expires, I will not darken devitts door ever again.

 

Just typed out a timeline of events thus far.  Luckily, in a previous life, a big part of my job was fighting ambulance chasing lawyers and fighting future court cases that probably may never happen.  I have a certain "nose" for laying the groundwork for the professionals to get their teeth into.

Let's hope I have wasted my time and I do not need it, but the evidence I have collated and  jotted down is pretty damning, esp if they cancel and charge a cancellation fee, which they have already said they would do.  That is the final nail in the coffin. as far as the financial ombudsman is concerned.  In legal terms, they receive a "valuable consideration" if they cancel, therefore it could be proved, given the circumstances that it is in their interest to cancel, whether fair or not.

 

Root cause of this predicament is my mistake, I am not a victim in that regard, however the ongoing incompetence displayed by devitt is really starting to piss me off.  Not one of my emails or documentation has been acknowledged in writing.  How long does it take to type " we have received your documents and found everything in order" and press SEND,  actually less than 20 seconds, I counted...

Edited February 21 by Tinkicker

[Tinkicker]

I checked to see if the code has been viewed yet.  It has not.  Does not matter, the fact is that devitt wanted the written, explicitly stated info to authenticate my policy in writing.  I have proved I sent the information.  What devitt choose to do with it is not my concern... The noose tightens.

 

Devitt pissed off the wrong guy...  One has to wonder how many peoples lives the insurance industry have negatively impacted by cancelling policies unfairly and on a whim.  Luckily for me,  this time they encountered someone with a bit of legal training.  Not a lawyer but a couple of years of night school. I needed another one and a bit full time semesters to be "legisperitus".

 

I think it is time they were reigned in.  Thinking on it...  Any ideas?  Obviously it needs start with statutory legislation.

 

Insurance is big money, and money is the root of all evil.  

Just releasing a bit, well in fact a lot of stress.  Should have been asleep long ago..., Yet this crap keeps going around in my mind...

 

 

Edited February 21 by Tinkicker

[Tinkicker]

Letter arrived from Devitt today.  All good, disaster averted, thank the lord.  Glad I did not have to fight to clear my name.  I can breathe easy now, its been quite a "challenging" week.

 

 

[Simon Davey]

That's very good news indeed. 

[Tinkicker]

Yes.  Time for the acid test. With some trepidation, I just checked on the Motor Insurance Bureau  Database and little yeller is indeed, still insured.

 

Check Insurance Details

 

 

[DJP]

I had a very similar experience with Adrian Flux.

 

Some years ago I insured my car with Adrian Flux Insurance. I provided all the required details, paid the premium and uploaded the required documents. And, as far as I was concerned, that was that. But then it started: Endless texts and emails threatening to cancel my policy unless I provided details already provided (and often things that no other insurer even asks for). The website would say that my documents had been uploaded, the person on the phone would say that they hadn't. It went on for weeks, was absolutely exhausting and I swore never to go near Adrian Flux Insurance ever again.

 

And then recently I bought a Suzuki motorcycle policy without realising that it was administered through Adrian Flux Insurance. And the whole saga started again: The second I paid, I received a text stating that my policy was “In danger of being cancelled”... And so I phoned them and got treated to a third degree of intrusive and irrelevant questioning that I've never received from any other insurer. They even tried to claim that my email address was linked to a company and that therefore I should have business insurance even though my email address is simply a derivation of my name. It got to the point that I opted to cancel the policy rather than endure any more of it.

 

And even so they charged me a £35 cancellation fee for a policy that hadn't even started (although I considered it worth the rip-off just to be rid of Adrian Flux Insurance). I'm not sure if they're about upselling, data mining or simple incompetence but it smells strongly of scam and if they're like this when you're trying to buy from them, you'd have to ask yourself what they'd be like if you had to make a claim.

 

It would seem that Devitt can now also be added to the list of insurers to avoid like the plague.

Edited February 28 by DJP

[Tinkicker]

Concur.  The worst part about the whole thing was not one single email I sent giving the relevent details to nip the whole thing in the bud was responded to.

Not one.  Not even a quick we have received your documents and are reviewing them.

 

The emails detailing the info and the unknown result was worst of all.  If everyone passed this sorry tale on to ten of their mates, and they passed it on to ten more each, crap organisations such as these would very quickly cease to exist.

A fact is that buisnesses become a certain size, lose their humanity in the chase of the big buck, and after that they deserve to die. In my humble opinion.  Devitt has reached that point.