Apologies ? a long one?.I have just renewed the insurance on one of my cars, the one where our au pair is the main driver but I am the owner and policy holder.
We had a claim earlier this year - a burst tyre which resulted in £1200 of bodywork damage. The au pair was driving at the time.
I also picked up 3 points last November for parking opp a solid white line (TS20 DVLA code)
Now, ploughing through three or four comparison sites to get quotes I have mistakenly indicated a different DVLA offence code (MS10, parking in a dangerous position) because I was doing it without my licence to hand to check the code and I genuinely didn't spot the TS20 in the drop- down list so made a guess that MS10 must have been the right one.
Also although I told the insurer that our au pair was driving when the claim occurred, when I got the policy doc through yesterday it showed two claims in March this year, one with the au pair driving and one with a slightly different date with me driving.
I called the insurer as soon as they opened yesterday to clear up these errors. This is the result of me calling the insurer to check a quote over the phone and according to their records i told them during that call that I had made the claim (probably because I didn't understand at that point that is it is the driver rather than the owner and policyhold who makes the claim, which seems quite a logical thing to assume but obviously not...)
After several long calls they came back and said that the renewal would actually be £1800 not £800, principally because they believe that an au pair driving is business use as they consider him to be an employee of ours. I explained that they had been insuring us for the last year on social domestic and commuting (as I have done for the two years previous with other insurers whilst we have had an au pair) even though the policy docs clearly states the main driver is an au pair with no access to other cars and they said that this was a mistake and the policy would have been void in a claim.
During the course of the call I said that other insurers accept au pairs as if they are members of the family and that I felt their view of au pairs as employees was wrong and therefore the price was incorrect and that I would seek alternative prices. The insurer said I had two weeks period of grace during which the policy can be cancelled.
Feeling that I was getting the ?talk to the hand? treatment and having had my confidence in them knocked by the confusion that I had actually had invalid insurance I took out a policy via major high st broker for £1300 effective from 00.01 this morning.
I called the first insurer back yesterday to tell them to cancel but the department had closed at 5pm and the call centre could only pass on a message.
They called me this morning and said I can either accept their £1800 premium or void the insurance but this would mean that on renewal I would have to state that I had had insurance declined.
I think that this is an outrageous way to deal with a policy which had genuine errors from both sides which I sought to correct at the earliest possible opportunity when they became clear. I ended up speaking to someone in underwriting who simply repeated ?you have a choice between taking the policy and voiding it? and would not listen to my argument that this was not actually choice since the first was based on an erroneous belief that au pairs are employees which drove the premium to an unrealistic rate or the second where I get the money back but will face hideous problems on renewal of trying to insure a young driver with a record of insurance refused.
I have spoken to the insurer?s customer complaints department who tell me that they have voided the original policy and they are investigating. I have asked them to make it clear to me that they have taken this decision of their own volition.
I need some advice please on how to argue with a ?computer says no? insurer that is behaving in a more than inflexible way.
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They called me this morning and said I can either accept their £1800 premium or void the insurance but this would mean that on renewal I would have to state that I had had insurance declined.
It seems to me that they are talking through their nether reasons, and trying to intimidate you with porky pies. So far as I can see, you have NOT had insurance declined; on the contrary, you have been offered insurance, accepted the deal, and then exercised your right as a consumer to cancel the policy.
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I agree. You've not had insurance 'declined'. They have quoted you and you have declined to accept their quote, which is the 180 degree opposite!
OTOH I am puzzled why you think that an au-pair is not an employee? Presumably you pay this person and they work for you?
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Just cancel the insurance and take from other insurer. You have not been declined insurance.
OT: Didn't know that you can pick up points for parking offense!
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OTOH I am puzzled why you think that an au-pair is not an employee? Presumably you pay this person and they work for you?
So far I understand things, an au pair is someone who joins as a member of the family, for the experience (including language-learning) rather than for the money. They get pocket money, not wages, and that's why au pairs are exempt from the minimum wage.
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Nsar - you must ask to speak to senior manager.
an au pair is someone who joins as a member of the family
Here is one insurance company that seems to take a sensible approach:
www.admiral.com/contactUs/pressOffice/pressRelease...p
"... The extra help from an au pair or nanny has become essential for thousands of UK families in recent years, and for most of them it is necessary that they can drive. Insuring a nanny or au pair to drive their own car can prove costly though, but thanks to Admiral MultiCar the extra cost can be kept to a minimum.
MultiCar is a unique kind of insurance policy whereby households can insure up to five cars on a single policy, and so get a discount on their premium. Until recently all MultiCar policyholders had to live at the same address, but Admiral has changed the conditions to allow au pairs or nannies who don?t live at the same address to be added to the policy.
Here is an example of how much a family with an au pair could save through MultiCar:
.... "
see also:
www.moneynews.co.uk/5290/au-pair-addition-can-have.../
Edited by jbif on 10/10/2008 at 17:33
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Nsar, sorry to hear your tale of woe. I know it is now regarded as fashionable and more convenient and possibly cheaper to buy insurance online. This is not, however, my experience. Having done that in the past I have now reverted to going to my old fashioned high street broker. You sit opposite a human being and discuss your needs. Misunderstanding or misinterpretations are much less likely to occur. They have consistantly been able to get me and my wife very good deals and on the one occasion I really needed their help after I was rear ended they could not have made it easier for me. I could recommend one if the rules of the site allow ?
Edited by Humph Backbridge on 10/10/2008 at 17:42
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>>>>Didn't know that you can pick up points for parking offense!<<<<<<
Offence is not parking but for failing to conform to Traffic Sign ( Diagram 1013 TSGD - DWL conditions -TS20 ) - three points.
dvd
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Thanks all.
JBIF your second link raised a wry smile given the parties involved *wink*
DVD as always is right - but honestly you'd think I was trying to pass off death by dangerous driving the way they've reacted.
I do think they are putting pressure on to hang on to a big fat premium.
And to Humph you're right I spoke to a human being at a broker (in fact because they have been terrific about it today I'm going to tip my hat to Swinton) and got a premium that is £500 less than the daft other price.
Edited by Nsar on 10/10/2008 at 17:53
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Might be worth taking to the General Insurance Council. They oversee how insurance companies work. They also have rulings on what insurance companies can and cannot do and there may be some previous rulings about such an issue.
It might be worth writing to the customer complaints department and quoting anything you find in the GIS site that would help. Either way they'd know you weren't a punter they could mistreat.
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Just thought I'd update you.
I wrote a loooooooong letter to their customer complaints department pointing out all the inconsistencies in their position and was just about to send it when my mail arrived with the policy documentation for the by then cancelled policy which included even more factual errors that they had previously got right so the letter got even longer.
After a couple of weeks' wait a sensible sounding person called me to say that they could see my point of view and have agreed that policy was cancelled for legit reasons by me, not voided by them which would have hit me on renewal.
So having been more than angry at this insurer, at least I'm back to square one, albeit after a lot of time and effort to restore the position.
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According to ACAS, an au pair is an employee. tinyurl.com/6b9wtc
Note that there is also a Home Office nationality restriction/definition regarding who can be classed as an au pair.
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Hi L'escargot. I had good look at that link and couldn't see a link to ACAS - but that might be me being a bit slow today. When I spoke to my tax office they were adamant that an au pair is not an employee.
Thanks.
Edited by Nsar on 07/11/2008 at 09:59
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I understand the 'lives as one of the family' argument, but from the insurance company's perspective an au pair must look a lot like an employee - and must be quite a high risk. Young, foreign with little experience of UK and possibly weak language skills, tenuous and temporary relationship to you. I imagine that the tax office and insurance companies see things from a very different perspective.
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I think you're right, but you'd think there would be a definitive answer.
The big problem I had with this insurer was that they insured our au pair (who is staying with us for another year) as main driver last year and had him listed as an au pair on the policy on social domestic and commuting use and even paid a claim where he was the driver but then on renewal turned round and said that he was an employee and must have business use. This added £1000 to their quote!
This is the fifth year that we have insured this car for an au pair as main driver and have had not had these problems before although once I did have to have a conversation with the insurer at the time who agreed that an au pair isn't an employee.
The policy we now have is with Zurich who are perfectly happy to have the au pair as main driver (verified by the broker before the policy began) on social and domestic use.
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