A couple of points that spring out of all this.
Many of the comments / complaints appear to arise from the fact that people want to deal with internet firms or call centres. I'm afraid that those situations set the alarms ringing in my head. I can be confused in real life, do I really want to be Confused Dot Com as well?
For many years I dealt with a firm of local brokers, a family setup, first class and face to face. Just what I wanted / needed, sadly over the years the family got older and retired. End of business. But one fact came out of those dealings. They would shop around for me, good prices for good cover, that's what they got their commission for. One company came up with very good prices and was put forward to me. For two years I enjoyed a really good insurance at a price, that was to me, very attractive. Come renewal time and the broker put forward their prices and told me to go for another firm. Simple reason, the insurance company had got into a field that they hadn't covered previously and had got their fingers well burnt. The renewal price was around three times the previous years price. As I said to the broker 'If it was for a Porsche I could understand, for my car it's stupid'. Her reply was good, 'If you had a Porsche 911 I could get you insurance with no problem but your glassfibre car scares them witless'. A nice thought after they had covered it for two years.
Since the time that all the insurance companies were compelled to put your insurance details into the database I have had some really funny conversations with firms, large and small. When they make offers that they think are really good, I do two things (1) have a good laugh (2) suggest that they do their homework first.
Buy over the phone via a call centre or over the net?
You must be having a laff (to coin a current adverts slogan)
