I've been purchasing my motor insurance from Churchill for a number of years now. My initial reason for contacting Churchill for an insurance quote was the catchy bulldog adverts, you know the ones, voiced by Vic Reeves - Oh no, no, no, no and Oh yes. However, once I'd contacted them I discovered ... Read review
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Churchill Will You Pay My Claim ? Oh Yes
Advantages: Speedy service Disadvantages: None to mention
...purchasing my motor insurance from Churchill for a number of years now. My initial reason for contacting Churchill for an insurance quote was the catchy bulldog adverts, you know the ones, voiced by Vic Reeves - Oh no, no, no, no and Oh yes. However, once I'd contacted them I discovered there was more to this company than a catchy advert.
I've always been impressed by their levels of customer service regarding setting up policies, ... ...BRIEF HISTORY
Churchill Insurance was founded in 1989 with only 88 employees and initially only sold motor insurance. A year later home insurance was added and ever since the range of Churchill products has grown. Today the company employees over 8,000 people and sells insurance for cars, vans, motorbikes, homes, life, travel and even pets (I wonder if Churchill himself is insured ?). They also offer a range of other financial products ... more
I've been purchasing my motor insurance from Churchill for a number of years now. My initial reason for contacting Churchill for an insurance quote was the catchy bulldog adverts, you know the ones, voiced by Vic Reeves - Oh no, no, no, no and Oh yes. However, once I'd contacted them I discovered there was more to this company than a catchy advert.
I've always been impressed by their levels of customer service regarding setting up policies, change of car and change of address, not to mention their competitive rates. One aspect of their service I'd never tested however, was their claims service, until now that is. I'll deal with the details of my claim and how they handled it later, first though, a bit of background and information about insuring your car with Churchill.
A VERY BRIEF HISTORY
Churchill Insurance was founded in 1989 with only 88 employees and initially only sold motor insurance. A year later home insurance was added and ever since the range of Churchill products has grown. Today the company employees over 8,000 people and sells insurance for cars, vans, motorbikes, homes, life, travel and even pets (I wonder if Churchill himself is insured ?). They also offer a range of other financial products such as personal loans.
INSURING YOU CAR
There are two ways of doing this, either by phone or online. Now I'm no Luddite when it comes to using the internet or buying online, but I do prefer to speak to somebody before I hand over any serious amount of money. So I insure with Churchill by phone rather than online, however I'll cover the rudiments of both methods.
By Phone :-
Churchill operate a 24 hour, 7 day service on 08456 001 002. After initially being greeted by a recorded voice, you are given a series of options which simply require you to press a number on your phones' keypad (I'm not sure how this would work for non touchtone phones).
After this you are put through to a customer service advisor who is ready to give you a quote (initially you are given the standard insurance company fraud and training purposes warning that your call will be recorded). After taking some personal and address details, you are asked to give the registration of your car and a few other details such as; when you passed your test, level of no claims discount accumulated, details of any accidents, where you keep the car, level of cover required etc.... You are also offered CLAS (Churchill Legal Assistance) and varying levels of voluntary excess which can help lower your premium.
Then the quote arrives, the whole quotation process having taken a little over 5 minutes. As a rough guide to prices I (36 years old and married) pay just under £450 to insure a P plate Rover 214si 16v comprehensively, which also includes protected no claims and CLAS. Bear in mind that my postcode isn't brilliant and the car is not garaged overnight. There may well be more competitive quotes out there, but I haven't found one yet.
If you're happy with the quote you simply go ahead and accept and your documents are usually with you within two days. Payment can be made by most cards or they will accept a cheque through the post but this would delay your cover. A monthly payment scheme by direct debit is acailable too, but this carries a 'store card' type APR of 23.7 %, ouch.
Online :-
Simply log on to www.churchill.com. The site , or at least what I've checked of it seems really easy to use and you reach the motor quote section within 2 clicks. The same security / fraud warning is given as on the phone. You then simply enter your details in a similar order to those which you are asked on the phone (many of the questions offer a drop down list of answers which you simply click on). Within about 5 minutes or so you also arrive at your quotation.
Quotes acceptance and payment can be actioned now if you're ready to proceed. Churchill use a secure encrypted server for processing payments, o there's no worry about the security of your financial details.
From the limited amount of time I've spent on the site I found it easy to navigate and very user friendly.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
On those occasions I've needed to contact Churchill, service has always been polite and very friendly. Changes to ploicy details such as insuring a different car or change of address are handled very quickly and efficiently.
CLAIMS
As I said earlier, I'd never had to make a claim until recently - Then it happened, on Thursday 1st April of all days. I had an accident which badly damaged my car, or wrote it off to be more accurate. Thankfully only one other car (parked) and a tree were involved and I was the only one hurt (abrasion to the top of my head, awfully stiff neck and a bruised shoulder, knee and forearm).
This happened at around 7am and after a trip to casualty and completing the formalities with the police (producing documents and a negative breath test) I was home by about 9.30am. I rang Churchill within half an hour and my claim was handled sympathetically and with the minimum of fuss. In fact after only a couple of questions to establish who I was the operator actually asked how I was and if I was hurt which I thought was a nice touch.
After providing all the necessary information I was told where my car would be taken for assessment and that someone would be in touch later that day. Knowing where my car was being kept enabled me to retrieve my belongings from it, (don't forget to remove your road tax disc if you ever have to do this) thankfully it was near by. On going to get my belongings back from the car it shocked me to see just how bad the damage was, it was a wreck.
Within 6 hours of my initial call to Churchill (at about 4pm) I received a call from Chuchills' crash assessor who informed me that my car was indeed a write off and that they were willing to pay the current market value of the car, minus my policy excess which is £150. There was also a further reduction because my car had done a higher mileage than would normally be expected for a car of its age. This equated to a reduction of £18 for every 1000 miles over the expected mileage, which equated to a further £180 off the settlement figure. All in all though the settlement figure will be only £50 less than I actually paid for the car. Churchill use Glass's Car Price Guide for establishing market value and the figures I was quoted weren' t too dissimilar to those I'd got from Parkers Car Price Guide on the internet.
SOUNDS GOOD BUT DID THEY SETTLE PROMPTLY ?
Well the day following my claim (Friday) I received a letter confirming the settlement figure for my claim. All I had to do was send off my VC5 (vehicle registration document), MOT certificate and Insurance certificate in the pre-paid envelope provided. I was even sent a V14 form which would allow me to reclaim any road tax which was unexpired on the written off car, this I thought was a nice touch too.
On Monday morning, I received a letter from Chuchill and an accident confirmation form. This basically summarised the information I'd already given them over the phone, and providing I agreed with it, there was no further action to take. Only if I disagreed with the information on this form or had something further to add, would I have to return it. This was quite unusual, as other people I know who've had accidents, have had to complete a similar form with diagrams and everything, for their insurance company.
Well it gets even better, because today, Wednesday, only 6 days after my initial claim, a nice cheque landed on the doormat . I'm still amazed now and it's early evening. So I would say Churchill settle promptly. So it's off shopping for a new car tomorrow, although I've already got my eye on one.
ANY GRIPES ?
The only one which comes to mind is no courtesy car, but apparently this only applies if your car is being repaired. Other than that I was extremely satisfied with the service provided.
IN SUMMARY
I would have to say that as well as Churchill's general customer service being very good, their claims service has been exemplary. I may not have gone into too much depth about the procedures for insuring your car with them, but this review was intended to focus more on the claims process, and 6 days (including a weekend) from claim to settlement, has to be good. So it's 5 stars all round from me.
FOOTNOTE
The owner of the parked car that was damaged during the accident, has had estimates done for her car and the repairs start tomorrow.
Advantages: Good CLAS service Disadvantages: awful level of communition within company, too many phone calls, too little information
Churchill passionate about insurance, so their slogan says. Really I say how about passionate about being totally unhelpful!
We had a car accident 11th August this year on the way back from holiday in Devon. We`d travelled about half an hour and ended up as car 2 in a line of 4 who had a bump..well number 4 car drove into the back of us all.
I was taken from the scene in an ambulance leaving husband and kids with the mess to sort out. They were ... ...on 21st August and the Churchill engineers did not phone me until 28th August. When they did they wanted to "discuss" what I thought my car was worth. Bear in mind I`m off with whiplash, feeling rubbish and did not want to enter into a discussion with some patronising bloke about car value!!!
Finally a written offer came through the post with…yes you guessed the wrong figure on it!! Another phone call to Churchill who said they would get the ...
debrini 02.09.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Churchill Insurance Company Limited
Advantages: Cheapest insurance for new drivers Disadvantages: Hard to contact
...for me came up as Churchill out of a lot of strong contenders like Diamond, a company targeted specifically for girls. The first thing I found was that they would cover me for under a grand. I think my insurance was a little over £900 given the details I entered. (I drive an 02 renault clio 1.2i dynamique). This was fantastic given that many companies either returned a response of only covering those over 21 or covering me for the price of an arm ... ...like Lloyds and the AA, Churchill was the one which we finally decided on. Later that day, I gave them a call to confirm the offer I had been quoted with at www.confused.com and they told me that not only was that correct, I could also gain a further 10% if I booked online. The only drawback with this is that it has to be paid in full using a credit card, but nevertheless, I chose to go down that path.
I had also been told that taking 'Pass Plus' ...
tashat 08.05.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Churchill Insurance Company Limited
Advantages: Cheapest by far for an under 25 year old. Disadvantages: Minor policy restrictions.
...I took the quote from Churchill (which I had received via "insure direct"/Lloyds TSB). Their system had the ability to ignore the post-code since I could provide a postal address instead (hooray - common sense prevails..!).
Thinking nothing more of it I had the insurance policy for one year and it was due for renewal a few weeks ago. I started phoning all the 0800 numbers again to find a new provider thinking that due to my limitations last year, ... ...I..!
Churchill insurance have insured me - an under 25 year old (just!!) with six years NCD on a Ford Focus 1.8 LX - for 250 quid. I have a limitation on my policy which states that I cannot drive any other vehicle, and an additional excess of 150 quid, but the actual premium was a good 150 quid below all the nearest competitors..!
Their service and efficiency a year ago was outstanding - they had the common sense to allow my quote to be processed ...
PHickman 12.04.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Churchill Insurance Company Limited
Advantages: Cheap, quick Disadvantages: no nodding dog
...if you are already a Churchill customer. I then clicked on, get quote and filled in my details. I also had my wife to add as an additional driver. The whole process took around five minutes. The only part i didn't like is your claim and convictions screen. You have 2 boxes for each and you enter any history you may have. Now with myself, I selected no convictions and no claims in the two boxes. But in order for me to continue to the next screen, ... ...convictions in the second box. Work that one out for yourselves.
When i had finished entering my details, you are presented with a summary screen for you to make sure everything is correct. If you are happy then you are shown your quote and was I happy! My quote was nearly £75 less than what i was already paying. You can obviously change your excess amounts and legal cover etc but i entered everything exactly to what i was already getting.
When ...
bifbails 27.01.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Churchill Insurance Company Limited
My family have been Churchill members for some eleven years and have never had an accident until last year. My girlfriend was driving her Corsa along the road when a driver pulled out of a lay-by without looking. The damage was fairly minimal. The nearside wing was crushed.
We rang Chruchills and told them what had happened. They asked for the particulars of the accident over the phone then asked us whether we would be available to take delivery ... ...margin. The only drawback with Churchill is that they don't, as a rule, insure powerful or performance cars.
They also have a CLAS policy which covers all legal fees associated with an accident. This saves the embarisment of having to pay for your own solicitor should you need to contest anything outside a policy's normal cover. This extra policy costs another £15ish and certainly adds to a good insurance policy. ...
steve.toplis 05.03.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Churchill Insurance Company Limited
Competitiveness of APR
Comprehensiveness of ra...
Product package
Efficiency of service
Value for money
Online - Content/organi...
Online - Reliability/sp...
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Do you, like me get inundated with 'can I quote you for this' or 'this is the best and cheapest' Does it not drive you mad?
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Advantages: quick and efficient claims handling Disadvantages: check all is covered
Due to unfortunate circumstances in the last 3 months I have had a car stolen and a break in to my house. These things are usually extremely stressful, however I have been amazed and surprised at just how quickly and efficiently my two claims have been handled , with the break in I recieved a cheque in 3 days for the jacket and wallet, for the cds I now have alist with their CD replacement company who will deliver later this week, When the car was stolen ad wrecked by joyriders I had a cheque within 2 weeks and for more than I thought they would offer, all that with a really friendly and helpful staff, I THOROUGHLY RECOMMEND THEM. ...
