Direct Line Car Insurance

Is everyone sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin …

I have always been a named driver on my mum’s insurance via Direct Line. Whilst on her insurance I managed a number of interesting manoeuvres and yet somehow 5 years later she still had a couple years no claims bonus! I bought my new (second-hand) car and then set about insuring it. After all the hundred of comparison adverts on the television I began my search there. I was 25 years old at the time and everywhere was quoting higher then my budget would allow or barely covered me for anything.

I was on the phone with my mum when she told me to call Direct Line for a quote as they’ve always been good to her. It did dawn on me that I hadn’t seen them on any of the compare websites. I had a look on their website and entered all my details. The quote was really good so I phoned the customer phone number to try and make sure the quote was right. Whilst talking to the lady on the phone I mentioned I had been a named driver previously, gave her my mum’s policy number and to my surprise another discount was added! This meant that Direct Line was offering me really good cover for £172.98 cheaper then the best offer on a comparison website! I jumped at it and the paperwork was signed and finalised within the next week.

Two weeks went by and suddenly there was a letter through my door saying that Direct Line had no record of my previous named driver insurance and thus they would need to recalculate my insurance amount. I was really confused by this as I had discussed everything with the lady on the phone and the paperwork had it all on there in black and white. I phoned the number provided and discussed what was going on. This time I was speaking with a lad who seemed rather confused himself! I was transferred a couple of times before speaking to what seemed like a manager who said he wasn’t sure what the problem was as all the information was there.

A week later the same letter came. I presumed it was sent before I had sorted things out but phoned anyway. As I thought they said to just ignore the letter as everything was fine.

To give you an idea of service I had a couple of incidents with my mums car before and on the first occasion I called Direct Line and within 15 minutes had put in the claim and sorted out a garage near me to do the repair work. The work was done fast and the car was brought back to the house for me which was nice. Maybe a service that this particular garage offers and nothing to do with Direct Line but oh well. The second mishap was a bit harder to deal with. I phoned the company and described to them what had happened and just my luck I got the dumbest person in the customer contact office. I ended up hanging up the phone as this person was impossible to deal with and phoned back in the hope of getting some one else. Thankfully this stealth phone manoeuvre worked perfectly and I got through to a normal person with a brain! Yay! It didn’t take long on the phone to sort things out and some one phoned the next day to tell me the name of the body shop and where it was located. I wasn’t overly impressed that I was asked to drive the car there as the windscreen was cracked all over the place and I was heavily pregnant. I had been told on the first phone call that the car would be picked up for me. I ended up just taking the car there and dealing with it. I got a taxi back home and made a phone call saying that it wasn’t acceptable making me drive a potentially dangerous car especially in my condition (pregnancy, not the overly apparent failing mental ability!). I was told the car (if not written off) would be returned to the house for me when repaired. Unfortunately when the car was repaired this wasn’t the case when I enquired about what I had been promised all I got was an apology.

One good experience and one bad. I thought about my previous claim experience with Direct Line but I still went with them again as they offered such a good deal. They get things sorted in the end and don’t break the bank to do so.

I’ve never ventured into their other insurance options like home or pet. To be honest I looked into their pet insurance but they don’t cover pets for life and once they get to about 8 years old the price goes up and some times the cover will go down too!

I found a good deal so good luck to you in your search for cover and remember if you don’t get your car insurance sorted the powers that be will come and get you! We took a family trip to Bluewater shopping centre the other week and as we left the motorway there was a police setup to show people what would happen if they didn’t have tax or insurance … On our way home they had 4 cars lined up that they had taken off people! Eek!

© znh3ra54 & oioiyou on Dooyoo 2009