Its4me

Its4Me is one of the latest internet only insurance brokers. They provide competitive policy prices and are easily accessible to the web literate. They provide car insurance, home insurance (buildings and contents), motorcycle insurance and travel insurance.

I took out my car insurance with them last September as they easily beat their competitors and allowed me to have a fully comprehensive policy at the same price other companies ...
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I found Its4Me just by surfing the web and seeing what was around. I had intended to use Elephant.co.uk, but its4me beat the premiums they were offering.

The signup over the web was easy, just a few clicks on the website and a lot of typing in the usual details about my address and car. Once I checked the quote and was happy, I just followed the "buy" buttons and was presented with a screen for bank details. Its4me ... more

Its4Me is one of the latest internet only insurance brokers. They provide competitive policy prices and are easily accessible to the web literate. They provide car insurance, home insurance (buildings and contents), motorcycle insurance and travel insurance.

I took out my car insurance with them last September as they easily beat their competitors and allowed me to have a fully comprehensive policy at the same price other companies were offering for 3rd party fire and theft. For my little Vauxhall Nova they wanted only £530 per year for fully comprehensive insurance - which as I lived in Wandsworth at that point was very cheap indeed. This went down to under £400 per year when I moved to Walton-on-Thames. I also have no no-claims bonus as my first banger didn;t make it to the year mark :-(

I found Its4Me just by surfing the web and seeing what was around. I had intended to use Elephant.co.uk, but its4me beat the premiums they were offering.

The signup over the web was easy, just a few clicks on the website and a lot of typing in the usual details about my address and car. Once I checked the quote and was happy, I just followed the "buy" buttons and was presented with a screen for bank details. Its4me like to take the first monthly payment immediately by credit card and then set up a direct debit for subsequent payments. Once I sent them the details from their secure webpage with another mouse click, I was presented with my policy document on screen. You are instructed to print it out, and you can also save it to your computer if you wish.

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The Web Page
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The web page is easy to use. The main page gives you a choice between doing quotes for the various insurances they offer, or moving to another page if you are a customer.

The customer page then has a series of pretty icons for such things as: Changing a driver, changing a vehicle, changing address, renewal, changing no claims, breakdown cover, general query, cancel policy, make a claim, and "help".

All of these icons take you to a page with an appropriately designed form to complete.

The customer page also has an icon to launch the "e-chat" applet to talk to customer services. There is no telephone number mentioned on the website.

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The aftermath
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As everything was set up, I more or less forgot about the insurance until my tax and MOT were due. At that point, I popped down to the post office with my printout and other gubbins for the tax disc, and was told that I needed to bring my certificate of insurance.

Certificate of insurance?

Now, I should mention that Its4me are almost ENTIRELY web based. You can either send them e-mails using the forms on their website or use their online live talk applet. Unfortunately the main "talk" applet does not work from behind a firewall, so I couldn't use that. I sent an e-mail but received no response. I did however note a telephone number on my printout, so i called them.

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Customer Service
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Not only were they totally useless, being unaware that they hadn't sent any documentation to me, but they actually advised me to call the policy underwriters, Fortis, (who were more than a little bemused). After some more phonecalls and a strongly worded letter, I finally received my certificate of insurance.

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Claims
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Unfortunately, about 3 months after taking the policy out, some louts decided they liked the look of my radio. They were unable to remove my new radio but nicked my old (non-working) radio (ha!) and damaged the lock on the passenger door of my car.

I went to the website, and with a few clicks was presented with an on-line claims form. I completed this and got a little screen saying they would be in touch. And nothing happened.

I then telephoned and they did send someone out to look at the lock. He basically told me to forget it. Said I'd get little for the radio (I didn't tell THEM it didn't work!!) and it wasn't worth claiming for the lock. Lucky their claims assessors are so knowledgeable huh?

I did chase up the claim to find out whether what he said was true, but got nowhere.

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Plus Sides
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The customer service is unquestionably crap, but then my car is an old car and only worth a few hundred quid. If it gets written off, I expect to get a few hundred quid back, but otherwise don't expect much.

The plus point is that the insurance is underwritten by Fortis who are quite reputable, and if I did feel like making a song and dance, it would be to Fortis I would address my letters.

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Another bonus
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I did add on my finacée as an additional driver (permanent) and not only was this smooth easy and efficient, but they also charged me -£19 for it. Yep - they took £19 off my insurance.

I still haven't worked that out!

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Summary
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If you need cheap insurance for an old car, this is a great place to shop. I'm not sure I'd go to them for a quote on a brand new Mercades though. As long as you don't need to talk to them much, they insure you adequately, and the insurance is through reputable companies.

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Further info
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www.its4me.co.uk 

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