Pauleds2

Thanks Tony,

Very informative and useful.

The manager of A Plan has just phoned me offerring his apologies and saying that he has now phoned Markerstudy and they have agreed to waive the charges after all.

A good result for me and good for A plan's reputation too.
If they try it on with you just refuse to pay.

Cheers everyone.

Paul.

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Nice result

I wonder if anyone was reading this topic

If anyone else has problems like these with them in the future I really would like to hear about it. So far, my experience with A Plan is good, lets hope we can all move on in a positive manner now

R1916v

Never been impressed by them tbh, they wouldn't quote me on a poxy 172 when everyone else would for £500 notes.

wacky.banana

Hmmm, worrying thread this. I have recently taken out a policy with them based on the fact that they sponsor this board, and based on the favourable comments seen to date.

What worries me is not the charges applied (good result for you Paul, in the end) but the initial alleged attitude of the Manager. Doesn't bode well for customer confidence in the effectiveness of the policy/company if one has to make a genuine claim at some future date.

What we need to do is to continue to post up our experiences of this company, especially those making claims, for us to start to get some data on what they are really like after they have taken your money off you.

Problem at the moment is that A-Plan quotations are very competitive, so much so that Greenlight, for example, wouldn't even give me a quote when I told them how much A-Plan's quotation was. That's another worrying aspect, that some insurers won't make the effort to be competitive and grab business when its looking them in the face.

Tony@Greenlight

Hi Wacky,

We do take your point in relation to other competitors, our failing to compete at times and would look to comment upon this.

The policies that we offer here at greenlight are through UK Mainland located Insurers that have good solvency margins and decent reserving. Our policies are generally packages with benefits such as "like for like" replacement of modifications, track cover options, accident management and legal expenses cover up to £100k, along with guaranteed hire cars in event of total loss/write off claims as well as courtesy cars whilst in for repair.

Having written Subaru business since 1998 we have good technical knowledge in relation to the vehicles & the modifications carried out to them, we've seen underwriters come and go, plus have good experience as to the profitability of underwriting Subaru business.

Rates for subaru's have always seemed keen against vehicles of a similar horsepower, but When you look at the rates that Impreza's are currently being written at on here in our opinion the underwriters in question cannot be a) including comparable benefits or b) placed with Mainland based Insurers with decent solvency margins.

With our experience in terms of claims frequency and average claim costs in mind without considerable luck, the rates currently being charged to you on here will not break even and do not appear sustainable in the long term.

Greenlight will continue to provide terms for Subaru's but with what we are offering we are not always competing on a level playing field with some of the products quoted on here.

After providing numerous quotations where customers are purely focussed upon cheap products and not solvency or benefits provided we have two options:

1) Slash the cover

2) Place with Insurers with a low solvency margin/requirement

Neither of which are attractive propositions to us.

Moley

iTrader: (9)

Agree completely with Tony.

We all want to pay as little as possible for insurance, but it is always worth checking what you are getting for your money.

wacky.banana

Tony,

Thanks for taking the time and trouble to respond. I entirely agree with you that you don't get something for nothing and, yes, you are right, the company I am insured with via A-Plan is based in Malta, which did worry me a little. However I have been assured by A-Plan that the company in question is registerd under the FSA in the UK, as a requirement/stipulation to trade here. On that basis I have had to go with it as one of my concerns has been addressed.

What we need more evidence of is A-Plan's track record for dealing with bona fide claims before we are fully in a position to judge whether their insurance solution is a good option or not.

Where your company is concerned, with the greatest of respect, I don't think it's good enough for your employee to have simply said, "sorry, can't match that", end of conversation, without at least making the effort to sell me the benefits of your offering, albeit that your offering may have been a tad more expensive than what was on offer to me from A-Plan.

There are lots of car owners out there where price is NOT necessarily the key driver/differential. I am old enough and wise enough to know that in some cases the more expensive option might be the better/more hassle free/better focused product than the cheaper, "sparkling" item.

To be frank, what I really take issue with is the fact that your employee simply would not get off his *** to bring me onside.

My comments are intended to be constructive as well as a comment on the car insurance marketplace today, from my experience. If you are able to use my comments to improve the way your company interacts with potential customers as well as having the courage to illustrate what makes your offering different and why, such that you can bring in more business then that will be all to the good.

I will give you an opportunity to pitch for my business next year. I do hope that by then my interaction with yourselves will be a more fruitful one than this time around.

Once again my thanks for your contribution. It is most appreciated and adds to the debate.

Kind regards,

WB

Tony@Greenlight

Hi Wacky,

Many thanks for the constructive comments, all comments are viewed positively and will be used to improve our service to our potential customers.

Our experience as a whole is that most people these days seem totally price driven and are looking for cheap rather than value. But I totally agree, jaded or not that is no reason for our member of staff to act in that manner. what they should have done is explained to you the level of cover, benefits provided by the underwriter and financial security of the Insurer.

With regard to A-Plan, they are a good broker with a number of branches with a decent pedigree within the Insurance market. They will offer you a decent level of service, as will Keith Michaels or Greenlight.

Our current dilema is whether to fight fire with fire and offer the products that are purely price focussed, or continue to deal with UK mainland based Insurers with UK infrastructures and decent levels of cover.

I'm sure ultimately the proof will be in the pudding.

Anyway, thank you for bringing this to my attention. I am the senior partner here at greenlight and can assure you that I do look to ensure that we meet the expectations of our customers (prospective or current).

Kindest regards

Tony

wacky.banana

Tony,

From a business perspective this must be a very tough call. Might be naive on my part but why don't you offer both and let the prospective customer make the choice? I can't be the only one on the planet who is prepared to pay a little bit more for absolute peace of mind off the back of a quality product solution?

What about taking the innovative route and, say, have a simple product offering the very basic insurance elements at a low/highly competitive price, then allowing the customer to add to that basic spec from, say, a menu of available product options/features where each option has its own price element.

This system would allow the customer to be in complete control, creating the exact product they wanted, either mapped to price or features, dependent upon their own requirements. You could do this quite simply by having, say, Bronze, Silver, Gold and platinum product offerings, on a rising scale of product richness, and the customer then takes their choice.

I will be honest, car insurance is not my forte, however there has to be some mileage in these ideas, surely? Put it this way, I know of at least one financial institution that is giving this kind of approach to the way it outlines its product offerings some very serious thought!

Once again thanks for your candid insights here. It's very rare these days that one gets the opportunity to engage in intelligent and meaningful debate on Scoobynet without the subject matter degenerating into personal insults, pub talk, keyboard heroics that would take Batman's breath away, or absolute vile xenophobia.

WB

Moley

iTrader: (9)

To be honest 90% of people who i quote only want the cheapest price.

What makes this even harder is that we are not allowed to compare the cover we offer to other insurers, as the FSA state we are not allowed to comment of the level of cover other insurers.

afroking

Well, Im with A-Plan at the minute (because they were the cheaper insurer, which at 23 was the main point for me!), but i'll definately be giving Greenlight a call when my insurance is up for renewal!!

GE90

Anyone heard that Rob (Thatcham office) has left A-Plan....?

Johnny E

He must of been ashamed to work there.

Robbing B@stards...........

Floyd

iTrader: (9)

I has some paperwork from a plan this week and it was signed by Rob.

F