DO NOT TOUCH FIRST ALTERNATIVE CAR INSURANCE WITH A BARGE POLE. THEY ARE AN ABSOLUTE SHOWER OF SH1T!!! AVOID THEM AT ALL COST!
Those of you who use the forum regularly may or may not know I was involved in an accident back at the beginning of June last year. I was sat at an island in nose to tail traffic waiting my turn to go when a van crashed into the back of me, pushing me into another van in front. The guy who crashed into me admitted full liability there and then and the excess on my policy was waved. Two weeks later, the car was back on the road fully repaired and I thought that was the end of that! How wrong I was!!!
When I came to renew my policy in the December I was horrified to see that my insurance premium had more than doubled! When I queried this with First Alternative intially I was told it was because of the car I drove, the area I lived and because of the number of claims they had received from the type of car I drive. I was also told that premiums had generally increased across the board with all insurers. Not satisfied with this response, I went in search of a cheaper quote - naturally.
To cut a long story short, I did manage to find cheaper quotes elsewhere, but they were still on average £3-400 more than what I had paid the previous year. I went back to First Alternative to see what could be done and only then was I told that the reason my renewal quote was so high was because I only had 1 years NCB?!?! Upon asking a few more questions, it turned out that the claim made back in the June was still not settled afterall because of an outstanding amount that hadn't been paid by the third party and my NC's had been reduced as a result! I couldn't believe it. Why had I not been told this before!
I took matters into my own hands and managed to get the situation resolved over the course of a week with NO help from my insurance company. They claimed they could not get in touch with Sabre (3rd party insurers) to close the matter and were effectively penalising me because they could not get all of their money back - funnily enough I managed to speak to someone each time I called! It turned out that the evidence that the third party insurers had been presented with did not satisfy the claim value submitted by First Alternative. Rather than deal with this properly and answer Sabre's questions, my insurance company were content to just sit on their arses and try to take more money off me when renewing the policy!
Today, I have now found out that First Alternative have taken £388.09 from my bank account back on 15th December. Upon querying this, they could not give me a reason as to why the money had been taken and assured me that the funds had been refunded the same day. I have triple checked my account and there is no record of this money having been repaid to date!!! Needless to say I have gone absolutely spare at them demanding an immediate refund. They have said the money will be back in my account within 5-7 days and they will also pay an additional £50 in compensation for the trouble.
Can someone please advise what my rights are in a situation like this? Am I being fobbed off by my (ex) insurance company? Surely, they cannot just take money from an account without justification!?!? Is there an official Governing body I can formally complain to?
