Anybody used Admiral? Just completed on-line quote and for the same price as my Passat I can get our 2 cars covered. Spoke to them and your no claims are kept separate also includes legal cover. Can also get Breakdown cover for an additional £85 includes home start.
Is there a catch am I missing something? Or am I just being suspicious for no reason.
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They were a good bit lower than anyone else for me on the dual car policy.
I only had one no claims bonus but was also adding a brand new car, they applied my no claims from the BMW to both cars. Maybe that's par for the course with other insurers too but i was really pleased with that all the same.
They knocked a bit off for paying up front too. Didn't take the breakdown cover and didn't take the parts insurance.
Adding suspension modifications to the Vrs cost me £30 for the year, which was a lot cheaper than expected. They won't allow engine remaps though. It's a mainstream insurer rather than a specialist, can't really grumble.
I normally bump my excess up a fair bit, on the logic it's a bit like self insuring and cheaper, but it made no discernable difference to the price, so i didn't bother.
They're probably hopeless for claims though :-)
EDIT: Forgot the gotcha, by default they wont cover options / extras on your car, so you write off your fully loaded car, they replace with a bog standard version, i called them up and got it sorted, no extra charge.
Last edited by: Skoda on Fri 14 Jan 11 at 11:29
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Got both ours with Elephant which is part of the Admiral group. No one else can touch them for price on like-for-like cover (20k / year, business, protected NCD etc). Only had one claim when SWMBO knocked a parked motorbike over - one phone call and it was dealt with without further aggro. Had 2 new windscreens in the Picasso in last 18 months without issue. Thinking will price up the Admiral multi-car this year.
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We have both cars insured with Admiral this year. One directly, the other through Bell Direct who are an arm of Admiral specialising in business cover. No idea how good they are for claims, and I hope I don't have to find out, but equal or better Ts and Cs to last year's cover for about 15% less in both cases.
Had a slight issue with Bell who claimed not to have received the proof of NCB that I'd sent them, and threatened to cancel cover, but quickly sorted on the phone.
Like Skoda, I found that increasing voluntary excess by £100 made about four quid difference to the quote. Not worth it, IMHO.
Didn't think about multi-car until I saw an ad a week or two ago. I will enquire when the GTIs renewal comes up in May, but not sure how it will work as the other car policy runs December-December and is currently insured with them.
Last edited by: DP on Fri 14 Jan 11 at 11:47
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Just got my Elephant renewal, including a flyer for the Admiral multi car. Was going to give them a ring tomorrow as it would be helpful to get my daughter on insurance for both cars (SWMBO's wont quote for an 18yo probationer on a Berlingo!)
But how does mutli car work when renewals are 6months apart?
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Multi car works buy the fact that you have to tell them when your other policies are due and then change them over and its one big payment! We have 4 on Multi-car and no one could get anywhere near. If you don't change the other over when due then you get penalized.
We were with DL but infact they started coming up with all sorts of clauses and extra's that you had to pay for, & useless when I suffered a hit whilst stationary. Wouldn't fight the case so had to accept 50/50 so that left a really bitter taste and apparently this 50/50 is very common now so its cheaper for the insurance companies but they make more money out of us by upping the premium after a claim against you.
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>> Is there a catch
You never know how good is your insurer unless you claim.
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...You never know how good is your insurer unless you claim...
Yes, we always say that and it's true.
You can only base your buying decision on the information in front of you.
Which comes down mostly to price and level of cover.
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I've used them for both our cars for the last few years, generally been the best price/cover available.
They always send a stupid renewal price - which I contest with a drastically reduced figure from a comparison site and they've always matched it.
For a few years I seemed to toggle between Admiral and Hastings but Admiral have held their lead for the last 3 years!
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>> They always send a stupid renewal price - which I contest with a drastically reduced
>> figure from a comparison site and they've always matched it.
>>
If I come across that, I simply go with the lowest price, assuming equal cover, and tell the original quoter that they have lost my business for this year since if they can afford to drop their price, they were obviously trying to screw me in the first place. I would suggest that if more people did that, some of the renewal quotes might become more realistic.
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>> You never know how good is your insurer unless you claim.
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I had to claim from them back end of 2009. They were a nightmare to deal with and very slow paying up - then at renewal they nearly doubled the quote.
My advice - stay well clear.
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In my experience, there is a marked difference in attitude / efficiency of all insurance companies when giving you money, as opposed to taking it off you.
That's how they stay in business.
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>> My advice - stay well clear.
My advice: don't have cause to claim :-)
I've not had any complaints for the past three years - two cars with 'mirrored' NCB on a multi-car policy.
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I've had two cars on an Admiral multi car policy for the last couple of years. They've been good when my wife has had to claim. The only time was for a hit while stationary that was taken care of - none of the 50/50 nonsense that was mentioned elsewhere on the thread and thinking back to the circumstances maybe other companies might have tried it on.
Now I'm back in the company car scheme I need to give them a ring to remove one of the cars.
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To the best of my knowledge, Admiral is not an insurance company, but a broker.
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Well I've just phoned them & saved £600!!!!
Renewal on the Xantia (2000/X 2.0 HDi Estate) with Elephant was £955.97; went up from around £300 last year whe I added my 17yo daughter.
For a multi car policy, which will pick up SWMBO's Berlingo on renewal in June, Ive been quoted £331.88 on the Xant & on the Berlingo an annual equivalent of £404. Same driver set etc for both cars so Bromptonette will be able to drive the 'lingo after it's transferred. SWMBO's present insurer, Highway via Swinton, declined to quote at all for daughter to drive.
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Yep same here.
After a quote of over £860 for the A-Class, Admiral quoted £450 as long as they picked up the S-Max in October for three months for an annual equivalent of £850, which what I paid last October anyway.
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Admiral Insurance is listed as an Association of British Insurers (ABI) member.
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"To the best of my knowledge, Admiral is not an insurance company, but a broker."
You are right that Admiral itself is not an Insurance Company but an underwriting agency. The actual risk bearing company is as detailed on the certificate. Admiral use a number of differerent companies I believe.
Admiral however do effectively do all the work including claims settlement in accordance with the terms and conditions of their agency agreement with the actual Insurers. This type of agreement is very common and allows an Insurer to enter the motor insurance business without setting up a costly infrastructure
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Sun 16 Jan 11 at 10:23
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Admiral and all of its clones (all coming high up in the confused.com comparison site - funny that their all owned by the same company) are dreadful companies. Pared down to the bone with emphasis on bringing cash in and no human expertise involved, they should spend some of their marketing budget on customer service instead. Avoid.
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Well according to Which they scored pretty average. There were much worse insurance companies out there in terms of the way they handeled claims.
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@colino
YMMV,
used Elephant for many years with no complaint. While I've not had to claim the UK based staff answer the phone quickly and deal efficiently with admin such as driver changes and changes at renewal.
No hidden charges for these or for foreeign use.
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My partners car is insured through Admiral. We made a 'fault' claim last year (car damaged while parked), and the whole process was painless - the car was picked up and returned to us. A courtesy car was offered, but we were on holiday for most of the duration of the repair so didn't bother with it
Only one experience I know, but we've just renewed with them on the back of it, and despite the claim wiping out all NCD the premium only went up by £80. When I saw that I didn't even bother shopping around!!
Peter
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Slight hitch with Admiral in that when cert arrived daughter was not covered for travel to/from work. Calls last night were going to Indian call centre where the guy clearly couldn't grasp the idea of 'Student Helper at Saturday Music School'*. Kept asking if she was a teacher (I suspect he had to put her into an occupation in his script).
I think we go there in the end but I'll write and confirm. Getting people pigeonholed by guys with stilted English and a limited understanding of how we do stuff is setting up problems for later if, post accident, drivers occupation is subject to steward's inquiry
* A Brit of course would have intuitive grasp of how English middle class kids do music/drama on Saturday morning!!
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...'Student Helper at Saturday Music School'...
This type of streamlined, discounted service is fine provided you fit into the tickboxes, which most people do.
Banks tend to operate in a similar way, they can cope with a few standing orders, direct debits and the occasional savings sweep, but anything 'non-standard' causes problems.
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>> * A Brit of course would have intuitive grasp of how English middle class kids
>> do music/drama on Saturday morning!!
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Don't be too sure about it. Most of these "streamlined" operations are nowadays based on the "computer says no" principle, where the employee has no empowerment to use common sense. You can try and take it up the management chain and count yourself lucky if you find someone who has the "authority" to bypass the built in system constraints.
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Admiral Insurance - Skoda
