RSD7a
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I've been with Green Flag breakdown for several years on their highest level of cover "Recovery Plus", for my car.
Renewal came yesterday notifying an increase in premium from £51.52 to £70.56!! Getting on for a whopping 40% increase. How do they justify that? No change of car etc and I didn't even call them out last year.
I phoned them (with a month to go before my renewal date) and said before I start shopping around I'd like to know their best price for the coming year. I explained, calmly, that I thought the increase unreasonable. The agent asks me to confirm that no details have changed and then says without any fanfare that he can offer me same price as last year and do I want to go ahead? I was so unprepared for that. So after a stunned pause, I said yes.
At the end of the call he asks if I have any further questions. I try to discover if reverting to the previous year's price when challenged was their current policy for all customers, but he kept parroting "It's just what we can do on the day". I managed to establish it wasn't within his personal discretion to offer this deal and that it was a computer algorithm that gave the revised price.
This is a shocking business practice .... hoping that busy people will just swallow a crazy price increase. I know it's a common practice and I routinely push back on these kinds of increases. I've often shaved a bit off a proposed uplift but I've never before been stepped back to the previous year's price.
I'm pleased to have achieved a level premium from last year, but have a bad taste in my mouth at being covered by such a bunch of rip-off merchants. But they are probably no worse than the rest?
Renewal came yesterday notifying an increase in premium from £51.52 to £70.56!! Getting on for a whopping 40% increase. How do they justify that? No change of car etc and I didn't even call them out last year.
I phoned them (with a month to go before my renewal date) and said before I start shopping around I'd like to know their best price for the coming year. I explained, calmly, that I thought the increase unreasonable. The agent asks me to confirm that no details have changed and then says without any fanfare that he can offer me same price as last year and do I want to go ahead? I was so unprepared for that. So after a stunned pause, I said yes.
At the end of the call he asks if I have any further questions. I try to discover if reverting to the previous year's price when challenged was their current policy for all customers, but he kept parroting "It's just what we can do on the day". I managed to establish it wasn't within his personal discretion to offer this deal and that it was a computer algorithm that gave the revised price.
This is a shocking business practice .... hoping that busy people will just swallow a crazy price increase. I know it's a common practice and I routinely push back on these kinds of increases. I've often shaved a bit off a proposed uplift but I've never before been stepped back to the previous year's price.
I'm pleased to have achieved a level premium from last year, but have a bad taste in my mouth at being covered by such a bunch of rip-off merchants. But they are probably no worse than the rest?
