God Bless Eddie Hobbs...............

[PT FTO]

Received my renewal quote from AXA last week....1380euro's !!!!!!!. Wasn't happy with that so started ringing round all the usual suspects. Most wouldnt even touch the FTO but finaly got a great quote from Britton for 873euro's
Decided to take up Eddie Hobb's' challenge of fighting for my consumer rights.
So off I went back to my local AXA branch on Monday and put this offer from Britton on the table in front of the manager and said beat it or I'm off. After much head scratching and mumbling he said there was no way he could come down from 1380 to 873 and that he would be very sorry to lose my business, blah, blah
I then said to him that he would be sorry as I would be taking my better half's car policy and all the house insurance policy's with me as well and he would lose all my business.
Yesterday afternoon got a call from my friendy AXA manager who was all nicey nicey on the phone offering me my new renewal quote of 849 euro's which would include my protection and windscreen cover etc. etc.

Just goes to show, if you fight hard enough its them that need the business and at some stage they will cave in

[Mustang]

Nice one PT. Always good to see the under dog win for a change especially against those rip off merchants.

[Myfeckin FTO]

Well done PT - if more people went down this route in Ireland instead of taking it up the a** then Ireland would be a far cheaper place to live. I recently had a similar story with Hibernian. They knocked €600 of my policy last week after I threatened pulling mine and my GF's policys.

Shop around people!

[kevinod]

Nice one! Goes to show the cr@p they feed the public and expect them to swallow it!

I've been shopping around every year anyway (well, will again once my no claims builds up enough again), usually took a few hundred off my policy each time, no reason to stay with the same guys if there's someone else cheaper. Made no sense, one company was cheapest by far one year and next year not competitive at all.

Hopefully we'll see a lot more of this from now on, and things will get cheaper!

[soc]

Mine came down €300 on the gti this year - €1000 fully comp, with windscreen cover and protected no-claims. And that's after Axa had to shell out €18k to me to cover the first gti that was stolen!

FWIW, even if my premium hadn't dropped at all I'd have stuck with them - as Eddie pointed out last night - the rip off isn't necessarily that things are expensive, it's that we don't get value for money any more. Personally I feel I have and do get value for money from Axa and was treated very well last year when the car was stolen (which is really unsual for an insurance company)..... worth a few quid extra if you ask me

[Kace]

Well done - at least you had the home insurance to leverage your argument. I have left 2 insurance companies like this so far and neither of them made any attempt whatsoever to keep my business. Guess they didn't need the extra grand.

[PT FTO]

Personally I feel I have and do get value for money from Axa and was treated very well last year when the car was stolen (which is really unsual for an insurance company)..... worth a few quid extra if you ask me

Have to agree with you there Shane. I was hoping all along that they would drop the price as I didn't want to leave AXA. You mentioned the 18K they forked out for your stolen car last year. With AXA, Fire and Theft claims do not affect your NCB at all, regardless how many claims you make. Thats just one of their things and I think its bloody great, cause after all its ain't your fault if some thieving B******D nicks your P&J

[soc]

Thats just one of their things and I think its bloody great, cause after all its ain't your fault if some thieving B******D nicks your P&J

Agreed - I could never get my head around how other companies could penalise you for something that was totally out of your control - ah sure, I'm happy now

[Mustang]

PT FTO wrote

offering me my new renewal quote of 849 euro's which would include my protection and windscreen cover etc. etc.

This result is all the more impressive considering the outrageous FTO quotes AXA have been known to issue. That said when you get a quote of €5k it's not really an expensive quote as such, really it just says F*(k off we don't want (or need) your business.

I was beginning to seriously wonder did AXA provide competitive quotes to anybody FTO or not.
Recently they were about twice as expensive as the next best insurer when I was renewing the insurance on my car.
Also they were quoting €700 to my parents at renewal, verses ~€400 from their current insurer. Axa just were not interested, said they would not even try to match the other quote. Surely a middle aged (sorry folks!) couple living in the country with full NCB clean licences etc are about as low risk as you can get???

[PT FTO]

I agree, but I think you can say that for all insurance companies in one form or another. They all have their little quirks and thats just all part of the big world of money printers......................sorry insurance companies
we will just have to battle on I suppose...................