Outsurance = Annoying Messers

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mathepac

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My motor insurance renewal is imminent, so I began the annual "ring around" routine on Monday.

Only one provider came close to my current insurers so I said I'd give the new entrant to the market, Outsurance, a shout.

They were €357-59 more expensive than AXA through AIB as broker, charging extras for things my current insurer provides as standard, so I asked my contact in Outsurance if she could try to find savings and arranged a date and time for her to ring me back as the quotation I had from them was only good for 7 days.

Since then there have been 2 emails, 2 text messages, 6 phone calls, and 3 voice mails where whoever rang from Outsurance, (a bot?) left no message although I could hear background call-centre type noise.

I answered the most recent call from Outsurance this morning and again, there was no one on the line but again the call-centre type noise.

I rang back and asked to speak to a manager, expressing my annoyance. Her explanation was that that two agents had my details, hence the additional calls. That to me wasn't an explanation and I asked her to delete my details from their system and not to contact me again. She said she'd ring back with an explanation for how they'd messed up on their side. I asked if the line was bad as she didn't seem to have heard my instructions about deleting my details and not contacting me again and hung up.

Annoying Messers.

As I've named names here, I've kept the original emailed quote, plus the Ts&Cs PDFs, the call logs, the text messages and the emails if the mods want sight of same.

Scratched from my list of insurance providers, even if I got 100% back in my pocket after three years claims-free!
 
Messers beyond belief.

Since phoning the manager I've received the following emails from them:

No 1. "We are passionate about delivering awesome service. We would appreciate it if you could share your experience by participating in a brief, one-click survey.

Recently, you obtained a quote from us. Please click on the word below that best describes the level of service you received from [named agent]"


No 2. "Dear mathepac

We are in receipt of your request for erasure of personal data.

We will arrange to attend to this – if you have used any other email address in your dealings with OUTsurance please let us know. This is to enable data erasure to be complete.

If you have used a phone number as a contact, please advise us of same. Again, this is to ensure that our data mapping is complete.

We will contact you again to confirm when your personal data have been erased.

Yours sincerely, Data Protection Officer"

And yet another bot message to come.

How will their bot contact me if they erase my contact details?

"We are in receipt of your request" It wasn't a request, it was a direct instruction.
 
When I was shopping around last year they were one of the few that wouldn't quote online and only did so over the phone so I didn't bother with them. I can't be bothered calling out all the underwriting criteria over the phone. It's much quicker for me to enter it online. When they called me (just the once) I had already gone elsewhere and they seemed surprised that I skipped them because they didn't quote online.
 
That was the mistake I made. I got to a certain stage online and the "continue" button I pressed did'nt so I phoned them. Virtual non-stop bombardment since then. I told the manager I spoke to that I felt it was bordering on harassment.

Maybe to them it looked like I'd left an online quote request hanging incomplete.
 
Strange. They called me back once (I normally use a fake phone number when shopping around online until I've narrowed things down but mistakenly entered my real number here) and had the conversation outlined above and they never bothered me again since.
 
The "like" doesn't mean that I approve of what you experienced, just that you confirm that I'm not a weird old guy imagining [EDIT: typo fixed] things. :)
 
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Hello,

You can add me to the list of people that didn't have a good experience, while seeking a quote !

I doubt I'll bother with them, next year.
 
I had much the same with them last year, so did not bother this year. They insisted on phone back, I told them I needed to quote in 2 or 3 days. Did not hear back for a week or two, by then I had insurance elsewhere.
 
In my annual tour of quotes , I usually use the phone number 087-1234567 so I don't have to deal with the follow-up calls regarding the uncompetitive quote that I received from any particular company. However I noticed that Outsurance required the verification of a real phone number before they would proceed with a quote.

Needless to say, I moved on immediately to the next company.

Cowboys Ted!! Cowboys!!
 
tallpaul said:
I usually use the phone number 087-1234567 so I don't have to deal with the follow-up calls
Click to expand...
Me too. :D

tallpaul said:
However I noticed that Outsurance required the verification of a real phone number before they would proceed with a quote.
Click to expand...
Ah, that rings a bell (pun intended) alright.
That's obviously why I input my real number.
I forgot that they sent a verification code by text before you could proceed with their form.
Stupid system.
 
ClubMan said:
Me too. :D
Click to expand...
Me three, every year I tour around the online car insurance quotes and enter in a phone number and email addy which don't exist. As I just cannot be bothered talking to these companies when all I am looking for is the cheapest quote.

Axa for decades have never been competitive for me personally even when I had a corporate discount. (not sure what I did to them in a previous life!) Similar with Aviva.

AIG gave me a fantastic quote 2 years ago fully comp, renewed with them again this year as only increased slightly. (Fully comp, all the bells and whistles etc etc)
 
It's over for me for this year, cert arrived today while I was out. The dog didn't eat it but she did manage to hide it under the mat. AXA through AIB, comp plus the extras, comp driving other cars, breakdown cover, key loss, glass, etc, with zero finance charges, OKish with 5 points on my licence until Feb 2026. €653. This'll be my 6th year with them, final 7 months with points.

And breathe.
 
Insurers should be forced to publish their criteria for acceptance on their websites. They're masters of wasting everyones time by pretending that they are in the market but in effect are just cherry picking. The industry will argue that they'es more competition but it's very strict in what they will accept as a risk. On the time thing, the insurers will whinge and moan about the tight margins but insist on having 'chats' with customers who don't want to chat with them. They could get rid of a lot of that cost.

Consumers also have a part to play. Not moving to the best/cheapest insurer because you've asked your existing insurer to match a quote from another company is playing right into the insurers hands. They know you're too lazy to go through the process that would eventually make prices more competitive. So, consumers do the dance to their tune every year and then complain and moan about insurance prices..

Life insurers and the vendors of the products engage in this trick too by matching the premiums that other companies quote 'This is our book rate but if you find out that someone else is cheaper, we will match what they charge'. CCPC have zero interest in this practice BTW. Result - less competition of driving prices lower. If Company A is the cheapest for a commodity product then place the business with Company A, not with Company B.
 
GSheehy said:
Insurers should be forced to publish their criteria for acceptance on their websites
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Doesn't the industry operate though on the basis that, for risk management reasons, these criteria move all the time like bookies odds?

Or is that a load of old blarney?
 
That'd be news to me Tommy if that was the case.

Outsurance enter the market and would definitelfy have a set criteria of the risks they want to quote for. How hard can it be to publish those if contracts are annual. If the criteria change, change the published data. My guess is that it's just a harvesting of email/phone number data that might add some value to the business model.

I've sent an email to my car insurer just to ask the question anyway. But, I did suggest this to an insurer in the past and got the 'I've passed that suggestion on...' reply.
 
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