Sky Insurance - A Review

[Ekona]

I always like to try and give a balanced overview when I've finished dealing with a particular company, so let me do that here now with Sky Insurance.

 

 

I had the 911 insured with them for about 3 years until I sold it in August. My initial dealings were friendly and efficient, as the folks I spoke to were certainly knowledgeable about both what I wanted from insurance and what they could offer me. Pricing was very competitive, about £100 more than the Admiral group but with far superior cover. All in, I'd say that between £600-£700 over the years was a more than fair price.

 

Renewals were a breeze, and the quote they sent through was never so stupidly high that you thought they were taking the mick. Sure, there was a bit of haggling room, but that's the game and I don't begrudge them for that at all. They were happy to haggle as well, which was fine with me.

 

Luckily, I never had to claim so I cannot pass judgement on that.

 

 

However, cancelling the insurance was (and still is) a faff.

 

 

I cancelled the insurance on the day the guy picked it up, about 15mins after he drove off. All seemed fine on the phone, spoke to a very nice person who said they could keep it open for a couple of weeks until I found a new car if I wanted, but that wasn't the case with me. I took the insurance out in February and cancelled in September, so I wasn't expecting any refund at all. To my surprise, I was due just over £100 back which was nice. You don't get that back straight away though, as Sky need it back from the insurer first, which can take up to 8 weeks. Oh well. All I needed to do was to send the old certificate back to them and they would process it. I posted the cert the next morning. I also asked for my proof of NCB as well, which I was told would be forwarded across.

 

Four weeks later I hadn't heard anything, so gave them a call. Apparently they'd never received the cert so had done absolutely nothing, and now I'd lost another month worth of refund. Now, I appreciate that they must get the line "Oh yeah mate, I definitely sent it off!" all the time, however when you actually have sent it this becomes incredibly frustrating. Why did they not just call me after maybe a couple of weeks to say they've not had it? Yes, I could have called them, but given that I was told 8 weeks in the first place I actually thought I was pushing it calling after 4 weeks. I was then told I could just email a form over saying I'd lost my cert and that would be acceptable: Perhaps I could've been told about this in the first place? Form emailed, process started.

 

Fast forward to Monday Nov 17th. I get a call in the evening saying that they'd got the refund back and could transfer it across to me. Brilliant, better late than never, very helpful lady on the phone. I then enquired as to whether I might get my NCB letter too now, to which I was informed that actually that wasn't her department and she'd speak to someone else for me about that. I've yet to receive it, but then again it's only been a couple of days.

 

 

To sum up:

Insurance cancelled by phone Sept 10th

Cert posted Sept 11th

Phonecall from me chasing around Oct 6th

Phonecall from Sky for refund Nov 17th

STILL NO LETTER OF NCB

 

 

 

That sours things significantly. Would I use them again? Well yes I would, as the price is competitive, however I would be much more forceful when ending the insurance with them. Maybe I just got caught in the loop and got the bad end, but certainly I would suggest communication could well be improved.

[Wayne370Z]

Personally, it really p***** me off when insurance brokers send you a high renewal price but then are prepared to reduce it when you ring up to tell them you don`t want to renew because you`ve found it cheaper elsewhere. For me that obviously means they were going to rip you off and charge you more than they needed to with the expectation that you wouldn't bother ringing up and would just let it renew.

Edited November 19, 2014 by Wayne370Z

[KyleR]

Personally, it really p***** me off when insurance brokers send you a high renewal price but then are prepared to reduce it when you ring up to tell them you don`t want to renew because you`ve found it cheaper elsewhere. For me that obviously means they were going to rip you off and charge you more than they needed to with the expectation that you wouldn't bother ringing up and would just let it renew.

 

I agree, but within reason. If my insurance costs £500 and the renewal comes in at £800 with a note to state that if they don't hear form me, they will automatically charge me and continue with the policy, I get pi**ed off and even more so when you phone and they drop it to £400.

 

But if in a similar example they keep the price the same and then drop it to £400 upon questioning it, thats not so bad. After all, they are a business out to make money. Imagine if every time you went to buy a car the price on the window was the price you had to pay, no haggling

[Azure350z]

When insurance companies offer me an inflated renewal price, I just ring them and cancel it straight away. Happened to me with Sky insurance, as well as many others, price went up around 25% so I rang them and got the old "just hold on a second and we'll see what we can do" to which I responded "I expect you to do that in the first place as a valued customer of yours, now please cancel my renewal immediately".

 

It's so easy to get insurance these days that I don't even bother looking at the renewal price any more. I just shop around once it comes to renewal time and go with the most competitive quote.

[Ekona]

Yeah, I think you guys might've missed the point of my rant

 

Doesn't bother me at all, after all their costs go up every year and since I haggled them in the first place to get the cheapest quote I expect them to need to make their money back somehow. Ultimately if they're not competitive then I won't renew with them, but I'm not bothered at all what initial figure they come back with as long as they can get it to where I want it.

 

For the record, we're not talking big sums of money here on mine: Maybe £40 over a £700 policy. Peanuts.

[JetSet]

I was with Admiral on a multi car policy until out of the blue they decided to almost double the insurance on Caroline's roadster. I contacted Sky and they were able to get the price down to a fair bit lower than what we paid to Admiral for 2012/13. My Zed would have been £20 cheaper with Admiral but Caroline saved some £400. My only slight gripe was that when the renewal form came through this year I had to fill in another Finance form for the monthly payments, never had to do this with any company before, the payments have just carried on Automatically.

 

Pete

[350zedd]

Might be an idea to copy the policy document first, then send it recorded, if they say they never received it.

Mind you, you cant always guarantee it gets to the right person.....but then you could resend it.

I've sent goods to people in the past who've never received them, but some buggers signed for them and ran off with it.

[Ekona]

Might be an idea to copy the policy document first, then send it recorded, if they say they never received it.

Mind you, you cant always guarantee it gets to the right person.....but then you could resend it.

I've sent goods to people in the past who've never received them, but some buggers signed for them and ran off with it.

Oh absolutely, no doubt I should've sent it recorded, however I didn't expect them to sit around for four weeks and not let me know they'd not received it either. If I hadn't contacted them, then technically I'd be in the same situation as the biker the other week who got done on his insurance because it was never cancelled. For me, that's unacceptable.

[Azure350z]

I understood the rant Ekona but wanted to say my 2p's worth. You are right that they should have contacted you but at the same time, if you were the business owner, why would you want to chase people who want to cancel their business with you?

 

Personally, I don't understand why you have to send the certificate back. I had to do this with sky when I cancelled but I have never done it with any other insurance company. Insurance is electronic these days and so they can just cancel it on the national insurance database and then that should be it. To me the piece of paper is pointless, I mean it would be very easy to copy or create your own (it's not like it's water marked or anything) and the only time that I can think of where you would need to show it would be if you received a police producer in which case they will glance at it and then phone the insurance company to make sure it is genuine anyway.

[Ekona]

I understood the rant Ekona but wanted to say my 2p's worth. You are right that they should have contacted you but at the same time, if you were the business owner, why would you want to chase people who want to cancel their business with you?

Because they then go and write sh*tty reviews about you on the internet if you don't

 

 

It's a legal requirement that you send the certificate, it's not something the insurers make you do because they feel like it.

[350 Russ]

I've posted before about my run ins with sky insurance and I've found them a complete shambles and rip off merchants. it really has to be one of the worst run insurance firms out there,

 

First off they asked for my certificate of no claims, certificate for the thatcham immobiliser and copies of my driving license, no probs pop em in an envelope and send it off. Few weeks pass by and receive a letter saying I haven sent my license or cert for the immobiliser, to which point I sent a pm to the trader on here saying how can you have one and not the other if there all in one envelope? To the reply oh yes we do have them all, sorry.

 

That was the first year, renewal rolls around at roughly the same price so I went for it, one month in I lost my liscense for medical reasons so I had to cancel the policy, out of the £800 premium they offered to give me back £450 for one months insurance!!! They wouldn't budge at all one bit. They wouldn't just leave it running to let the car sit on the drive, nothing. No option other than cancel the policy. So I had been shafted out of half of my premium. And then the fun of waiting 2 months to get my £450 back and again having to wait another 6 weeks and numerous phone calls to get my certificate of no claims, where the call staff were about as much use as a chocolate tea pot.

 

Compare to tesco who insured my other car, they waived the cancellation fee and gave me back what was due on the premium on a pro rata basis which I think is fantastic customer service. And the money was in my account a couple of days later. I'll defo be going back to tesco in the future if they are competitive, where as sky I wouldn't p*** on if they were on fire.

[4RE Leather]

As you all know from 2 years ago I had some **** run into the side of me on the A3 whilst insured with sky insurance.I put in a claim and supplied cctv evidance.There accident management company said it was not conclusive and refused to help.So I had to make a private claim against the 3rd party and won the £1000 repair bill.It was only then did Sky sort out a hire car whilst RT fixed mine.Needless to say I think they are an absolute disgrace, and immediately left to go with the forum guys in Bristol or Bath.I notice the aggravation that Ekona got and the delay in getting his NC certificate.Yet when I joined them. a few days after they sent me a letter saying that if I did not supply the NCD from my old company they would void the insurance or up the premium. Annoyed I rang them and said, can you explain then who it was who signed the recorded delivery letter on behalf of Sky.There was a young lady at the children in Need event at Milton Keynes on Saturday with a Sky Insurance top on.I felt like telling her what a crap company she worked for.Still Sky Insurance, Sky TV. The name sucks period.This statement is based on my own personal experience with Sky insurance and is an honest and factual account of my dealings with them.

Edited November 19, 2014 by 4RE Leather

[Wasso]

Prestige Keep Moving - who I've now insured both my cars with have been epic for the last 3 years.

 

Can't fault them in the slightest. Time to switch I'd say..... or at least get a quote when the time is due.

[coldel]

For my Skyline it was the first time I used a specialist insurer as the more common ones wouldnt insure the modifications/car.

 

I rang Sky and first quote came up at £1200, I got quotes from Adrian Flux and A-Plan which were much lower (without negotiation) and rang Sky back but my consultant wasn't available so was told he would call me back within and hour. Never did. I chased, left another message with another person and was promised a call back, never did. I rang a third time and got the guy and the attitude was pretty poor. Talking to me like a layman, lots of sucking air through teeth, I am sure we have all had to deal with those types of 'sales' people who think they know better than you. So even when potential custom was on the table they didn't bother to chase (as per Dans point).

 

Needless to say I didn't bother investing any more of my time with them, A-Plan far out performed Sky in terms of customer service, speed, returning calls when promised. My gut feel to go with them proved perfect as when I cancelled my insurance I also had to send off my certificate (as you have to with any cancelled insurance) and I got an email from A-Plan to say they received it and will send me follow up docs shortly, I got a cheque back in in the post 5 days after posting off my certificate to cancel.

[coyoteboy]

On the contrary I've been insured by sky for about 8 years over 3 cars. Never a problem, never a particularly hiked renewal.

[GMballistic]

My 2 pence.

When looking for insurance this year for my Zed I contacted several companies to get quotes, ...two of whom where on this forum. Sky Insurance was one & the other was Adrian Flux.

 

Both responded quickly to my PM's and both stated that someone would call me within a few days to talk through my requirements/modifications etc to get me the best quote possible. I gave both my mobile & home telephone number to both companies so could be easily contacted.

 

Adrian Flux Insurance called around a day or so later at a time I had agreed in my PM's which was convenient to me after I had finished work for the day and the adviser was very good.

 

I never heard from Sky at all and as Adrian Flux had given me the best quotation I decided to go with them after all why should I chase Sky to give them my business. Not impressed by Sky Insurance from that dealing with them.

 

Fyi ~ As well as my two phone numbers Sky Insurance also had my user name etc on here & email so there really is no reason why they couldn't have contacted me if they'd tried.

[steve916]

I'm with Tesco Insurance as we already have our other car insured through them. I asked if I could add to a multi car policy. I was told that they don't do multi car policies anymore, and this is now the norm with other insurers too. I was also told that although I have maximum 9+ years NCD, I can't transfer that to this car, and would basically have to start again on this car. Now, I'm not sure exactly how much of that is actually true, but I still went with them as they quoted me well under £400.

Ok, perhaps I shouldn't have given in to them so easily, but I just wanted insurance as I wanted to pick the zed up.

Next year I'll shop around a bit more, but as I said the price I thought was pretty good.

[KyleR]

You can only use your NCB on one car at a time

[steve916]

You can only use your NCB on one car at a time

 

Seems odd though, don't you think?

I mean, I can only be driving one car at a time.

[Wayne370Z]

This is why I always just find the cheapest and go with that. You can never tell who`s going to be good or bad - everyone has different views and different experiences of the same insurance companies/brokers so recommendations or damnation really stands for very little.

[Bobbyheinz]

I'm afraid I had a very disappointing experience when I called Sky for a quote last month. A member of staff who clearly couldn't be bothered dealing with me

[Wasso]

You can only use your NCB on one car at a time

 

Some policies you can mirror up to 5 years.

 

Prestige Keep Moving (see my recent experience of them) http://www.350z-uk.com/topic/92493-result-2nd-car-added-to-prestige-keep-moving/

 

 

[coldel]

I'm afraid I had a very disappointing experience when I called Sky for a quote last month. A member of staff who clearly couldn't be bothered dealing with me

 

Sounds like you got the same person I did - one of the most disinterested people I have ever spoken to regarding insurance!

[coyoteboy]

Risk isn't only in driving a car, a chunk of the risk is theft and fire. But I've never failed to get by ncb mirrored onto my second policy, across a number of insurers.

[Wasso]

Risk isn't only in driving a car, a chunk of the risk is theft and fire. But I've never failed to get by ncb mirrored onto my second policy, across a number of insurers.

 

Try Prestige Keep Moving then, I had the option to mirror my claims. It's a great idea and works well.