Postby 1bassleft » Fri Nov 30, 2018 6:12 pm
Well, I'm not giving Linea Directa much more than 4/10, on the basis that less than 50% of my dealings with them are successful (or even sensible).
To recap, I took out my first car insurance in Spain, December 2017, after speaking to a very competent and pleasant person. As my luck goes, I had a crunk (minor, but my fault involving a 3rd party) in June. My car and presumably the other party's were dealt with without much hassle. I say "presumably" because, once my car had its scrape sprayed (€472- my 210 excess), that's the last I heard.
Now, less than one month to my renewal date, Linea Directa sent a letter to tell me that my renewal premium will be more than doubled. Now, it's entirely their right to charge what they like, but I should also be in a position to go with another insurer. That's when the fun started. Once again, 902 325 325 didn't work (has it ever, for anyone? Never does for me). So I had the bright idea of using their website's "ring me back for a quote" option and got a call in seconds. I told the person that I had a renewal quote already but wanted to know what was the total cost of my claim in June.
This set her alarm bell off straight away. "Let me see if I can reduce your premium (without answering your question)." After failing to reduce it by more than €10, I asked again for the cost of my accident. I got transferred. To someone who wanted me to renew my insurance with them. I got transferred again, to a claims bloke. He told me what I already knew - what my repairs cost. But what was the total cost of the claim? No information. So you pay out without keeping a record? Erm, probably about the same - about €900 in total... So, can I tell other insurers that this is your best guess because you don't really know? The amount probably won't matter - we'll ring you back in a week to see if you're renewing with Linea Directa.
Of course it matters. I have tried Rastreator and found much better quotes but (interested if others have this experience) the links from Rastreator don't work. Never defeated, I went to the best company's website and entered all my details from scratch. For a firm deal, the company DO want to 'phone me for the details of the claim and I don't have them, thanks to LD playing Secret Service (and it doesn't help that 200 wpm Spanish telephone operatives are considerably above my language level).
No surprise that LD are more interested in selling than helping you find a better provider, but (IMO) they are acting as though native English speakers are a captive market. I'm going to do my darnedest to prove them wrong.