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1st Central: Car insurance reviews

Name: Car insurance
Rating: 1.51 (958 reviews)

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1.51

Based on 958 reviews, last reviewed 13th May 2026

100% increase in 5 star reviews

in the past 90 days

75% decrease in 1 star reviews

in the past 90 days

11%

80%

Latest highest rating:

5

Just started my third year of car insurance cover wi... Just started my third year of car insurance cover with 1st Central. Good value for money, helpful customer service, clearly laid out website and easy ... Read more Reviewed on: 17th April 2026

Latest lowest rating:

1

Cancelled my policy without warning and charged me a... Cancelled my policy without warning and charged me a cancellation fee. Impossible to get hold of, and when I finanally did, they refused to reinstate ... Read more Reviewed on: 13th May 2026

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About this product

With 1st Central, you can insure a single car or opt for a multicar policy. There’s also a telematics policy.

As standard, you get up to 90 days free cover when driving in Europe. There are five policies to choose from giving different levels of cover: ValueOnline, Online, LegalOnline, PlusOnline and PremierOnline.

1st Central car insurance reviews help you find out what it’s really like to be a customer. If you’ve used 1st Central before, you can also leave a review and share your experience.

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1st Central Car insurance reviews (958)

Worst experiwce in my 35 years of driving amd getti...

Worst experiwce in my 35 years of driving amd getti g drivers insurance. They were cheapest on comparison site.. purchased.. then on my policy details it had my pass date for driving as exactly 25 hears to the day.. this was incorrect as they initially asked if i had passed my driving licence over 25 years ago, not a date. I called straight away Was on hOLd for 1hr, then person said they cant change the date as its from the dvla. I contacted dvla who said they were incorrect. Its theor system which added the incorrect date. I called 1st central back and they still said they cannot change the date for me as its foxed even though its incorrect.. I then asked for cancellation.. they then said why do i want to cancel whoch firther made me angry.... it was like talking ti robots who were reading from a script Im sure its an overseas line... terrible. I was even charged 25 poumds to cancel. Had not even been 12 hours since i purchased the policy.. avoid avoid avoid, i tho g it was a luck escape as god knows what would have happened of i had to claim. Reviewed on: 4th February 2026

Reply from 1st Central Hello, Thank you for your feedback. We’re sorry to hear your experience with us hasn’t been as positive as we’d hoped it would be. Let’s see if we can help put this right for you. Just give our team a call on 0333 043 2055 or speak to us on web chat which can be found on our website. We’re here to help from Mon-Fri: 8am to 8pm, Sat: 9am to 5pm, Sun: 10am to 2pm. Emily Response date: 5th February 2026

Bait-and-switch insurer

Feels like a scam – stay away Quoted one price, then after the policy started 1st Central changed things retrospectively, increased the premium and added a £50 “admin” fee. This is not transparent insurance — it feels scam-adjacent and designed to extract more money after the sale. Judging by the volume of similar complaints online, this is clearly not a one-off. Avoid. Choose an insurer that doesn’t play these games. Reviewed on: 23rd January 2026

Cancelled car insurance, no apparent reason - AVOID!

I have been with 1st Central for 5 years. This year they put my car insurance up from £26 pcm to £39 pcm, which I thought was a ridiculous jump in cost, given I have never had an accident or made a claim. I called to see if this was the best price they could offer and the South African gentleman I spoke to went through my details and asked if I wanted to make any changes. I suggested that I would more than likely be doing slightly fewer miles. He put me on hold and came back and said my new price would be £43.84!!! I was not prewarned that the price would or could go up! Since I was now stuck in that situation, I had to go ahead, rather reluctantly. On the 31st December 2025, I received an email saying that I was required to provide them with "a copy of all four pages of my Vehicle Registration Document (V5c) and proof of home address dated within the last three months – for example a utility bill or bank statement." I found this highly unusual as I've previously mentioned that I have been with them for 5 years! I was on holiday, so getting these documents was achieved through extraordinary effort on my part. Nonetheless, I was able to submit them online, on the 6th of January (with the cut-off being the 7th January 2026). I thought no more of it. They took a direct debit for £43.84 on Monday 5th January 2026. However, on 12th January I received an e-mail stating that my insurance was cancelled on the 7th of January 2026 at 00:00 and that I owe them an outstanding balance of £107.23! Please bear in mind I had been driving my car right up until 12th of January 2026, illegally, without knowing I wasn't insured! Upon reading the email, I rang them immediately and spoke to someone named Nouthando, who was most unhelpful and borderline rude. She told me that they didn't accept my letter from SSE Gas as proof of address as it was not a "utility bill", it was, in fact, a credit agreement with SSE to pay my most recent bill in instalments, which had my address, account number a valid date and was printed on official SSE Gas letterheaded paper. I explained that NOBODY told me this and, if they had, then I would have made arrangements to send an alternative. I asked to speak to the manager, and she explained that she had arranged this, and it would take about 2 days for somebody to call me (it is now 7 days later and still no call). She also suggested I e-mail a bank statement, which I did immediately, phoned back and spoke to Matthew, who also told me the exact same thing as the previous operator (Nouthando) and that my insurance would never be reinstated. Again, I asked to speak to the manager, and he explained that this had already been requested and would take up to two days for someone to call me. NO CALL. I haven't driven a car since, and I have NEVER in all my 46 years had car insurance cancelled! I fully intend to take this matter further as it is absolutely, criminally ridiculous. AVOID THIS COMPANY! Reviewed on: 21st January 2026

Reply from 1st Central Hello, Thank you for your feedback. We’re sorry to hear about your experience with us. All details on the policy impact the price of the policy we offer, if details are found to be incorrect we need to update them and this can impact the price of the policy. If you’d like to speak to the team about this process, please give us a call on 0333 043 2095. We’re here to help from Mon-Fri: 9am to 5pm. Ashley Response date: 23rd January 2026

Please avoid this company!!

Please read the reviews before you get tempted with the initial low fees. They wait until after the cooling off period before an aggressive sales person calls up posing as a customer service agent. The objective, to nit-pick on the details provided by you and force you to make changes to your policy e.g. increase your estimated mileage per year with threats that if you do exceed the amount you've put on your application, you will be hit with high fees - something I've never experienced with any other insurer. When you threaten to put the phone down and cancel your policy, they tell you you're now outside the cooling period and will need to pay a high exit fee. So they basically have you over a barrel. Disgusting practice and I can't believe this company isn't being investigated and removed from all comparison sites. Reviewed on: 20th January 2026

Reply from 1st Central Hi Nazmul, Thank you for your feedback. We’re sorry to hear about your experience with us. All details on the policy impact the price of the policy we offer, if details are found to be incorrect we need to update them and this can impact the price of the policy. If you’d like to speak to the team about this process, please give us a call on 0333 043 2095. We’re here to help from Mon-Fri: 9am to 5pm. Ashley Response date: 20th January 2026

Fell for the Administrative Surcharge Scam

I am another of the many who have fallen for the 1st Central Administrative Surcharge Scam..Basically, after the 14 days they contacted me to say that they believe some of my details were not right. They put me on the spot on the phone but Basically they tried to claim my named drivers job title was incorrect... I wasn't aware at first of my named drivers exact title was so when I told them what it was they said there would be a charge for changing it. I then confirmed with my wife that no the original details were correct and told them this an therefore not to change anything.. They then tried to still charge me over £90 for a change that was not made and will not give up.. Reviewed on: 16th January 2026

Reply from 1st Central Hi Scott, Thank you for your feedback. We’re sorry to hear about your experience with us. All details on the policy impact the price of the policy we offer, if details are found to be incorrect we need to update them and this can impact the price of the policy. If you’d like to speak to the team about this process, please give us a call on 0333 043 2095. We’re here to help from Mon-Fri: 9am to 5pm. Ashley Response date: 20th January 2026

Extremely poor service, shocking!

I strongly advise you, indeed, I plead with you, to pay a little bit more towards your premium, for peace of mind and a better, more professional service than you will get from 1st Central. Please read about my experience below, where I hope to convince you of their poor practices. I signed up to 1st Central for my car insurance via a price comparison website. I had been a car insurance customer of 1st Central prior to this, but their renewal quote was higher when taken directly!?! 1st Central were the cheapest car insurance provider over more than 4 price comparison websites. When I logged into my 1st Central online account, I could only see my older car insurance policy, but not the newer policy. I thought that this would be uploaded soon by the company. By this point, I had already received an email confirming my policy number and a certificate of motoring insurance, so I was sufficiently reassured. Conveniently, AFTER 14 days of my policy starting, I received threatening emails asking me that I should confirm various details stated on my policy. They FALSELY alleged that I had had driving convictions. They also alleged that I had not mentioned my wife's driving penalty points (one of which was already on my previous policy with them!). When I attempted to view my policy again online (no paper copies are sent), the new policy still was not on my account. The finer details that they were requesting were not confirmed on the initial email with basic information. When I prompted 1st Central to include my newer policy on my online account, I noted that the details that I had inputted on various price comparison websites were not on the policy, e.g. my wife's penalty points and my self-employed status. I could not believe that I had not done this correctly, as I had used those price comparison websites the previous year, and most details were still the same, except the additional 3 points on my wife's licence... which WERE INCLUDED ON THE PRICE COMPARISON SEARCHES I HAD MADE, when I re-checked it, after their allegation. I asked 1st Central, from which price comparison website they obtained my custom, they stated in an email that this was from confused.com. I logged into my confused.com account, which showed "no recent search"! 1st Central dug their heels in and effectively doubled my premium on the spot, stating that the added details increased my premium accordingly. But when I had conducted multiple car insurance searches over the next week, the cheapest car insurance quote was still from 1st Central, very close to the INITIAL premium cost, EVEN when placing all the details they alleged to have caused my car insurance premium to double! This felt exploitative and unfair, so I found a reasonable car insurance alternative, and asked to cancel my car insurance. They implemented the cancellation policy when it is cancelled AFTER 14 days, although I requested the cancellation BEFORE the 14 days from when I could actually view the policy in full, due to their administrative error. There has clearly been an administrative error in the transfer of my inputted details on the price comparison website to 1st Central. But, coupled with their lack of administrative skill, and poor customer service, I would personally rank the service received from them as the worst car insurance experience in my 21 years of using car insurance. Reviewed on: 7th January 2026

Reply from 1st Central Hi Wisam, We’re sorry to hear on this occasion your experience with us hasn’t been as positive as we’d hoped it would be. We'd like to look into this further for you to help resolve this, please send an email to [email protected] with your policy number a summary of your experience similar to your review and we will look into it. Ashley Response date: 9th January 2026

This company is scamming people out of money.

This company is scamming people out of money. They use illicit abhorrent techniques to force changes to the information you have provided and make up charges, only contacting you after the 14 day cooling off period. I had this policy for 21 days and they wanted to charge me £175 to exit the cover when it was only just over £220 for the entire year!!! Let them answer to the ombudsman. Companies like this do not deserve to survive in this economy. Reviewed on: 29th December 2025

Reply from 1st Central Hi Julia, Thank you for your feedback and we're sorry to hear of your policy issue. If there's anything you'd like us to look into with regards to your policy please contact us by sending an email to [email protected]. Please remember to include your policy number, claims reference number (if applicable), email, name, DOB and details of what's gone wrong and we'll do our best to put it right. Clare Response date: 2nd January 2026

Misleading information

I requested a quote to renew my policy and accepted it over the phone. On the very last day of my cooling-off period (22/12/2025), I received an urgent message saying I needed to contact them, with no prior warning. I was told I had to pay £95 for increased mileage, despite explaining I had quit my job and my mileage had actually decreased — this was completely ignored. When I tried to cancel online, my policy was locked, and although their phone lines were open, the policy analysis team only works Monday to Friday 9–5, so I couldn’t cancel over the weekend also asked to authorise my husband to manage the cancellation as I was busy, but they refused, even though their website and portal clearly allow this — they selectively shared information that suited their interests. I ultimately cancelled my policy as a matter of principle. Overall, this experience was stressful, pressured, and had extremely poor customer service. I would not recommend this insurer due to a lack of transparency and unfair practices. Reviewed on: 24th December 2025

Reply from 1st Central Hi Efie, Thank you for your feedback and we're sorry to hear of your policy issue. If there's anything you'd like us to look into with regards to your policy please contact us by sending an email to [email protected]. Please remember to include your policy number, claims reference number (if applicable), email, name, DOB and details of what's gone wrong and we'll do our best to put it right. Clare Response date: 2nd January 2026

Bad practices to charge customers additional admin

Best price from price comparison and then 3 weeks after policy started queried some dates and wanted extra £75 Reviewed on: 22nd December 2025

Reply from 1st Central Hi C M, Thank you for your feedback. We’re sorry to hear about your experience with us. All details on the policy impact the price of the policy we offer, if details are found to be incorrect we need to update them and this can impact the price of the policy. If you’d like to speak to the team about this process, please give us a call on 0333 043 2095. We’re here to help from Mon-Fri: 9am to 5pm. Ashley Response date: 23rd December 2025

Took money out of my account but DIDN'T SET UP...

Took money out of my account but DIDN'T SET UP A POLICY Reviewed on: 16th December 2025

Reply from 1st Central Hi Michael, Thank you for your feedback. We’re sorry to hear your experience with us hasn’t been as positive as we’d hoped it would be. Let’s see if we can help put this right for you. Just give our team a call on 0333 043 2066 or speak to us on web chat which can be found on our website. We’re here to help from Mon-Fri: 8am to 8pm, Sat: 9am to 5pm, Sun: 10am to 2pm. Ashley Response date: 23rd December 2025

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