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1st Central: Car insurance reviews

Name: Car insurance
Rating: 1.71 (965 reviews)

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1.71

Based on 965 reviews, last reviewed 7th Jun 2026

100% increase in 5 star reviews

in the past 90 days

15% 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

Please avoid this company, money grabbers! I purchased car insurance and then found a more comprehensive cover for the same price, so within 12 hours decided to cancel whilst policy was pending... Read more Reviewed on: 7th June 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 (965)

Not a real company based in Africa and calls answere...

Not a real company based in Africa and calls answered by virtual assistants that do not have a glue Reviewed on: 11th January 2024

Disgusting company!

Disgusting company! Charge you additional fees and no way of challenging it! I got the purchase date of my vehicle out by a few days and the additional cost of £51 was for admin to change it. Bad customer service, avoid at all costs! Reviewed on: 9th January 2024

Disgusting business!

Terrible business! Firstly they tried to rip me off, telling me my occupation was incorrect and I should have to pay an extra £120 on top of my quoted price (pretty sure I know what I do for a living) Then auto renewed after being told not to and charged me £50 for the privilege. Rude customer service staff, and now ignoring my emails regarding thieving £50 of my money. Disgusting Reviewed on: 6th January 2024

Avoid

Utterly useless Phone to discuss renewal, they went competitive so I instructed them to to auto renew and they completely ignored me, why can’t simple instructions be followed? Now they chatbot can’t help, the web portal is useless and won’t let me cancel Simple things shouldn’t be this painful, no doubt when I actually manage to cancel they’ll try and charge for something Reviewed on: 1st January 2024

7 weeks for claim

7 weeks for claim. Every single agent was giving me different information. „Senior agent will call you tomorrow” - five times didn’t call. I received calculations by phone, gave bank details and 1h later email to send pictures like 2 weeks earlier. After a few weeks I find out engineers can’t open my pictures. It wasn’t even attachment, was as part of email. „Replay in 1 day for comments for your claim” - never did. According to 1stCentral if you have accident abroad you must back to UK. Courtesy car? Only in paper. I may get one if I back to country first. In axa I had money in my account in 5 days from accident. Here bank transfer took longer. Ok, my accident was abroad, let’s say my fault, but second driver finished with claim in 2 weeks. With courtuasy car and expert at home. Plus they offer cover abroad for 90 days. Mess as hell. Accident on 14th Nov, week later information by phone - it will be written off, I was calling and texting them everyday to get money on 29th Dec Reviewed on: 31st December 2023

Awful company

They charge you extra money at every possible opportunity and they have the worst customer service! Reviewed on: 29th December 2023

Massive rip off

Fine until you try and cancel a policy due to a mistake made , ridiculous cancellation fees , and very confrontational call handler , Reviewed on: 28th December 2023

Professionally negligent ...

Worst consumer experience of my life. They may be cheap (in relative terms!), but you better hope you don’t have to make a claim … In my case I was hit by a 3rd party, who admitted liability in what was an obvious open and shut case. My excess was even waived on the strength of evidence provided, car repaired and I was told all was sorted … fast forward 6 months to my renewal and, on pursuing quotes for this, it comes out there is still an active claim showing on the insurance database. Turns out the 3rd party insurer were chancing their arm and debating liability, which 1st Central had known for months and yet not once communicated to me. Having then done all the legwork myself to uncover the facts, I discover that in addition to not informing me, they had also done next to nothing to even attempt to resolve the claim, close it off or pursue legal proceedings against the other insurer (who provided zero justification or evidence in support). 1st Central were “waiting for a response to an email” sent months earlier. That’s the level of professionalism and expertise displayed. And a snapshot of how they act on behalf of their paying customers … and I've still had nothing but tumbleweeds since ... Over the month+ since uncovering this issue, it has caused significant financial implications (other renewal quotes substantially higher due to the outstanding claim showing, pricey temporary cover sourced to give time to get this injustice rectified etc), much stress and annoyance, and consumed an unreasonable amount of my own time due to the pathetic response (or, more to the point, lack of) from 1st Central since raising with them … Even getting an acknowledgment from anyone, in any department (Complaints, Claims, Liabilities - none of whom are capable of communicating with each other either I should add), is a tough feat - I’m starting to think they are allergic to emails … You might get the honour of human contact with 1st Central if you can afford to spend your working days phoning them, waiting on hold, then typically being passed around a collection of largely unhelpful, unsympathetic (and sometimes rude), staff who can’t seem to action anything at all and have, on every occasion, failed to follow through with the promised next steps … Sadly, I could go on for longer and longer yet, detailing the worst consumer experience of my life. But I’ll just finish this by saying that I’m now taking advice about a professional negligence claim against 1st Central. They are utterly incompetent. Negligent. And they don’t care. Reviewed on: 21st December 2023

rubbish company & Rude customer service

They asked me many documents which should be provided within 30 min or my premium will increase!! Reviewed on: 21st December 2023

Rip of insurance

This is proper rip off insurance. First, they will give you good price and then after rape you off after one month normal. Cancellation fees for two months 24500 Reviewed on: 20th December 2023

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