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1st Central: Car insurance reviews

Name: Car insurance
Rating: 1.67 (901 reviews)

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1.50

Based on 901 reviews, last reviewed 3rd Jun 2025

400% increase in 5 star reviews

in the past 90 days

50% increase in 1 star reviews

in the past 90 days

12%

79%

Latest highest rating:

5

Found you online,needed a cheap quote,you certainly... Found you online,needed a cheap quote,you certainly provided it.Thank you Reviewed on: 3rd June 2025

Verified source

Latest lowest rating:

1

Totally Fed up I had insurance with Ist Central on my new car. They took £538 out of my bank account after I had informed them I wouldn’t be renewing with them. My... Read more Reviewed on: 3rd June 2025

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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 (901)

£50 admin fee, for typing on a computer

My NCB was in its 11th year, but they said I only have 10. They only give a discount upto 9th year. Details needed updated, so they took it as a change of circumstances and applied a admin fee of £50 and £16 for a change of details! Will not use them again!! Reviewed on: 25th June 2022

thieves

they emailed me 3 months after I took out the policy and requested non claims proof and vehicle registration papers and asked me to call them. provided all, while I phoned they asked me for partner's profession. As I said a slightly different title they took it as a change of circumstances and applied a admin fee of £50 and £16 for a change of details!!!!! if i was to cancel the policy, i would have to pay £50 admin fee so will stay with them. however, i will never ever use them again. Reviewed on: 22nd June 2022

Auto renewed my policy at 200%!

Auto renewed my policy at 200%! Because they had sent an email ( that I hadn’t received ) they considered the new policy legally binding. They charged me £70 to cancel it. I told the rep if they waved the £70, I’d happily deal with them again, I’d get a quote from the right there and then! But the taking the £70 from me meant more to them than my business. Unscrupulous, avoid Reviewed on: 22nd June 2022

RIP off company

I had been chang my address and told them I chang my address so their are say will change me 250£ for change the address!! What a joke !! So I been cancle the policy strate way then their are send me I own them money for 17£ But how come !! Their are chang me monthly 1 time 67£ because I haven’t cancle my direct debit so , after their are intimidating me by email will put me to the court if I not pay them !! Unprofessional & Rip off company!! Be careful Reviewed on: 22nd June 2022

Scammers! Avoid at all costs!

Having read the other reviews, I totally agree that this company should be avoided at all costs! Quoted £25 per month which was taken for the first 2 months then month 3 - £65 was taken. They said our proof of 9 years no claims was sent to them in the wrong format, they don't accept a forwarded email we needed to send a screenshot which we did. Month 4 another £65 was taken. They then said they wanted proof of no claims from AXA our last but one insurance company. We sent that. They then said they wanted a letter rom AXA saying that we hadn't made a claim? AXA said that was what the no claims document was. We have this evening been on the telephone (cut off twice), web chat and telephone again for over 4 hours. They now say they want the documentation in PDF format! It's an absolute joke! I feel at a loss? I think I will try and get some advice off the Ombudsman tomorrow. Reviewed on: 21st June 2022

Liars and unhelpful

Recalculation of my insurance should have happened following the removal of a claim that was made against me, for an incident I was not involved in. They are telling me that the price for the fees is solely based on the information provided to them and that they do not run any internal check across the national claim database. Absolutely disgusting. I am paying more when I have done nothing wrong and never involved in any accident! Reviewed on: 15th June 2022

So many issues with so many of their staff and trying to take more of my money for their faults

Went for the full package, then bought a car, then when the car was faulty (only one break worked on my 200 mile journey home from the garage I our gased from and they wouldn't pay to recover it to repair) I wasn't covered because 'they don't do that sort of cover', after telling me they did. Secondly, I went to renew and change details of my policy last year, then had terrible service, and wanted to leave, so someone else spoke to me, said he'd do the changes and renewal together and got me to stay. Just to find out that he never did the changes (these don't appear on the policy attachments of email, just on your account. So I asked them to fix them, and they're trying to charge me for changes and admin fees, even though I'd already done this last year and they hadn't done the job. I can't wait for October when I can get rid of them. They're awful. I'm currently waiting till Monday because after speaking to different people today, one finally acknowledged that there were notes about changes made last year, so they need to review last year's phone call to check... No apology. All whilst I'm trying to keep my 3month baby entertained with what I thought was a 5 min job, which I've actually spent several hours trying to sort, all whilst bring told I need to pay them regardless. I'm raging. All because I was being honest about my policy. Why did I even bother?! Reviewed on: 15th June 2022

Terrible Terrible Company

Terrible terrible company - canceled within an hour of taking out the policy (Admiral beat the quote by a good chunk and has fab customer services) and have been charged a £50 arrangement fee that is non-refundable and "clearly stated" (hidden) on page 6 of the terms and conditions (not included with the clearly stated 14-day free cancellation section). What a con. Use a decent insurance provider such as Admiral I would say. Reviewed on: 14th June 2022

TERRIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If I could give 0 I would, Please please please do not waste your time or money on this 'insurer'. This company is not an insurance company they are brokers who will scam you, rob you and affect you both mentally and physically. I have no idea how this business is still running with the amount of people they are scamming. Out of the blue they cancelled my insurance, they said they needed extra documents. I was not notified at all, neither by text, phone call or post to indicate they require additional infomation. The only way I found out about this was because I checked my bank balance and they had refunded my money for the month. I gave them a call to understand why I had been refunded and only then they told me my insurance was going to be cancelled on 08/06/22 11:59pm - I FOUND OUT 10 HOURS BEFORE THE TIME IT WAS DUE TO BE CANCELLED. They expected me to pull out the documents out of thin air. To avoid this tarnishing my good record I asked the policy to be cancelled and they kept passing me over person to person - I was trying to deal with this whilst I was at work. Then in the end I had to ask them to call me back and then the lady said she will at 6:00 after I finish work. 6:00pm comes and no one has called me, instead I got a lazy email to say 'sorry we cannot cancel your insurance and there is nothing we can do'. The 'analysis' had locked my account so i was unable to cancel the policy online. Even the website is extremely dodgy, they had added a fee of £135 on my account and it said once i make the payment my account will be unlocked. I paid it and it was still locked - luckily I had sent written proof that i want my insurance cancelled and this was the only thing I had to cover my back. I called this morning and spoke to a man who was also very useless and he did nothing to help me and he kept saying to me the insurance cannot be cancelled and he has spoken to his manager. Later i conferred with a family lawyer and they advised me that what they have done is unlawful and should be reported to the ombudsmen. I then called them and threatened them with legal action and notified them that I have also contacted ombudsmen. After this they changed their tune and agreed to cancel my insurance on my behalf rather than them doing it and tarnishing my good record. This has caused me an unbelievable amount of stress and anxiety. PLEASE RUN AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY - The few pounds and pennies you save going for this insurance will only last a month before they start slapping random charges on your account. I insured my run around car with them and for a 2005 mini i essentially paid approx. £200 a month with all the charges they gave me and i only had this insurance for 2 month. I own a BMW X4m and the insurance is no where as expensive. I must say I have learnt my lesson and I will definitely do research before looking for insurance. STAY AWAY LIKE THE PLAGUE. Reviewed on: 9th June 2022

sCAM ARTISTS

they will scam you out of more money saying a dot was missing on information you gave them Reviewed on: 9th June 2022

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