I had my first ever accident and Tesco were my insurers. The person who crashed into me admitted liability right away. As soon as I got home I called Tesco who immediately told me I should pay my £450 excess and they would get my car fixed. I was still a little shaken up and did not know the process however I was a little reluctant to pay the £450 when my insurance told me I may not get it back. I told them that she admitted liability however they said they needed to hear it from her insurance and that they would call me back next week. On Tuesday the 10th of January Tesco called me and told me that Aviva, the other parties insurance had admitted liability and that I should contact them to get my car repaired. As this was a non-fault claim it wouldn’t affect my policy or no claims. Now my insurance was due to renew on the 12th of January, previous to having the accident I searched around on comparison sites and my renewal price from Tesco was the cheapest, so I just decided to renew with them. On the 12th of January I received an email from Tesco with no attachment simply titled Your Insurance Documents. Tesco do not attached your documents on the email, nor can you go to their website and log in to access your documents, you have to click on the specific link which they send you by email and enter your date of birth and postcode on the screen. This then takes you to the pdf of your policy documents. When I clicked on the first email the document, there was a covering letter saying, “thank you for renewing with Tesco”, the renewal date of the 12th of January and the cost of renewal £413, which they charged my credit card for. The same day they sent me another email simply stating again Your Insurance Documents, no more information, it was the same standard email with the link to click on. As I had already received my insurance documents, I did not click on this link. The same thing happened on the 13th of January, they sent me another standard email. I just thought that they had sent the email out by mistake as the emails were just the standard Your Insurance Documents emails. On the 17th January I received an email from Tesco stating IMPORTANT - Please contact us urgently. When I clicked on this link and entered my emails there was a letter stating that I owed them £75.13 and I had seven days to pay it. Completely confused I went back through all my emails, clicking on all the individual links from Tesco and found that what they had attached wasn’t my insurance documents, it was letters stating that I owed them extra money. The first one was a letter stating because of my recent claim I owed them £143.09. The second was one stating that because it was a non-fault claim they would refund me £67.97. I did not claim on my policy, I went through the other parties insurance and so I did not expect this to have any effect on my policy. I called Tesco who did say they were partially at fault for the confusion however I still had to pay them £75.13 because I had an accident. I asked why I was did not receive a call from Tesco stating that my renewal had gone up and I was told that “we don’t have enough staff to do this “….seriously? Tesco is a massive corporation, saying they don’t have enough staff is a joke.
Firstly, having a car accident is stressful enough without having to deal with insurance companies trying to rip you off. The government should stop insurance companies from putting premiums up for people who have non fault claims, especially when they don’t go through their own policy. There was absolutely nothing I could have done to prevent this accident, she was 100% at fault as she was not looking where she was going, and now I’m being penalised, how in any sense is this right? Also Tesco have been very cunning in the way they send you correspondence. Like I have said previous, their emails were titled Your Insurance Documents. Which states they are sending you your documents, not letters saying you owe them money.
Reviewed on: 24th February 2017
