To expect an insurance company to be accessible?

[PrincessOlga]

I have been with Acorn Insurance for a year since becoming a home owner exactly a year ago and finding them using the Go Compare website. It is now time to renew my policy for another year and, to be honest, I am not terribly impressed.

It turns out that their customer portal does not work (is not operationable), but there is no message on the website about this. I was sent an email to say that the policy will be automatically extended using the same means of payment as before, unless I contact them - but they are hard to get hold of. There is no email address and, when I called, I get the standard (dreaded?) "we are experiencing a higher volume of calls than usual right now" message. There is a "call back" service, which I activated, but I was not called back.

I would have thought that an insurance company would have been just a step down from the emergency services: on hand right away if you need them? This attitude of "hiding from the customer" has put my back up and I would be interested to know of anyone who insures their home with a company that is good on response time and general reputation?

Please correct me if I am wrong and it is completely "normal" to have difficulties contacting your insurance company (with whom you have a legal contract!).

I go with a company I know, never ever some random off a comparison website. It's so easy to get wrong. Some people insure themselves for £20k contents when they actually need more like £50k, don't check if it includes alternative accommodation (where do you go if your house burns down) and sign up for a massive excess.

I'm with LV= at the moment but until recently I was with Churchill.

You'll have to wait on hold I'm afraid.

Luckily, I don't know yet how hard my insurance co is to contact, but if they are as bad as yours they will not be my insurance co for long.

My colleague has found the same with her car insurance because she went with the absolute cheapest from the comparison site, she cannot even contact them via phone it needs to be done on their awful website then you have to wait for an answer.

It’s a good idea with insurance to look at reviews to see how easy they are to contact and how difficult they are to agree any claims. It changes though as they merge with others. You could cancel your dd, send them a letter saying you don’t want to renew then sign up with someone else.

One of my pensions is with a very big provider who you can’t contact at all by phone (nobody ever picks up) and they don’t give an email address. I have written letters to them in the past. They are shocking.

@PrincessOlga
if you really don’t want to renew with them and can’t get through (possibly strategic) and if it won’t cause you too much inconvenience freeze or cancel the card you paid with at last renewal and order a new one from your bank

This is unlikely to help. They can still renew it without the card.

possibly expired cards, not cards that have been reported lost/stolen they are blocked form any payments by the issuer

Fortunately, the credit card I used had to be replaced last summer, because I got a report of attempted fraud on it. Now they found a way to contact me quickly (when they want to, of course, by non-repliable email address):

"As per our recent communication about your renewal, we write to inform you that the card you used for payment last year has now expired. Unless we receive your updated card details, we will not be able to automatically renew your insurance policy on 13/02/2025. If you would like to renew your policy, please call us to update your card details."

@PrincessOlga
Perfect situation 😁 - so now you can just ignore ‘Acorn’ and renew with another provider ?

I had a similar situation with car insurance recently and had to revert to old fashioned pen and paper!
The quote had gone up substantially even although I had no claims. I found it much cheaper elsewhere but couldn't contact them to cancel except on a phone number which they never answered.
So I looked up their address and wrote to them cancelling the policy, and they confirmed back by letter

Yes, that's what I plan to do. I am going to spend today reading a few reviews and just choose a company which gets the best reviews, regardless of price. Tomorrow I will have a go "contacting" them just to see what they are like in terms of picking up the phone. That will help me make my final choice.

I've been with the same insurance broker for 20 years. They had a small local office where customers could call in to renew or discuss things. They've now "centralised" and closed all branches which I presume means everyone's WFH. They are only contactable via a portal which is clunky at best and obviously doesn't answer any questions. Phoning them is absolutely futile. I'm looking elsewhere and I suspect I'm not the only one.

Can I ask which company it is? I hope it is not the one I plan to move to...

@PrincessOlga
not for Home insurance but I find RAC to be excellent (for car) and they have an ‘app’ and a call centre, so easy to contact and pleasant to deal with. Good luck now and a lesson learned is a good thing