A-Plan Information - Please read

[Carlie Howden]

Hi All,

I read the site everyday and I don't always post comments as I dont want to be seen to be saturating or becoming irritating!

However a few post have come upon the "Aplan Does it again..." Topic below which I would like to comment on.

Firstly and very important we do not pay any staff of A-Plan commission, we are all only basic salary paid. Obviously as a broker A-Plan gets paid a commission from the insurer for selling the policy which is pretty much the same rate with most insurer therefore every policy is very important to us and makes no difference who we insure you with (as long as cover is not compromised).

I would like to try and explain how we set our new business rates and renewal rates as it seems most of the UK think brokers just try their luck and dont offer the best rate first time. I cant comment on other companies, but will explain how we work, 95% of the rates we offer you are not screen driven. They are all bespoke from the underwriters on the phone with us on a one to one basis. When you call us for a quote we take your details, first off see what the panel of insurers that we use do offer on screen rates. The screen rates are normally 50-100% more than the rates you say you have for renewal, but does indicate the top 3 insurers to approach as we have a special arrangement for the Porsche polices as do others such as Sky and Bridle etc. The next stage is to get an idea of what other rates are out there on various web sites such as the comparisons sites and direct writers like Direct Line and Aviva to give us a good idea of what the "cheapest" rate is. We have never been promoting we will be the cheapest as the levels of service and cover on some of the "cheapest" insurers we have no desire to compete with. I have always struggled to understand why people spend all this money on prestige cars to only go and protect it with very very basic cover, which can included recycled car parts or patten parts rather than Porsche, you could have to use the insurers own garages rather than your preferred and so on. I always encourage people to call these companies up and have a discussion about their policies and also give the claims line number a call (if they even have one) to see what you will be dealing with if you do unfortunately need to call on your insurers. I came across an insurer today who where top on a popular comparison web site where the only way to report a new claim is by email only. I would like to see the outcome of that if you have just had an accident and your car is in the middle of the road, you cant move it and your very shaken up. I would hope none of you will ever need to use your policy, but don't forget, unfortunately this is why you are buying insurance, in case. Every day I speak to 20 people who would have quoted to me "I'm not going to have a accident!" the day before.

Once we have established the market rate with a good level of cover, we will then set our rate in line.

We look at all your details, experience with car, previous cars, usage, where its parked, your own driving claim and conviction history and many other factors.

When your policy comes round for renewal we repeat the same process as we did when you first called us and send out the renewal price. Again we set the renewal price not the insurers we use in most cases. We are also guided by market movement with premium increase and deceases. We check on every renewal, 3 direct insurers and the most popular comparisons sites with a good level of cover.

When we have a discussion about your renewal it is possible that you have obtained a lower rate from an insurance company we have not seen or a different level of cover. It is not possible for us to check every policy price on the market. Currently it takes on average 40 mins to prepare each of your renewal prices. If you have obtained a lower rate, at that point we can then call the insurer advise what rate you have found, we discuss the policy you have found, review the levels of cover and then decide if we can do any more on the rate. But I really do want to push home that we always offer the best possible price we can, on the information we have, using the resources we have every time. It is not in our interest to loose any clients.

What seems to be happening more and more at the moment is other specialists are offering below market rates to compete and win the business, all that ends up happening is the insurer they are using gets burnt as there is not enough premium collected to pay for the claims costs over the year and then they would possible loose their facility to place business with the insurer or they have to offer over inflated rates the following year to make up the losses. This is why is sometimes seems they are better offers for new clients. We have over 80% renewal retention of our clients which in this industry is exceptional. We want to keep your business as long as you have a car!

There are always going to be cases where we are going to loose out on rate, but never on service. We do make errors but we will always hold our hands up and do everything in our power to resolve as quickly as possible.

I hope this explains some of the procedures for you, yes we want to make money, but we never "try our luck"! The industry is too tough to risk having a bad reputation. We have enjoyed our 50th year in the business in 2013 and still the majority of our business comes from recommendation.

Please keep your quotes coming into me and always pick up the phone if you would like to discuss your renewal with me.

Thank you again for your business so far this year. I hope I can continue to be part of your forum.

Steve Marsh