Hastings Direct has been fined GBP735,000 by the FSA (Financial Services Authority) for treating its customers unfairly. The car insurance company was found to have cancelled over 4,500 policies following a pricing error.
The problem was caused by the Hastings Direct car insurance quotation system, which generated quotes that were lower than the market rate. The insurer then decided to cancel these policies, a step that was not acceptable according to the FSA.
Although a cancellation clause was included within the policies the FSA felt that Hastings Direct should have considered other options first rather than invoking the cancellations. They believe that it is not acceptable to cancel cover because of what is simply a pricing error.
A new report from Green Flag shows that we are spending more time than ever before simply waiting – be it in a traffic jam, in a shop queue or for a delivery.
The report reveals we spend around six months of our life just waiting! It seems over a third of the people asked spend over and hour a week waiting in queues at shops and supermarkets. Add in waiting at service organisations, especially banks, and that figure rises to almost two hours.
We are all familiar with waiting in traffic, from the school run delays in the morning, through shopping traffic and the often disrupted motorway journeys. These can be infuriating but Green flag do advocate a policy of not getting stressed to avoid ill health and accidents.
A traffic queue can sometime lead people to drive more aggressively to get out of it, or into a space, but the upshot of that is they may then have to make a claim on their car insurance, which will cost them far more than the time they spent waiting.
New car insurance customers at Tesco Finance are able to claim a free pressure washer if they buy their policy before 25 June 2008.
Upon buying the car insurance policy Tesco Finance will provide the customer with a voucher that can be redeemed at Tesco Direct for a Karcher pressure washer. New car insurance customers can also enjoy discounts of up to 15 percent when buying online.
A Tesco Finance spokesman was delighted to be able to offer such a great incentive and hoped that many people considering their current car insurance cover would look at Tesco since they offer very competitive rates as well as great promotional offers such as this.
