Quinn car insurance, document states wrong value of car?

I rang Quinn Direct last week to get a quote for a car I was intending to buy, the quote they gave me was €200 less than their online quote calculator. I agreed to take it and asked the girl to call me back in 45 minutes as I was busy at that time. I waited just over two hours and the girl still hadn't called me back so I decided to call Quinn again.

The next time I got through to a different operator, who couldn't find the quote I had gotten two hours earlier. This operator offered me insurance at the same rate as their online quote calculator, €200 more expensive than the quote from the girl. I mentioned the earlier cheaper quote and he agreed to insure my car at the cheaper rate when he managed to find the quote. I asked the guy to run through my details just to make sure there were no inaccuracies. He read back the details to me, everything was in order.

A week later I received my policy details in the post. Quinn had my car valued at €1500 instead of €8500. I rang up to remedy the mistake, I was told it would cost an additional €220 to change the insured value to the cars proper worth as the quote they had given me was on a cheaper car. I foolishly stumped up the cash.

Was I wrong to pay up? I am 100% that both of the operators told me the car would be valued at the €8500 but the policy states €1500 and I feel like I have wasted €220 on their f up.

Did you not get a proposal document in the post to sign and send back before committing to the insurance premium?

Yeah but I couldn't send it back as it had the wrong value of the car on the form.

They are supposed to send me out a new one now that I have paid the additional €220.

François said:

Yeah but I couldn't send it back as it had the wrong value of the car on the form.

They are supposed to send me out a new one now that I have paid the additional €220.

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€220 increase for €7,000 increase... err something is NOT right there.

Why don't you ask them to dish out the original call ?

Failing that send a letter to Sean Quinn directly - I would envisage you will get a favourable reply if you have names and times of all employees who you spoke to.

any time i've spoken to ins companys, they've always said that the value on a car doesn't really matter as if you overvalue a car, they will not take this into account anyway and only use the current market value for the same spec vehicle. i don't think it would be any different if your car was undervalued, i could be wrong though.

have you tried shopping around for quotes elsewhere? i find britton ins are very reasonable and much cheaper than quinn, maybe you could try them before committing to quinn.

Susie1 you are incorrect about undervaluing property. If the vehicle is insured for €10,000 but actually worth €15,000 - in the event of a total loss, theft and burn out for instance, the maximum payout would be the sum insured less any excess or o/s premium. I work in insurance and I know it seems REALLY unfair to pay over the odds if you over insure and to be screwed if you under insure but thats the way the industry works. The property belongs to you and the insurer ask you to put a value on replacement of that property - most people over insure because they believe that their property is still worth what they paid for it originally or because they don't adjust their insured value every year upon renewal.

Why do they want to know the value if you are insuring 3rd party only? Also the insured is not the best placed person to value a car.

bond-007 - I don't know why you'd need a valuation on 3rd party only.

As to the 2nd part of your post, a purchaser knows how much they paid for a vehicle, how much extra they've put into it...fancy rims, body kit etc - so surely they're best placed to put a monetary amount on it. The insurer is unable to place a monetary value on any item when taking out a policy as the person being insured could accuse the insurer of underinsuring their property deliberately to reduce any potential pay-out. The insured is the one with all the facts, and passes these on to the insurer so that potential risk can be calculated.