Greenlight - wake up and smell the potential business

[JD]

Another bad experience with Greenlight. I wonder why I bother.

Cancelled a policy with them last year as was looking to sell the car. I then didn't and quickly got the car recovered under Admiral with my father's multicar policy, having cost me £25 and £300 out of my account for the 6 weeks (and many phone calls) it took for Greenlight to return the money due to "months end".

Coming around for renewal, just called to find some quotes at the various companies - Greenlight first on the list; "We won't go through a quote with you as you cancelled a policy and then took out a policy with someone else".

Talk about a bitter organisation! Barry, if you're reading this, Admiral spent two hours on the phone with my father, on Friday, trying to find the best possible quote for him/us. If that's your attitude towards potential new business i.e. having to work for it, you'll not be around much longer. And being well aware I'm on three car forums, that's pretty short sighted.

Very poor.

 

[Rob]

PMSL, what a joke.

 

[Daniel]

Fcuking hell! That's a poor show. Not to mention the poor show of cancelling and them not refunding you!

 

[Mr R.]

Not good.

Im insured with them and as a new customer I found them to be great even saving me £200 from my previous company.

 

[The Chubby Pirate]

Christ thats not great - i've never actually heard anything bad about them until now?

 

[Adamm.]

Me neither, second year with them and no problems. But I've not tried cancelling or anything.

 

[julzh]

Would not re-insure me as the renewal came up whilst I was temporarily unemployed, how short sighted was that, I now have three cars and their efforts to gain customers on another forum came to nought after that!

 

[Kelv]

I won't say I'm shocked at their attitude, it's half expected now.

 

[M26]

Both Greenlight and Sky get a good write up on here and a number of other forums but it's interesting to hear stories like this.

Personally, Sky refused to quote me and were actually rather rude down the phone because my Astra wasn't a performance car and didn't have modifcations

 

[JD]

Sky couldn't cover sk9 postcodes (which, not being bitter, is hilarious as it's full of porkas, Ferraris, Lambos etc being Cheshire) but came through with an ok quote for London.

Greenlight's attitude is hilarious! The amount of time I spend on client proposals to not win the business is probably a lot longer than they've been in business, but I'll still be at my desk working on them for 2014!

 

[leeds_182]

They're consistently the cheapest for me and never had any problems.

 

[davo172]

Was insured with them years ago NEVER again !! And the the "not fussed if we have your business or not " attitude they have , Also if you cant find a cheaper quote than them you aint lookin hard enough !

 

[-J-]

Must admit when it comes to insurance I do tend to go for the company with the best customer service rather than cheapest, Brentacre the lads up in the Valleys really can't be beaten on their aftersales, and this year were the cheapest as well double bonus.

 

[leeds_182]

I went to numerous scooby specialists and none could beat greenlight. Granted, I've never had to make a claim but that would be through highway anyway.

 

[DB.]

As I say with all insurance companies, you can never say they are 'good' unless you have had to claim with them, or have changing circumstances, that's the only time you get to test their worth.

I'm with Greenlight and that sounds like a very poor policy they have going. Very poor!

 

[JD]

Must admit when it comes to insurance I do tend to go for the company with the best customer service rather than cheapest, Brentacre the lads up in the Valleys really can't be beaten on their aftersales, and this year were the cheapest as well double bonus.

Agreed. The chap at Brentacre was superb and basically told me with the current lie of the land to stick with Admiral.

 

[sbridgey]

Agreed. The chap at Brentacre was superb and basically told me with the current lie of the land to stick with Admiral.

Yep Brentacre have always been brilliant for me and would always beat other quotes expect for rwd which is understandable.

 

[JD]

Yep Brentacre have always been brilliant for me and would always beat other quotes expect for rwd which is understandable.

Won't quote me in London unless it's modified. But that's their speciality so I take no issue with that.

 

[peanuthead]

I'm insured with them as they were the cheapest and highly spoke of, but yet to claim or change anything.

Be good to hear their side of the story

 

[sbridgey]

Won't quote me in London unless it's modified. But that's their speciality so I take no issue with that.

Yep it's not really an issue as admiral will be fine for a standard car anyway.

 

[JD]

I'm insured with them as they were the cheapest and highly spoke of, but yet to claim or change anything.

Be good to hear their side of the story

"We did 'loads' of work, we only got a £25 admin charge for it, a competitor got the policy, we threw our toys out of the pram".

 

[MarcB]

I just renewed my policy with green light as there is a lot of small things that make it worth while that other companies would not offer me.
Like most people this is the first bad story i have heard about green light but i have to say when i have spoke with neil things have been spot on.

Its good to see this as i guess there is 2 sides to every coin and nothing is always 100% perfect

 

[DB.]

Only thing I'll have to watch out for is the next renewal, as I'm fairly sure they only let you have vehicles worth up to £20k, so puts a lot of newish cars out of bounds with them!

 

[skyinsurance]

Personally, Sky refused to quote me and were actually rather rude down the phone because my Astra wasn't a performance car and didn't have modifcations

I am sorry to hear that, whilst non-performance standard UK cars may not really be our speciality, we most certainly should haven't been rude when you contacted us.

 

[skyinsurance]

Sky couldn't cover sk9 postcodes (which, not being bitter, is hilarious as it's full of porkas, Ferraris, Lambos etc being Cheshire) but came through with an ok quote for London.

A lot of our postcode restrictions and exclusions have been lifted or have changed so (up to you of course) you are very welcome to get in touch when you are shopping around for insurance again.

We can insure cars over £20k with no issues, anything over £50K/£60k we have to refer directly but can still place.

 

[JD]

A lot of our postcode restrictions and exclusions have been lifted or have changed so (up to you of course) you are very welcome to get in touch when you are shopping around for insurance again.

We can insure cars over £20k with no issues, anything over £50K/£60k we have to refer directly but can still place.

Thanks but now in London. Will pass on to dad though.

 

[Spinksy]

I have never had a problem with Greenlight and have nothing bad to say tbh...

Been dealing with Darren a lot more than Neil recently because of how busy Neil is but they have been thoroughly fantastic!

Changed my address twice this year (no charge)

Changed mods countless times no problem (no charge)

Changed car from my 1.slow to my 182 for 6am Saturday morning so I could go pick it up from Dan and guess what? Took 30 seconds and hasn't cost me a thing....

Renewal price for the 182 is already going to be cheaper than the 1.slow I have been told in good faith so have no worries about that.

Have more than seen me right over my time with them and have nothing other than brilliant customer service!

I think they should be able to come in here and defend themselves though considering this appears to be the only incidence of anything other than great tbh.... Neil@greenlight

 

[Neil@greenlight]

Another bad experience with Greenlight. I wonder why I bother.

Cancelled a policy with them last year as was looking to sell the car. I then didn't and quickly got the car recovered under Admiral with my father's multicar policy, having cost me £25 and £300 out of my account for the 6 weeks (and many phone calls) it took for Greenlight to return the money due to "months end".

Coming around for renewal, just called to find some quotes at the various companies - Greenlight first on the list; "We won't go through a quote with you as you cancelled a policy and then took out a policy with someone else".

Talk about a bitter organisation! Barry, if you're reading this, Admiral spent two hours on the phone with my father, on Friday, trying to find the best possible quote for him/us. If that's your attitude towards potential new business i.e. having to work for it, you'll not be around much longer. And being well aware I'm on three car forums, that's pretty short sighted.

Very poor.

There must be some kind of mix up. If a policy is cancelled due to payment default/bad debt then we dont do a new policy that is our standard practice,

However if you cancelled on a cooling off period then that wouldnt be the case. I think you will see from the numerous positive posts on this forum that our service is above and beyond.

A simple PM to me to ask the question would of gained you an immediate answer and i could of sorted it for you within seconds.

Its a shame because we are offering some great quotes on Cliosport models at the moment.

Your only complaint seems to be that we wouldnt give you a quote? we didnt do anything else wrong.

Best Regards
Neil
Greenlight

 

[Neil@greenlight]

I just renewed my policy with green light as there is a lot of small things that make it worth while that other companies would not offer me.
Like most people this is the first bad story i have heard about green light but i have to say when i have spoke with neil things have been spot on.

Its not actually a bad story though. Its not like we have caused the customer any issues. All it boils down to is we didnt give him a quote.

This could of been rectified by a simple PM to me as the forum contact.

Christ thats not great - i've never actually heard anything bad about them until now?

There is a reason for that

They're consistently the cheapest for me and never had any problems.

Thanks for the kind comments mate.

Only thing I'll have to watch out for is the next renewal, as I'm fairly sure they only let you have vehicles worth up to £20k, so puts a lot of newish cars out of bounds with them!

We can do £20k+ cars we just have to refer them to the underwriters mate.

 

[JD]

There must be some kind of mix up. If a policy is cancelled due to payment default/bad debt then we dont do a new policy that is our standard practice,

However if you cancelled on a cooling off period then that wouldnt be the case.

I think you will see from the numerous positive posts on this forum that our service is above and beyond.

A siple PM to me to ask the question would of gained you an immediate answer and i could of sorted it for you within seconds.

Its a shame because we are offering some great quotes on Cliosport models at the moment.

Best Regards
Neil
Greenlight

Thanks for the reply, Neil.

No default, cancelled in a cooling off period due to changes at work and thus a potential car sale (told I was moving to Germany for 6 months). When this didn't go through I just paid admiral (more than your quotation) to rejoin the existing multicar.

Barry spoke to his manager, while I was on hold, and came back with a rather snooty "we won't spend the time"... I found that rather astounding.

The car is an Audi S3, so not sure what quotes would come back (you were the best price last year, hence going with you!!!) but I'm not really interested in judging it on the cheapest quote now I feel the service suffers as a result.

I suggest you take this as constructive feedback for the operators at your end, Neil.

 

[JD]

And a quick point, I don't expect to have to send an email/PM, Neil. Appreciate I may come over as an awkward customer now, but I expect to have no issues talking to a human down the phone.

 

[Neil@greenlight]

Thanks for the reply, Neil.

No default, cancelled in a cooling off period due to changes at work and thus a potential car sale (told I was moving to Germany for 6 months). When this didn't go through I just paid admiral (more than your quotation) to rejoin the existing multicar.

Barry spoke to his manager, while I was on hold, and came back with a rather snooty "we won't spend the time"... I found that rather astounding.

The car is an Audi S3, so not sure what quotes would come back (you were the best price last year, hence going with you!!!) but I'm not really interested in judging it on the cheapest quote now I feel the service suffers as a result.

I suggest you take this as constructive feedback for the operators at your end, Neil.

Your explanation makes complete sense. The only thing is on our system we have a button to tick for oustanding money which then means it shows on the screen that a previous policy was cancelled it had outstanding money, the only thing i can think of is one of the admin guys ticked this box by mistake when processing the cancellation originally which has stopped the new quote from being done.

There is no reason not to offer a new policy unless there was oustanding money. If you wanted to drop me a PM with your contact number i could happily do a quote for you now. As we have all the details from before it will take me 2mins.

We have cases come back to us all the time for new policies after being cancelled on cooling off. A number of which are members on here which im sure will come on and confirm this.

Eitherway mate sorry for any inconvience and hope you got it sorted in the end.

Best Regards
Neil

 

[Neil@greenlight]

I have never had a problem with Greenlight and have nothing bad to say tbh...

Been dealing with Darren a lot more than Neil recently because of how busy Neil is but they have been thoroughly fantastic!

Changed my address twice this year (no charge)

Changed mods countless times no problem (no charge)

Changed car from my 1.slow to my 182 for 6am Saturday morning so I could go pick it up from Dan and guess what? Took 30 seconds and hasn't cost me a thing....

Renewal price for the 182 is already going to be cheaper than the 1.slow I have been told in good faith so have no worries about that.

Have more than seen me right over my time with them and have nothing other than brilliant customer service!

I think they should be able to come in here and defend themselves though considering this appears to be the only incidence of anything other than great tbh.... @Neil@greenlight

Cheers mate

 

[Budgie]

Nice to see a company come back after criticism and be prepared to help,

Well played.

 

[Spinksy]

Cheers mate

No worries mate, I look forward to renewing tbh

Nice to see a company come back after criticism and be prepared to help,

Well played.

This ^

And I never expected any different

 

[Neil@greenlight]

And a quick point, I don't expect to have to send an email/PM, Neil. Appreciate I may come over as an awkward customer now, but I expect to have no issues talking to a human down the phone.

No problem it was 2 days before Christmas and we are working on lower staff numbers so i can only apologise for the minor oversight.

Its clear you are looking for perfection mate so hope Admiral managed to live up to expectations.

If the bad piece of press we receive on Cliosport is because we couldnt provide a quote then i think we are doing pretty well.

Best Regards
Neil

 

[Chip-mk1]

My experience has basically been that the modified insurers are much better to deal with than the normal ones most of the time, as the people working for them often seem to be car enthusiasts themselves.

Only ever spoken to Tony@Greenlight but he has always been great, gone out of his way to be helpful TBH.

And Ive found the same for Sky and for Keith Michaels.


Currently we are with Keith Michaels purely because they cover us at the Ring, until the other companies are capable of offering that too it makes it an easy choice!

 

[Neil@greenlight]

Nice to see a company come back after criticism and be prepared to help,

Well played.

Thank you for the kind comment

Its the first i personally heard about the problem so will always try and help where i can.

The amount of Cliosport members that PM me with policy changes and additional modifications is huge. I always reply and like to think they get dealt with quickly and professionally.

Best regards
Neil
greenlight

 

[Chip-mk1]

Do you have any plans to ever help car enthusiasts drive around the ring on tourist days Neil?
Arguably the most fulfilling experience you can have in a hatchback that doesnt involve twins.

Seems like Keith Michaels really have the jump on the competition in that respect at the moment, I find it hard to believe they are the only ones who realise how important this is becoming to car enthusiasts!

 

[JD]

Nice to see a company come back after criticism and be prepared to help,

Well played.

I agree completely, Mike. And not in the all too common arsey manner as well.

Neil, it's just left a sour taste, chap. And you know the saying; once burnt, twice shy - so it's left me uncertain over how you'd handle a claim.