Review of Bennetts Comprehensive Motorcycle Insurance

This year I received a letter informing me my Bennetts motorcycle insurance policy would be renewed automatically for £121.57 - a 50% increase. I carried out some research and found a typical figure for the comprehensive cover I required was £80 - I received a quote from Bennetts OWN online service for £75.05. I spoke to 'Sash' on June 13th to query the renewal premium. He couldn't tell me why the premium was so high but said he had 'made changes on his screen' to ensure that automatic renewal was cancelled and quoted me around £80 for the cover I required (he included protected NCB and removed the voluntary excess).

At renewal, I paid the premium of £80.78 online. The paperwork arrived two days later. I subsequently also received the paperwork for the ORIGINAL policy and realised that the automatic renewal Sash had promised me would be cancelled had NOT been. £121.57 was taken from my Barclaycard against my express instructions. Two policies were now in force, one at £80.78 and the other at £121.57.

I rang Jay Dawson on July 7th. He told me to return the original policy. I did this the same day. On July 9th I received a recorded-delivery Notice of Cancellation for the original policy, stating "you are entitled to a refund of £121.57 ".

I then waited two weeks before ringing Indira on July 20th. She told me "the paperwork probably hasn't arrived yet‚� and confirmed it would all be sorted out 'quickly' for me. I faxed a confirmation. On July 25th I wrote to their MD with the facts asking for a refund to go through quickly as I was having no joy getting the matter resolved by telephone.

I rang on 6/8 to be told that "We will do something about it today". I rang on 7/8 (Jane) to be told "It might take another seven days". I rang on 9/8 - the message was "It will probably be another 24 hours". I rang on 11/8. "We're very sorry and the matter's in hand". I rang on 14/8 (Claire). She said "I have now put this one in manually; all outstanding paperwork has been cleared - you will receive the refund within seven days". I rang on 20/8 (Wendy) who told me "Accounts department is in a bit of a muddle; they're about two months behind". When I told her this wasn't good enough and I intended to take the matter to a solicitor, she spoke to her 'team leader' and offered an ex-gratia payment of £20 with the refund to go through "by Friday night" (August 24th).

Apart from the ongoing problem with the refund, I am very concerned at the 50%+ differential between the two premiums. No company can afford to rely on customer inertia when it comes to massively increasing a renewal premium - this may deliver increased short-term profitability from those customers disingenuous enough not to shop around, but the risk of bad publicity and antagonizing the core customer base makes this a very dangerous practise.