Unfortunately we havent had a great experience with Hastings.

We took out the insurance 5 days ago for my 18 year old daughter.

On Monday, she dropped back some library books to her college in Islington and picked up a couple of friends to go shopping in Westfield shopping centre white city. There was a lot of traffic and her friends were using her phone to add to playlists on spotify.

The next day, she opened the app and it was reporting 2 things:
- 1 excessive phone use whilst driving (although she personally never touched her phone once)
- 2 excessive cornering. This was being reported as she was driving down the exit ramp from the 6th floor on the car park. She had no choice but to come down in a spiral, there was no otherway to drive to but to do constant cornering.

We called Hastings as her driving score had dropped to 56% and we were obviously concerned and got through to someone I shall call Mr K.

I queried with Mr K how the app works, was it using the internal gyroscope in the phone, he said it was. I said what if the phone drops out of the holder is that recorded as use? He said it would.

I asked what if my daughter pulled over and set a new sat nav journey and then drove off, how can it differentiate between this action and messing with the phone in traffic? He said it doesnt and it would be classed as using it whilst driving.

I asked if we could therefore just get a second phone to connect the blackbox to as she doesnt use the phone whilst driving and it would prevent these issues, he said that it was against the rules. I said that I had actually asked Katie on live chat about that and she said we coud. He said you cant. I said can you just show me where in the policy it says you cant, and he said that it couldnt off the top of his head, but its not allowed.

I said overall it was outrageous but that we would just get a second phone to connect to spotify so at least her friends can choose music and that interaction wouldnt be recorded. We came off the call.

Within about 10 minutes we had a notification in the app stating that our insurance was cancelled. We immediately called Mr K back and asked him what was going on. He said that have tried to maniupulate the data. I said we have done no such thing, we asked questions, I queried that we had been told otherwise by Katie and that it was not in the policy but at the end of the call we agreed to just get another phone for spotify. He said that would be allowed but its too late now as telematics have cancelled it based off what he had reported to him. He said that we told him multiple times that we would get another phone for the app.

I retirated to him that I had not said that but queried getting another phone, as we had been told we could. And that at the end of the call we said we'd just do it for spoitfy. He said well you told me otherwise mutliple times, and I said yes but at the end that was the compromise that we were going with.

I asked to speak to a manager, he said no one was available. I asked to speak to the telematics team, he said theyre not customer facing. I asked to raise a complaint which he said he had done and I have a raised a separate one on the website.

Overall however our insurance has been cancelled for not ACTUALLY doing anything wrong, just asking and being honest and open about what was and wasnt allowed under the policy. Mr K for some reason took it upon himself to report only part of our conversation but not the end part, which was that we would just ensure that my daughters friends used a different phone for the music.

Overall I have found this service to be really poor. Mr K needs training and to listen and help. His actions actually felt malicious.

I do not believe it is lawful or within any policies that you can cancel a policy based on Mr K THINKING we might do something that we asked about being possible.

How can this be right? I bet there are loads of people just getting a second phone and attaching the app to that from the outset that you dont even know about. At least we were honest and asked the question!

Terrible service from Hastings after making a claim on my car insurance.

Everything that could go wrong, went wrong, due to Hastings' terrible and non-existent communication with me. Do not use Hastings Direct as your car insurer, as they will be useless when you need them the most.

Straight after my car accident, I was on hold for over an hour trying to speak to someone and request roadside recovery. Eventually, I got through and was told the RAC wouldn't be able to complete a roadside recovery for another 5 HOURS…in the meantime I was stranded in the middle of a very busy road until the police came to recover me and my vehicle.

After the accident, I was never clear on where I was in the process of my claim, and every time I phoned up, I had to re-explain everything to them, as if none of my claim history was in their system.
They seemed to be doing nothing to move my claim forward, even after I was informed the recovery yard which had my car was going to destroy it if Hastings did not collect it after 14 days.

After my 7th call with Hastings, it turned out they didn't even have the correct location of the recovery yard my car was taken to. Even though I had told them multiple times over the phone AND in SEVERAL emails.

I was not given a courtesy car after requesting it, which is included in my policy. I had to phone 3 separate times until they hired a courtesy car through Enterprise, but then cancelled the car hire after only a few days. When I phoned Hastings to find out why, they had no record of hiring a car for me in the first place! Once they found the record of this, they extended the hire which was great of them…but then cancelled it a few days later again, once my car had been deemed a write off – according to their "policy", once your car is written off, they take away the hire car. So I was stuck with no car and no payout from Hastings to buy another one.

Customers have the right to know that you will not be dealing with Hastings for the most part – they will outsource EVERYTHING to Vizion Network…look up their reviews and see for yourself how terrible they are. But Hastings simply do not care about the service offered with this "trusted partner" of theirs.

I was told someone would be in touch within 2 working days to tell me my car's valuation for the payout – someone did phone me…but to tell me because the car had a personalised plate, they couldn't value it themselves and it would have to be sent to engineers to value it. So apparently for the 20+ days my claim was ongoing, NOBODY thought the personalised plate might be an issue. So I was having to wait another WEEK to hear their valuation.

The whole experience felt like this was Hastings Direct's first time dealing with a claim, and no one had any idea what to do. Their internal communication was non-existent, their communication to me was non-existent.

I had to be the one manging the whole thing and moving everything forward as they had zero communication or updates.

I felt like I had to explain to Hastings the amount of stress this was causing me just to get an update on my claim. Everyone I spoke to was very robotic, and just repeating the same thing to me, giving me no updates at all, and transferring me from department to department.

Do not use Hastings Direct as your car insurer, as they will be useless when you need them the most.

@HastingsDirect
So an abusive ex partner takes my car without my consent and has a minor accident that causes no damage. I comply with all information and interviews and he doesn't. I am then penalised with a quadruple insurance quote for the next 12 months #don'ttrusthastings #don'tbefemale #scammed #what'sthepointinhavinghastings

Blackmailers!
My son is insured with Hastings "brickwall" direct.
He pays for car insurance by direct debit as young driver insurance is inexplicably high.
How does any insurance company know me or my driving history etc at first? But I'm 54 so my quote is £300 a year but my sons is £4100! Utterly ridiculous. Anyway...
He was involved in an accident that was not his fault. His car was smashed into by a big van and it rammed him into another car.
HD agreed completely that he was in the clear and he would receive a payout for the written off car.
He got the call this week assuring him that he would have the money Friday or following Monday with which he plans to buy the new car he is looking at today, Saturday.
HD then called to say, unless
He puts a new car on to his insurance, they will take the rest of the years monthly dd premiums from the total of his payout.
This works out at £2859. 45 and his payout is £3000. 00.
So, his custom to HD, his trust in them to look after him in the event of an accident, which as Ive said and HD agreed was not his fault,... has now ended up with him possibly getting the princely sum of £150!
We have both been on the phone with different people at HD who just don't even try to listen or help in any way whatsoever!
They say its purely because he has paid by dd. He is 20 yrs old which means, highly unfairly, that his insurance is extremely expensive. There is no way he can pay a year up front so he is immediately forced down the dd route.
I've tried to reason with them all but they just can't understand that it's a blackmail technique that they are using.
Do something or we take your money!
They say its in the t's & c's so that's it! Like I said, brickwall.
I asked all 3 I spoke to what their mobile phone contract says is the international call rate as that is in their t's and c's and guess what? None of them knew. As I said, no-one spends all day reading all the small print, especially younger people, and that is exactly where HD explain this little blackmail trap they foist on the young drivers.
I looked on their website at the faq section about making a claim. Guess what? No explanation of this blackmail trap anywhere! Well they wouldn't have customer if they did explain it!
No one at HD was even prepared to even try and sort out some kind of arrangement to help him out.
He needs the money from the payout to buy this new car which HD are insisting he has put on the insurance so that they dont take his money!?!?
I know, stupid isn't it?
Anyway, a complaint has been lodged which I already know will be ignored "because its in the t's & c's!"
My advice, don't use Hastings Direct for anything ever. They are not there to help you, they just take your money.
Awful company.
Look out for the HD reply to this as well because you will see no offer of resolution from HD.
This is going on to as many public forums as I can get it on to hopefully make others aware of young driver dd blackmail trap.
Well done Hastings Direct. A lot of possible customers now lost as I will be advising many family, friends etc to steer clear of you!

Edit... and as I said, look out for HD reply... well there it is in the picture!
Told you there wouldn't be a resolution!
My son, whilst being extremely stressed out, still injured, in severe pain, has had to find a car, beg and borrow £3000 to buy it, I've been driving around for him and with him most of the weekend and HD then glibly say "you've completed a change of vehicle so you'll get paid!"

Zero about the complaint about their blackmailing young drivers!

All they've said is "That's that, stuff you!"
How sad.

I urge all of you to tell all your family and friends not to buy any service whatsoever fro. Hastings direct.

Rant over, for now.

Hastings Direct I feel that I have received absolutely awful customer service from Hastings.

I have never had an accident before, and we all hope that we will never have to use our car insurers, but that if we ever do it will be a simple process (words used by Hastings themselves when I called)... that is what we pay for after all.

Unfortunately I had an accident in May and the process was anything but simple, thanks to the failings of Hastings. To start off with my number was taken down incorrectly by the call handler (despite re-confirming the correct number) and I was left waiting by the roadside for over 6 hours. There was no where around for me to walk to get a drink/food or any toilets within walking distance. I waited so long for help that I actually ended up in a humiliating situation (I don't want to share exactly what due to privacy, but Hastings are aware of what happened).

I had no communication from Hastings several days after my car was towed away. The assessment centre I was advised to call said they didn't know where my vehicle was and advised me to call Hastings for an update. On ringing Hastings I was informed by their call handler that the RAC recovery team were turned away by "two men" already recovering my vehicle. The Hastings call handler did not recognise the name of the company I gave for these "two men" who came to collect my vehicle. I had to give her the number from the paperwork they gave me and she had to put me on hold to ring them to find out who they were, and where my car was! Leaving me thinking that my car was stolen! I also gave this call handler my correct number and complained to her about my number still being wrong on Hastings system. Yet it still wasn't updated.

Hastings have been awful from start to finish. I even gave my correct contact number to the person dealing with my complaint, yet it was still wrong on Hastings system. I didn't realise this until I received an email weeks later, asking why I hadn't responded to the valuation offer. I rang to update my number and later that day I received the texts that I should have received on the day of the accident. Bringing back the awful memory. My accident was on the 22nd of May and I received the texts on the 15th of June!

I have been contacted daily by Hastings to ask why I haven't accepted the valuation offer for my vehicle, despite me ringing to explain I was waiting for my complaint to be reviewed first and sending several emails to explain the same thing, with no response from Hastings whatsoever, just the same call every single day asking if I had received the valuation offer.

The person dealing with my complaint even replied to say that I had given the wrong number to the call handler, however the number they said I gave incorrectly IS my correct number!

The last email I received from Hastings was from the person dealing with my complaint, who assured me that the added information I gave would be looked into. I discovered when ringing to chase this up after hearing nothing, that Hastings had closed my complaint without telling me and without reaching a conclusion. I even rang Hastings and spoke to someone to tell them why I wasn't accepting the valuation offer and they didn't tell me that my complaint had been closed either. The communication has been terrible between Hastings themselves and Hastings to myself.

I requested that Hastings absorb the remaining costs of my policy (which doesn't even equate to £208) due to their continued failings with my case, as I will not get a vehicle within the 30 day period they allow, but I have been informed that they cannot do this.

I would avoid in the future! Worst customer service I have ever had the displeasure of dealing with. I am a nurse working through a stressful pandemic, and this was the very last thing I needed. It's the last thing that anyone needs, which is why I'm sharing my experience. Take care everyone

Edit: My re-opened complaint was closed after the exact same response from Hastings. YES THAT IS MY CORRECT NUMBER! I have reported them to Watchdog. Stay safe everyone!