Factual: BoxyMo my experience - 35yo male learner

driverl

Boxymo are a UK company operating out of the north of ireland with a PO box in the republic. They are underwritten by AIG and have sister companies called ItsForWomen (Totally sexist) and another one aimed at under 25's (can't think of the name of it)

Have a look at some of their reviews on TrustPoilt: type in boxymo

BoxyMo respond to these reviews and as you can see they are not doing very well.

I am going to detail my experience with them Positive and Negative.

My Profile: 35 year old male, i have my first provisional license 15 months, i have a 03 Renault cleo 5 door 1.3, i use the car once a week for grocery runs after moving to new house the local supermaket was miles away and taxi costs were allot, last year i drove a total of 2,000 KM.

For my first year insurance (never had any type of claim, criminal record etc) the cheapest i could get was Aviva for 3,000 EUR and the most expensive was Liberty for 5,000 EUR. I really was expecting cheaper quotes than this for my age, when i was 21 i got a quote from Hibernian as it were at the time for 4,500 back then but decided against it and went to ibiza for the summer instead.

i heard about this boxymo thing, seemed like a good idea rewarding safe driving so it suited me as i always drive under the speed limit.

The way it works:
They install a GPS tracker in your car, it's installed by a third party called Telematics, after you sign up it's up to you to contact the telematics company to get it installed you have two weeks to do this or they cancel the policy and you lose everything, when done you scan the receipt and email it to them. As you drive it tracks your car's speed and compares that against the speed limit of the roads your own. Each week they text you saying how many (if any) moderate speeding events, severe speeding events & dangerous speeding events you had - I'm unsure how many strikes you're allowed before they void your policy as i never got any. Then at the end of the month they email you your Driving Score, if you do well they reward you with Top Up Miles.
With boxyMo you pre-buy your miles, as you drive well they give you top up miles, if you go over the pre-purchased miles they will crucify you on charges to buy extra - They do this because the less your car is on the road the less chance of you experiencing an accident so even if you don't drive your car for a whole month they like that and give you full makes and full reward miles.

The Positive:
If you're a safe driver, it's cheaper than most (well the ones i contacted anyway) and is a good way of building up a No Claims bonus. It's done online so you scan your license and email it to them and any other documents they ask for. I found that handy (You must have access to a scanner as they won’t accept pics from your phone)

The negative:
Their customer service is terrible, you can NOT ring them for anything, they have NO phone number, email only (can take 2-5 days for a reply) - They also have an online chat facility. Last time i used the online chat to query my policy at 9AM in the morning there was 21 in front of me, the bad thing about this is there is no audible sound when your place in the queue arrives so you can't go make a cup of tea while you wait, you have to sit and stare at the screen so as not to miss your place in the queue. If you ask them to ring you for anything policy related that requires them to modify your policy they charge you 10 EUR per call.

AN incident occurred when my car was off the road for a month, it was in the driveway for 5 weeks as i had a small operation. They sent me my driving score for that month with NO top up KM, when i challenged them on this asking about it they refused to give an answer saying they don't give out that information, then asking for access to my GPS data under freedom of information they refused saying its their private company data even tho its from my car. I asked to speak to a manager and they told me NO it is their company policy that NO customer shall speak with a manager and NO manager will contact a customer. I believe this was an attempt by them to circumvent my policy KM to get me to buy more policy miles at the higher rate. I have since launched a case with the ombudsman and i will post their findings when it concludes.

Another incident occurred when my second year disc didn't arrive (Now AnPost have many times posted other people's letters in my letter box so i presume that happened this time, that's assuming boxymo sent them) - It costs 20 EUR to have the disc resent or any document from them. they will only send by standard post. It’s not even a proper holographic disc it's just a printout from their office printer.

Conclusion: If you're a young driver (or old like me) trying to build up a NCB and you're a safe driver use them for a year if you can’t find cheaper but do shop around, but once you have that NCB don't go near them. I found them rude, unprofessional, hostile and very unhelpful and unfriendly toward me - They have a unofficial attitude (If you don't like it jog on somewhere else because we know we are the cheapest, as one guy i was dealing with told me other insurance do exist i could use if i am unhappy with their "service"

My Quotes FYI:

1st year boxymo quoted me for 8,000 KM = 960 EUR (For your first year they force you to buy 8,000 KM for some reason) - By the end of the year i had nearly 10K unused KM from all the bonus KM

2nd year boxymo quoted me for 1,000 KM = 780 EUR (Based upon me earning 1,500 top up bonus award KM) so a total of 3,500 KM

Based on the profile stated above. I will not be renewing with them again.

By far the worse experience i ever had with a company.

ppn

I was about to purchase a car insurance policy with 'itsforwomen ' recently until I read through the policy wording. In it, I found the following notice:
"We do not cover Injuries arising if: -the injured person is over the age of 75 years"
This was on a comprehensive policy. So if you have an accident and a passenger or third party of 75 years or older is injured, they are not covered under the policy. Obviously, I did not go ahead with the policy as it is not fully comprehensive as I understand. Is this age discrimination?

driverl

ppn wrote: »

I was about to purchase a car insurance policy with 'itsforwomen ' recently until I read through the policy wording. In it, I found the following notice:
"We do not cover Injuries arising if: -the injured person is over the age of 75 years"
This was on a comprehensive policy. So if you have an accident and a passenger or third party of 75 years or older is injured, they are not covered under the policy. Obviously, I did not go ahead with the policy as it is not fully comprehensive as I understand. Is this age discrimination?

While shocking to learn this i am not one bit surprised. I'm not sure if this is legal. If you have a full license you are qualified to carry passengers within your permit type. The neck of them to say if you were carrying an elderly loved one they are not covered. Just as well you read the small print.

Surely this can't be legal ? I would email the minister of transport currently Shane Ross and let us know what he says, He's been banging on for years about equality & whats right and wrong, lets see what he says about this now he's an elected official overseeing transport. It sounds wrong, but in Ireland i wouldn't be surprised if this is perfectly legal. But do let us know its rather upsetting.

Have you tried other insurance companies ? do they also say that ?

Squidgy Black

Absolutely shocking to deal with, but for th3 price difference it's worth it.

21 years old, full licence, 1 year NCB, 01 Golf. Cheapest quote I got was 2200. My renewal from Boxymo was 1000.

Dravokivich

Let me get this straight, from reading the OP, one buys a car to drive it. But you insured it with them and their intention is to get you to drive as little as possible?

No thanks...

Alanstrainor

ppn wrote: »

I was about to purchase a car insurance policy with 'itsforwomen ' recently until I read through the policy wording. In it, I found the following notice:
"We do not cover Injuries arising if: -the injured person is over the age of 75 years"
This was on a comprehensive policy. So if you have an accident and a passenger or third party of 75 years or older is injured, they are not covered under the policy. Obviously, I did not go ahead with the policy as it is not fully comprehensive as I understand. Is this age discrimination?

Looks like you posted this here:

https://ie.trustpilot.com/review/www.its4women.ie

And they responded with:

Thank you for your review.

I must note our Policy Wording, Section 2 - Liability to others, Section A Legal Liability to others does confirm, "We will pay the amount of damages, claimant’s costs and expenses and any other costs agreed between us in writing arising from: death or bodily injury to any person; accidental damage to the property of any person; for which the insured person is liable at law resulting from an accident during the period of insurance involving your car."

I must note we will cover any third party travelling in your vehicle regardless of age, the only exception is for a spouse.

If you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact our office.

Kind Regards,

Kirsty
Compliance Team

They are of course obliged to cover all 3rd party claims regardless of age. Not too sure why they mention an exception for a spouse, perhaps that's in case of fraud? Anyway.... worth being clear here.

ppn

I posted this issue on a number of websites as I am sure that not many people read in detail the policy wording and in my case, had I taken out the policy with them and had an accident, my spouse would not be covered if injured as my passenger due to being 75 years of age. This was made clear to me and this was with their comprehensive xtra policy. And you happen to mention; "in case of fraud?" - Well that would mean that they don't suspect fraud unless the spouse is 75 years or over as my spouse would be covered if under 75 years old??

biko

ppn, you have a thread here, please stick with that one.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057616770

This thread is about Boxymo, not itsforwomen policies.