Churchill Insurance for Car Home Pet Travel & Motorcycle

You'll either love or hate the company's nodding dog but you can hardly ignore it. And it has made Churchill one of the best-known insurance brands. The dog, apparently, resulted from a staff competition and the early advertisements featured a real bulldog.

Churchill was founded in 1989 and offered car insurance. It added other products and sells everything through the internet. It took over Prudential's insurance arm in 2002 and was itself bought by the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2003. This means it is now part of the second largest insurer in the UK, with Direct Line and Privilege also being part of the group.

One of the good things about going with a big company or group is possibly that most policies are handled in-house. You don't get the labyrinthine sort of arrangement where different cover is arranged by various companies and underwritten by someone else entirely and you lose track of who's responsible for what. In Churchill's case, it seems to handle most things itself although breakdown cover is provided by Green Flag Motoring Assistance. This is, predictably, an RBS company.

The one exception seems to be motorcycle insurance, which is arranged through Devitt Insurance Services, another RBS company. This is a specialist broking service that uses a panel of insurers to get the best policy. Bizarrely, the website states that this 'gives you more choice', even though it is the only type of insurance where choice is available.

Churchill offers the usual range of policies - car, home, travel, breakdown, van, motorcycle and, inevitably for a company with a dog as its public face, pet insurance. Income protection, which figures on the website, is no longer provided.

Most insurance generally comes with an online discount and various other offers may be available, although some are time-limited. Free breakdown insurance cover when you buy car insurance, however, is an offer that seems to be long-lasting as does discounted cover for children on travel insurance and 24-hour accident recovery with van insurance.

Most policies come with optional extras so you can get exactly the cover you want. However, ticking the boxes does boost the price ... considerably in some cases. Many of the pages on the website also list a number of tips that are related to the cover.

In true Churchill tradition, you can ask a question, although don't expect to 'challenge Churchill'. One of the most frequently asked questions seems to be 'How much is a Nodding dog?' and you really can buy one. There's even a talking soft toy version that will say 'Oh yes' as often as you want.

Churchill does offer cheap insurance across a wide range and has won awards for it. This includes Best Online Motor Insurance Provider and Best Online Home and Contents Insurance Provider back in 2007 and, inevitably, Best Online Pet Insurance Provider in 2009.

The Finance Markets website (www.financemarkets.co.uk) has endorsed the good value of the policies. However, customers have apparently complained of slow claims processing, unhelpful service and being kept hanging on the telephone (complaints reflected on our review boards across the RBS range). This is despite the company making UK call centres a feature of its service.

The official site, which you should probably note, is www.churchill.com (with www.churchill.co.uk working too). †

13/01/2010 I found their quote to be one of the most expensive around. If you are over 40 I suggest you try Tesco or Admiral, they were less than half the price quoted by Churchill.

11/03/2009 My stationary car was hit from behind by a van pushing me forward into another car.That was on 15-6-2008.The van drivers insurance company (NIG) admitted full liability to Churchill on 30-7-2008. Churchill offered me £300 as a write off value for my car. I refused to accept such a ridiculous figure, complained to the FOS , and Churchill then agreed to revalue at £700.
So What's my complaint? I spent over ten hours in phone calls costing over £50 trying to get them to actually part with the money.I registered many many complaints on their system and at the time of writing (11-3-2009) some nine months later I am still waiting for full payment. Almost every person I have spoken to on their endless supply of telephone numbers insist they can't actually alter what's on the screen or claim it's not their department. I have recorded a conversation with NIG stating that they admitted liability in full to "Charisse" at Churchill on30-7-2008. I'm still waiting for the final payment.