First Alternative Car Insurance (Reviews)

FirstAlternative and its sister site for women, Sheila's Wheels, are insurance brands from Peter Wood who initiated Direct Line car insurance and also runs Esure for the banking group Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) - that gives them some serious background compared to rival start ups. First Alternative offer motor insurance and personal loans, not an unusual combination in this industry, with both available from their website at FirstAlternative.com.

The website is easy to navigate, has comprehensive guidance as to its use and you can download policy summaries and e-booklets. It provides a whole page of information in case you need to contact the company regarding claims, legal protection, and customer service or to receive a quote, phone numbers, type talk and text phone or email. There is usually a discount for buying online, but, for those who prefer a chat, you can use the hotline phone number.

The company has three offices in the UK, Manchester and Glasgow are the chief claims and sales handling offices and the head office in Reigate accommodates the marketing, underwriting, IT, corporate analysis, communications and finance departments. Reigate is also the accounts and customer relations centre.

As for their angle in the ever-crowding insurance market: First Alternative believe that around forty percent of private motorists could be considered non-standard because of their driving history, how many claims and convictions they have, the type of car they drive, their occupation and age etc. They saw that many insurance providers were not allowing much wiggle room for these variables, which left numerous drivers paying really high premiums and if they bought through brokers, they were also paying up to twenty percent commission rates.

So their bottom line is that if you are paying more than three hundred pounds a year for your car insurance they suggest seeing if they can save you money. This can be helped through their 75% no claims discount offering which exceeds the majority of insurers. First Alternative Car Insurance offers comprehensive, third party fire and theft or third party only policies and extras to allow you to decide the cover you need. Comprehensive insurance includes a courtesy car as standard, (as long as you use one of their recommended repairers of course), with Legal Expenses and breakdown cover being offered as optional extras.

Interestingly, they split the bottom age cut off by gender - with insurance available as long as you are aged nineteen for women or twenty one for men - with the top cut off being aged eighty. You also must have at least one year's no claims discount. The finance section of the website seems to be your usual finance provider set up, offering personal loans from three to twenty five thousand, with fixed terms and a choice of repayment periods. †

24/10/2008 First Alternative offer a 10% discount for new customers buying car insurance online: they make this clear on their front page, so that was a good start. Oddly they also require an upfront declaration that you're not a professional model, TV presenter or circus ringmaster - luckily I am none of these things, so was able to continue. They try to sell you breakdown insurance cover before giving you your quote, which I found annoying. In the end, their quote was not at all competitive: they were the second most expensive place I tried. They definitely wouldn't be my first alternative.

23/09/2008 Very simple site ... by that I mean skeletal. Once you get past the first page all the info is at hand but it just looks so ... bare! All in purple, no graphics other than their logo, everything fits into the corner of my browser - might be that it's supposed to give the feeling of being budget, but comes across to me as just cheap. Didn't get a quote in the end, last time I did with a budget type site I was unhappy with the lack of expense spent on customer service too.