Visit Virgin Insurance >>Name: Virgin Insurance No. of Reviews: 2
The Virgin brand seems to be taking over the world these days and is likely to spread even further when Virgin Galactic takes up its first space tourist. However, at $200,000 a ticket, none of us are in the queue.
Virgin Money at www.virginmoney.co.uk was launched in 1995 (although originally known as Virgin Direct) and has picked up a host of awards since then. The most recent ones are the Best Credit Card Provider (Balance Transfer Rate) in the 2008 Moneyfacts Awards and its Climate Change Fund being named Product of the Month by What Investment magazine in March of the same year. In the previous year's Your Money Direct Awards, it won the Best Online Credit Card Provider, Best Pet Insurance Provider and Best Motor Insurance Provider categories.
Insurance is offered under the usual car, home, travel and pet insurance headings with cover underwritten by UK Insurance Limited, a member of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group. Most have an online discount, with other time limited offers sometimes available.
Home insurance comes with a fixed amount of cover on buildings. Contents cover includes Christmas presents and music downloads, with a Money News article in October 2008 including a warning from Virgin Money that other household insurance may not cover downloads. With an estimated 200 million legal music downloads since 2004 and 85% of the top twenty singles now being bought in digital form, this maybe shouldn't be taken lightly. Virgin promises cover of up to £3000 ... providing receipts are available, which will no doubt be a problem to some, if not most, people. Though we'd imagine that if you kick up some fuss, your credit card statement should suffice for most claims. Hey, the guy that complained about Virgins in-flight food got a consultancy position - so who knows?
Car insurance 'goes the extra mile' (terrible pun) and has optional breakdown cover while pet insurance has three levels of cover and discounts for additional pets. It can also provide cover for damage caused by a pet, advertising and a reward if the pet goes missing and the costs of looking after a pet if its owner goes into hospital. Travel insurance has a 24 hour emergency claim line and cover for the whole family on an annual policy, even if travelling separately.
The website (www.virginmoney.com) features life cover and cancer cover but the former is not currently offered while the latter is no longer available. Both were provided by Scottish Widows, another Royal Bank of Scotland Group company ... for the moment. Keep an eye out for changes though.
There are the prospects of Virgin's net spreading even further, with rumoured plans for an internet bank. Having previously failed to buy Northern Rock, the Guardian reported in May 2009 that Richard Branson was looking to follow Tesco into the banking sector in an attempt to caitalise on public discontent with traditional banks. The options were apparently to start a new bank, buy an existing one such as Northern Rock or go into partnership with another financial organisation. Whatever happens, the brand seems set to grow even further. †
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03/12/2009 First, I was redirected to the strangest website address for a quote -- uk1.u-k-i.com -- thought my computer had one of those viruses! But I asked my brother (who works with these things) and he said that it's because Virgin are not offering hte insurance direct, it's from Bank of Scotland. So I carried on, the form looked nice and short with a "get a quote button" at the bottom. After filling in three more pages of data and clicking "get a quote" for the fourth time it showed me a price which was half what I'm paying now! Yay! ... until I realised that I didn't understand ANY of the funny wording at the bottom and would need to call int eh morning ...