The Insurance Emporium Reviews

I haven't been impressed by this company, and we haven't even needed to make a claim. I set up a new policy for my wife (cycling insurance). I paid for this on my card as I was tasked with setting it up that day. Nothing online on the insurer website warned me I would have any issues doing this. The payment was accepted online (no warnings etc) and a policy seemed to be set up. However, my wife was eventually emailed to say this insurer wanted to check the payment as it was being made from a card with a different first name (surname and address the same). Despite my wife confirming this was OK, the company wouldn't just accept it from her. They also needed to hear it from me. Funnily enough, an email from me was sufficient (so not exactly a clear way to certify a payee). In the interim, I had had a separate problem with my bank card and the insurer suddenly took the payment without giving me a date when this would happen. I got a payment declined message from my bank and emailed the insurer immediately to clarify I noticed the declined payment and that they would need to retake the payment after that day as I had managed to sort out the issue. I got a reply saying they would wait for payment declined confirmation to come through and then retake the payment. At that stage they did not warn me (the payee) they will charge me £3.99 to retake the payment (the policy is just over £60). Instead, I get an email the next day to say they will retake the payment in 2-3bbusiness days and there will be this fee. I don't get this company - they have strange rules about payment; don't exercise common sense; lack a sense of humility (not once have I had an apology from them to suggest their communication from the start at the point of original policy set up and payment could have been a lot better); and impose fees on brand new customers which almost guarantees them being alienated and going elsewhere. I don't know if they will waive this ridiculous fee. I hope they do as the principal of it is completely off. I really don't care about the 3.99 but I don't like the approach the insurance emporium has had throughout this whole process. Other, much more expensive and complicated insurance policies with bigger companies have always been a lot smoother to set up than this.

I would not recommend insuring with this company. My bike was insured with them, and after it was stolen, it took over a month to get my claim processed. Communication was incredibly slow — it often took a week or more to get a reply to emails, and I was asked for the same information I'd already provided. This dragged the process out unnecessarily and caused a lot of frustration, especially since I rely on my bike to get to work and was left without transport for weeks. To make matters worse, when the claim was finally paid, the amount was hundreds of pounds short of what it would cost to replace the bike like-for-like. That said, whenever I called, the customer advisors were always friendly and as helpful as they could be over the phone. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make up for the delays and lack of efficiency in handling the claim. Overall, I expected a much smoother and quicker process and wouldn’t feel confident insuring with them again.