Poaching clients

I was amused to read your article (News analysis, 21 October) on Royal & SunAlliance (R&SA) aiming to become "the UK's premier branded insurer" and "an organisation that is good to do business with" in view of a recent case we have had with the insurer.

We recently handled an inquiry from a client who wanted a motor quote. He was disabled and a non-driver. Driving was to be by four named drivers who were his carers.

The vehicle was modified to carry a wheelchair.

A member of my staff phoned our usual personal lines broking division of R&SA to discuss the case. But having been pushed from pillar to post she was advised that she would need to be transferred to the More Th>n division.

Our member of staff just assumed this was a special team to deal with non-standard inquiries for brokers. She then proceeded to obtain a quote for the client from More Th>n which was around £1,200. The client expressed an interest in this and asked for details of the quote in writing.

When she approached the More Th>n team to obtain a fax of the quote, the insurer refused to send anything via ourselves. It became apparent to all parties that something was wrong.

It transpired that R&SA's broker helpline has indeed referred us to their direct arm (apparently because their computer system could not cope with non-driving policyholders and More Th>n's system could).

More Th>n was quite happy to take the inquiry from us, but not deal with us or pay us.

Accepting this as a genuine error I approached R&SA again to ask it to look into the matter. Various departments were blamed before we were asked to fax the client information in and I hoped they would find a way to honour the quote.

The next day R&SA came back to us to announce that they could indeed quote for this but the premium was around £3,500.

Needless to say we did not put this premium to the client who I believe, thanks to our introduction, is now insured by

More Th>n.

SimonWaring
Ryburne Brokers
Hebden Bridge