This morning via facebook Suzie Jones received a recorded delivery letter from
One Call Insurance
rejecting her application for car insurance. She has been driving without an accident for 30 years but although the letter doesn’t clearly outline the reason Suzie says she has been rejected because she is Deaf.
In order to obtain a driving license you have to declare any ‘conditions’ to DVLA for approval. There are many Deaf people driving safely driving the roads.
Like most of us we apply for car insurance online. When you have to mention your Deafness or Disability that usually involves a phone call to the company to go through a health questionnaire despite it mostly being irelevant to your ability to drive.
All Suzie asked as part of the breakdown cover package was an SMS text number – how else is she to phone their breakdown service? It isn’t an unreasonable request many other car insurance offer this to their Deaf customers – not One Call Insurance. Suzie writes on twitter they ‘wouldn’t or couldn’t provide SMS breakdown service’.
Being Deaf is not a ‘medical condition’ as she writes in her complant – it doesn’t impair her ability to drive as a freelance consultant with her own consultancy company she clearly needs her car to work.
Under the Equalities Act 2010 any company offering services both online an in any premises must make reasonable adjustments and anticipate the needs of their customers. Clearly in this instance One Call Insurance don’t. Their website has no information on access.
Their website also directs complaints to be made by phoning in the first instance – not writing or via email but a phone call. The emphasis is on YOU to ensure your claim is ‘eligible’ under their Terms and Conditions. If you are not happy after you have phoned then you can write. Hardly a friendly or accessible customer service.
Suzie has posted a full outline of her complaint on Facebook. Support her and just maybe One Call Insurance will realise they are potentially loosing 20% of business due to their inaccessible policy and practice and change. With 1 in 5 people with some degree of Deafness that is a significant number of Deaf drivers on our roads. Oh and economically we are worth £80 billion a year.
Their strapline is ‘one call does it all’. It seems only as long as you are hearing…
Disgraceful – this is the 21st century! This is discrimination in sinister, subtle clothes. I will be avoiding One-Call, I hope many other people do too.
One Call really does do it all – discrimination, lack of respect, unprofessionalism, incompetence.
What a pity Esther Rantzen’s TV programme is long gone – they would have made a wonderful song parody about this ridiculous compant!
Dear Mrs Jones,
We write to you regarding the issue that you raised concerning your request for a motor insurance policy and our Breakdown Membership contact information for deaf or hard of hearing customers.
We appreciate customer feedback of all forms and we use this to help make the service we provide to our customers even better. While we can understand your frustration, we do not accept the claims that we are running a discriminatory organisation or that we refused you insurance cover for your vehicle.
One Call Insurance has been operating since 1995 and we have never refused cover to anyone because of a disability or to anyone who is deaf or hard of hearing.
While we are familiar with and welcome customers who use the Text Relay service, in our 16 years of business we have never been approached with the request for a text breakdown service. From your enquiry, this is something that we are now looking into.
Is it important to make you aware that One Call Insurance is an insurance broker who represents a panel of different insurance companies. In order to satisfy the insurer who provided your quote, it is industry practice to acquire full details of the risk therefore it is our duty to obtain those details from you. The initial quote details confirmed that the named driver on the policy was not in employment due to disability therefore we could not place cover until the full details were verified. Due to this we do not accept your claims that cover was refused because you are deaf. The recorded delivery letter dated 7th July 2011 was requesting more information for the named driver and asking for you to contact us immediately to arrange cover.
It was not our intention to cause upset or distress and we apologise for any inconvenience caused. If you would like to discuss the matter further, please forward any enquiries or comments to Jenny Hizzett, Complaints Handling Manager at complaints@onecalldirect.co.uk.
One Call Insurance
I have responded to your letter and need to make clear, I never said I was unemployed. The issue is that free breakdown cover, included as part of the policy needs to have access for those who cannot use the phone, and this has resulted in all this hassle. You cannot use TextRelay if you breakdown, because it needs a landline connection and an electrical source.
As stated previously, SMS contact for our Breakdown Membership is something that we are now looking into from your enquiry.
Jenny Hizzett, the Complaints Handling Manager has been in contact regarding this matter.
One Call Insurance
There’s a wider question here, why do the insurers think they need to know about disability? If the DVLA have been informed and agree that someone’s disability does not prevent them from driving, then why would the insurers need to know at all, unless it is because they intend to consider discriminating by offering a higher quote, or by refusing cover.
I’m not sure Michelle but agree with you that it is a wider issue that needs to be addressed that if it has no impact regarding the DVLA it shouldn’t reflect in the information required insurers.
The same could be said of holiday insurance as although I am asthmatic and never had an asthma attack requiring medical treatment abroad ever my holiday insurance cover doubled as a result.
The AA, RAC and Green Flag Breakdown Recovery Services ALL offer SMS text services and have done for ages so why not One Call? This shouldn’t be something you’re “looking into now” but something you should have looked into years ago. At least 16 years ago in fact!
I’m not sure I’d want to use One Call anyway. They seem to have terrible reviews.
https://www.moneysupermarket.com/c/car-insurance/one-call-direct/reviews/141/
Bit late to the party but….
This isn’t exactly addressing Suzie’s issue, but I felt it worth pointing out. When I ring insurance companies, they sometimes ask “Do you have any medical conditions”. I tend to reply with “None that needs to be declared to the DVLA” – even though I may be using Typetalk which obviously marks me out as being deaf!
The key point is that they want to know if you have any conditions declarable to the DVLA, and deafness isn’t a condition that requires declaration.