Hello, real world

Well well well.

After a few days away in Budapest* (which were frankly ace. Partly due to architecture, partly due to grisly recent history, partly due to esoterically-clothed locals, but mainly due to excellent company), I am firmly back in the real world now. Firmly.

As part of my re-integration into CorporateLand I am giving up my company car and as a result I have to get personal car insurance again.

Kill me now, it would be easier.

I could tell you about the part where third party only insurance is the same price as fully comprehensive**, I could tell you about the bit where reducing the voluntary excess from £200 to £0 actually resulted in a lower premium, I could tell you about the phone calls with various insurance agencies through which I was spoken to in a manner that I would expect had I opened the conversation with "Hello, my name is Andrew and I would like to shag your mother.".

But no.

Here's the tale.

I wanted to give my current insurer the chance to quote a price, I did it online (as we do everything these days), the quoted a price in the region of double that I had already been quoted elsewhere, so I wanted to talk to somebody, mano-e-mano.

I scoured the website for a contact number. the only number I could find was a premium-rate con, which felt like a complete insult. I emailed the helpdesk;

"Hello,

I have a current policy with you and I want to change my car. I have been quoted on your site, but the price is a lot higher than I can get elsewhere.

Is there a number I can call to talk to someone without being charged 10p per minute, or should I just move the business elsewhere and cancel my current policy?

Thanks and regards,

Andrew"

Here's their response;

Laugh my tits off? Oh yes.

Please note - this blog post was brought to you under the influence of a whole bottle of Rioja and I am a lightweight, so please excuse any grammatical, spelling, syntax or typo errors. The keys on this keyboard are considerably closer together than usual.

NDC

* - I will blog about this, I promise,
** - If you're overseas and don't know what this means, hit me up in the comments and I will elucidate.