My current car insurance is through Lloyds, valid until 28th May

Now, I like to think of myself as fairly organised – so, 30th april I go online, log in with my details to the site and get a quote for next year

print off my new quote, good price (£245 fully comp, protected), valid until 31st may it says at the bottom, my car reg, all details right, and gives me a quote reference that is my existing account reference, all well and good, says I would have to do it via phone as I’m an existing customer.

Do the scoot round the comparison sites, and am mildly impressed that my quote from Lloyds comes out about a tenner cheaper than any of the comparison sites – perfect thinks I, I’ll phone up and go ahead with it.

“sorry, we can’t renew your policy yet as it hasn’t entered out renewals cycle yet”

ok, right, but I’ve got a quote here from your system on my account, can’t I use that?

“we would have to charge you £25 to cancel your existing insurance and transfer it to a new one”

Eh? Why’s that then? The quote is already registered to my account, and says its valid till 31st May.

“yes, its on your account but it might be different when it enters our renewal cycle”

But I’ve got a quote thats valid till 31st may here – back and forth with more of the same till I ask to speak a supervisor. apparently when I do a quote online, even though I did it on my account, it can’t be honoured until after its in their renewal cycle around the 9th of may – even though the system let me process my own quote that they accept is supposedly valid until 31st May.

So, a forty minute kafkaesque loop of back and forth with me pointing out that it was ludicrous that they had given me a valid quote on my own account that they could not guarantee to honour if the renewal figure came out higher (as I, and I’m sure you too, would strongly suspect it would have!)

Eventually they took my point that it was ludicrous and have honoured the online quote price and I’m sorted for another year at a good price, but, well, I’m just gobsmacked at how shite the whole system is!