23 March 2025
By Elaine Murphy
elaine@TheCork.ie
Opinion: Insurance companies like electronic communication because it saves on printing and postage costs, but is there a catch?
In the olden days my annual car insurance renewal letter would arrive by post. The envelope would contain everything from the euro figure being requested to the terms and conditions, to the no claims statement.
But, these days, the renewal “letter” arrives in an online email. It contains a euro total, and a “click here to renew button”. It does not contain terms and conditions. Before renewing this years policy with AvivaDirect Ireland a screen message says I should be sure I have read the small print.
….Have you checked the following before renewing to make sure all information is correct?
Renewal invitation
Statement of fact, including your address where your car is parked overnight…
No claims bonus statement...
But in order to read the small print I must login to “MyAviva” for which I do not have a user name or password to hand. I wonder how many people are renewing their policies and may not take the time to try and login, and are merely ticking a box saying they read the small print?
If you want someone to read the terms and conditions, you can never prove they actually read them, sure, but the words should at least have been presented to a customer on screen or paper.
Might the current situation suit an insurance company? Yes, because it also keeps the “No claims bonus statement” behind a user/pass. If you want to move a car insurance policy to another insurance company in Ireland you need a reference number from that cert, so making it difficult to access in any fashion reduces the chances of moving.
But at least the insurance company state the euro figure in their email. When my gas company switched to “paperless billing” they used to hide even that saying “a new message for you is available online”. Sometimes the message was a bill, other times it was a promotional message. Net result, the first I’d know of the bill was when the direct debit went through.