Don't buy breakdown cover from your bank

In a recent article in the Daily Telegraph, the newspaper identified five product that you should never buy from your bank. Leading the way was bundled accounts which include for a monthly fee a raft of associated "benefits" including breakdown cover and travel insurance.

There are an estimated 11  million bank customers who have bundled bank accounts in the UK and these can cost up to £350 a year.

However following a four fold increase in monthly complaints to the Financial Ombudsman, there are fears that many accounts were sold aggressively to customers by staff in branches who were incentivised to sign up customers.

The majority of the complaints relate to poor levels of cover, leading to claims being rejected. A spokesman for the ombudsman said some customers have found they would be “unable to ever make a successful claim under one of insurance based products”. Concerns are also being raised that banks are promoting these products based on their low monthly direct debit amounts and and are failing to advise clients that better, cheaper products can be bought individually as and when they are needed. 

Mark Harrison, one of our Eurobreakdown.com business Managers worked for 30 years in the High Street Banking Sector and he added:

"Towards the end of my time, working in retail banking, staff were targeted by the business to proactively sell these packaged products to customers. It was obvious that the Bank was more focused on the regular stream of monthly fee income rather providing a genuine benefits package for the customer".

Source:
www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/bank-accounts/11064192/Five-things-never-to-buy-from-a-bank.html

Author: Paul Quigley
1 September 2014