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Welcome to the new Home of ! The site has now been moved to a new server

While I was about it I decided to start from scratch with a Joomla! 2.5 install. The design is largely temporary owing to how quickly I've had to put this all together

Anyway, I will try to add stuff to the site (when I figure out what to add) in time

A warning

I've decided to include this little section for anyone buying or about to buy insurance. The warning is: DO NOT BUY FROM SWINTON!

So why would I issue such a warning? Well, there are 2 reasons:

Reason 1

Home insurance. I visited the local Swindles Swinton office looking to renew my home insurance. Part-way through the conversation I was asked if I would like laptops/gadgets covered; Yes, yes I would. Would I like accidental laptop damage cover? Yes. Would I like laptop cover away from the home? Yep. All well and good, I get a price and agree to take the policy

And, lo the prophecy came to pass that I broke the screen on my £1400 Vaio laptop. Eeek! No matter, I shall just call Swinton and get it replaced. No big deal. Except... that my policy specifically does not cover laptops at all

So, on to the complaints department of Swinton. After a bit of a run-around they admit liability and offer me £310! Apparently that's (quote) "...a much improved laptop in comparison to the one you had"

Oh, well, being a tech and a programmer all my life I bow to your superiority in this arena! After all your job title has the word "technical" in it

The ridiculous, and frankly insulting, offer is Swinton's last word. These are mine

Reason 2

In January my car insurance was up for renewal so I contacted Swinton to get a quote. The quote wasn't extortionate at £516 but I knew I could do better elsewhere so I asked the operator to kindly discontinue my car insurance

I managed to insure my car with Hastings Direct for a more reasonable £436. After checking the dead-tree mail a few days later I spot a missive from Swinton. "Ah, must be my cancellation notification", I think. I could not be more wrong. It's a policy document and Direct Debit mandate for the car insurance I'd told them to cancel! And it gets better: The amount the policy costs is £980!

Not only had they ignored my cancellation but they had also completely lied about the quote amount and automatically applied it. They had also taken the first payment from my account

Now, in this instance I will admit that Swinton refunded the payment and cancelled the policy after I had complained, but that fact that it was even allowed to happen is shocking

So I will let you decide for yourself but of the two policies I had with Swinton I had problems with both. I had to deal with annoying and lengthy phone calls during work hours and I currently feel completely frustrated

I am, however, considering purchasing Swinton shares as the lies they use to suck in custom, and even better remove the customer from the equation altogether, is magnificent. They must be raking it in!