Direct Line Insurance

2 stars gained ONLY because they allow named drivers to accrue a no claims discount and because they were also cheapest as a result. Also the security people at the Direct Line offices were REALLY nice to us.
3 stars off for a couple of reasons
1. We were going to add OH’s dad onto our policy, however despite being a current direct line customer and having maximum no claims discount and no accidents, it was going to add 25% onto our premium — super super lame.
2. The cracker however, is that they do not give you instant proof of cover. They will not email you or fax to you or to the DVLA a copy of your insurance certificate. Instead they say the post is safer!!! Laughable — if not for the fact that we bought a used car on 28^th Dec, insured it immediately, picked it up on 30^th and the tax disc is up on the 31^st!
This lack of instant documentation meant that we were unable to tax our car, and, living in a city with no private, off-​road parking, the situation was forcing us to break the law for goodness knows how long till our documentation arrived in the post. We were not informed about this policy when taking out the insurance, but when on the phone to them today, complaining, we were told that lots of people had such complaints and had been in a similar situation. I have made the suggestion that they tell customers that they will not be able to tax their vehicles immediately, especially when it is over a holiday time and at a time when the post is massively backlogged.
They were not swaying on their decision not to fax the documention, and could not offer any suggestion what we should do about the parking situation — despite the DVLA saying that they should have faxed the certificate.argggh.
We did get it sorted out, no thanks to them — we trekked over to Glasgow to pick up the certificate in person — this was deemed to be a HUGE favour and MASSIVE inconvenience and TOTALLY AGAINST POLICY. Security people at the call centre were very nice, however the manager who handed the policy down to the security desk did not even look the road we were on — super super rude.
In short, if you need instant proof of cover, stay away!