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Consumer Affairs


Bristol West Insurance


Consumer Complaints & Reviews

Bristol West has provided horrible service with my insurance policy. Last year, I was in an accident for which I was not at fault. I discovered one year later that Bristol West had flagged me "at fault" and overcharged me. When I brought it to their attention, they issued a credit, however, I am unable to verify whether they reimbursed me correctly because every time I added or deleted a car, they changed the assignment of drivers and it's impossible to figure it out.

I decided to cancel my policy on 11/17/11 and they took out my December deduction after I told them not to and I had to wait a full week for them to cut me a check, only to find out, they are charging me $50.00 for the privilege of cancelling. So far, I'm unsuccessful in getting it waived but I'm going to the Department of Insurance and then 7 on Your Side if that doesn't work. Sure, it's only $50, but in this economy, I need it, and it's more the principle.

Bristol West is charging me a fee to cancel my policy with them. They rationalize it by claiming that if the cell phone companies can do it, so can they. However, I'm not required to get a cell phone. I am required to get an auto insurance.

I received a renewal policy from my broker One Stop Auto Insurance in Costa Mesa, CA. They transferred me from AIG to Bristol West with a $615.80 increase in my auto insurance for bare bones minimum liability auto coverage. What is this increase based on? In August 2008, I was struck by a driver 30 years younger than me who was driving his wife's car. He looked right at me and kept driving. He took out half of my passenger car resulting in $4500 worth of damage. Am I paying for his inability to drive? This is outrageous! You people are scamming the public.

I had been with Bristol West for 3 years. It went ok. They charged my card for monthly payment until I was a little late on one month so I paid the $25 fee and called them to verify that my coverage would resume. I talked to a rep there and he assured me all would be a track again but they cancelled me, he didn't tell me what I had to do to keep the things rolling. He just said to me over the phone it's ok, all is well. I asked him 3 times! But to no avail. It was not all right! I had to start up all over again and pay freeway insurance $300 to start up a new policy. I was furious!

I work for channel 9 doing music. I know people there that are doing documentary called take the money and run! I'm going to make sure Bristol West gets the publicity they deserve for having neglectful reps on their phones telling people it's ok they sluffed me off.

They just might get on that documentary soon. It's just not fair.

I recently cancelled my coverage with Bristol West because I could not afford their rate hike. I financed a vehicle and the insurance tripled. I found a better rate with another insurer. I then cancelled my policy with Bristol West and they are now charging me a fee to cancel. Please help!

I received a check from Bristol West Insurance Group in the amount of $3880.30. A letter from Reader's digest accompanied the check saying that I had won $355,069.00 in a sweepstakes draw. The letter went on to say that the credit department of Reader's digest failed to notify me back in November 2009 that I had won. I am supposed to keep this award confidential until my claim is processed and the price remitted to me. I am supposed to call a phone number to activate my claim. The letter states that they sent the check for $3880.30 to help me cover and charges that may be required before I receive my winnings. I need to know if this is a scam or if other people have received this same notice. I found one article from a Rachelle from Glendale Arizona on the consumer complaint webpage describing exactly what I have just described but she did not elaborate on whether she actually received her money or not. I could not tell whether she was complaining about Bristol West or Reader's Digest. The letter has many typos and does not sound official in some aspects. I need to know if this is a scam and I don't know where to turn.

I had liability insurance through Bristol West Insurance with coverage for bodily injury $25,000 per person/50,000 per accident and Property Damange 25,000. I rear ended an individual on 4/10/09 and they denied paying for the damage to the vehicle that I hit, stating that I had non-onwer coverage, and they declined repair to the other vehicle. I was also informed by John L. that the damage to the other vechile was covered under my policey.

than I recieved a call from Amber Houston on 11/20/09 stating that their investigation shows that they are not responsible to cover damage to the other vechile, but my policey has 25,000 for peroprty damage. Bristol West insurance paid on another claim on my policey and sent and adjustor out on 02/26/09 for an accident that did not involve me and the individual in the accident was not on my policy, now how cam they pay on one policy and deny another. I have documents to back up my verification of the matter.

The individual who car I hit have requested the state to suspend my licenses and place me in jail because of an error on Bristol West Part. I legally had liability coverage at the time of the accident. The Bristol West Insurance representative are very rude and unprofessional, if I have a polocy which states coverage why they will not pay. I paid for the policy. the total damages total $891.00. I have no where else to turn. please help

I recieved a check from Bristol West Insurance Group for the amount of $3,580.90 and that I had won $255,069.00 in a Readers Digest sweepstake draw held on Oct 17th 2009. That I was to contact a Peter Hingo or Megan Haye at the number provided to claim my prize and then I could deposit the check. How can anyone trust an insurance company that helps to scam people and get their hopes up in a time of recession? I suggest that the company do some investigating of it's own if they want to save their reputation and maybe they should make restitution on some of these checks that are out!

My daughter just turned 18 last week; As part of her moving out process it was our decision to put the vehicle we had given her into her name. As such, she also needed the auto insurance in her name, as opposed to our policy. She and I spent quite some time searching for the right coverage at the right price. She is a full time college student with a part time job and very limited funds so it was imperative that she be able to afford the insurance before she made her big move out of the house.

In helping her fill out one of the on line forms for quotes - I accidentally put in MY birthdate instead of hers. The agent quoted the insurance and it came back really low. We immediately got him on the phone and made sure that he had the CORRECT information because his price was too good to be true. He acknowledged the change of birthdate and we have an e-mail from him CONFIRMING HER AGE AND THE RATE. (per our conversation). We decided to purchase the policy and when he finally found the time to send it over, via e-mail - it still had MY birthdate on it.

Now he is backpeddling - accusing US of insurance fraud and that we gave him bad information...EVEN THOUGH WE HAVE HIS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF HER ACTUAL AGE ON HIS OWN E-MAIL! The rates will now double / which she cannot afford and he is threatening to cancel her insurance. Whatever happened to good quality customer service? Everyone makes mistakes but when that happens the situation should be dealt with and not ignored; This guy is a real piece of work. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

This letter is in response to your letter dated August 4, 2009 from Bristol West Insurance Group to Karla B. I disagree with your findings that your insured has no liability for damages to my vehicle. I understand your obligation is to you insured but this claim needs to be reviewed again.


This was a 4-vehicle accident, my vehicle being last to be hit. The vehicle that was ticked in the accident was your driver Patrick, for failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident. The other drivers were not ticketed in the accident. The reason why they were not ticketed was due to the fact that the Bolingbrook Police Department had reason to believe that Patrick was the contributory cause of this accident. Therefore it is not believed that Patrick drove to the accident site of an existing accident. When Patrick arrived at the accident site he caused the initial impact, which that impact was so hard it totaled her car then was forced into them.

I am aware that Bristol West Insurance Group has already sent out an adjuster to review the damages to my vehicle. The estimate they gave was just under $ 500.00.

The evidence regarding this accident is unfavorable to you driver, and does show that the impact he had was the initial impact and the contributory cause of this accident.

I look forward to hearing from you soon to resolve this claim. I have made several calls over the phone to contact Bristol West Insurance Group regarding my disagreement but none of my phone calls have been returned from Karen T or her manager Gary.

We had a total loss situation, for a 2007 Ford F150 pickup. Because of Bristol Wests mistakes, delays, incompetance, it took 4 and a half months to resolve this claim. After three CCC reports, due to their mistakes, sloppy paperwork, wrong names,dates, and wrongly denied coverages, they wanted to give us an unreasonable settlement, approx $5000 less than the vehicle was worth.

I was rear ened by one of thier insurred in may of this year and all i get is the run around from them. Here it is now Aug 5th. I had a passenger in my car which is a witness to the accident but they fail to do thier job and contact him to get a statement to what happened. They keep telling me that person rear ended my car wont give his statement but I feel they are using it as an excuss to not do the right thing when I had my co worker in the passerger seat. When I first reported the claim they didnt want his info at all. Its seems so shady that I cant get my car fixed and there is tons of complaints against this company on the internet with the same problem as I have.

I have a trouble with my insurance company called Bristol west. The person of insurance company who is in charge of me; her office is in Phoenix. I have received a check from my insurance company due to a collision issue of my car. However, I needed to send it to Toyota Financial once to get their signature, but they never recieved the check and I thought the check has been lost somewhere.

Then I am trying to reach the person at the insurance company to let her know all the details regarding this issue. However she never answers the phone, and I left her messages more than 3 or 4 times. I also had talked to the other representative and told her all the issue I am suffering, but she said that I only can leave a message to the person and I have to wait till she calls me back. I have been wasting my time by calling this person for more than 3 weeks so far, and I am seriously concered about my check.

When my husbang died, I wanter to take his name of the policy, They made me start the policy over charged me almost three hundred dollars, When I wanted to remove to cars from my policy they said I had to start a new policy again! They again charged me alost three hundred dollars! then! They said I was not covered for two monthes! and told me I had to pay two hundered more dollers to continue my policy! I called canceled the policy! now I am getting bills from them for five hundred dollars! no more!

I made a $6.00 payment on my debit card and received a confirmation # for the $6.00, due on 4.22.09, but it actually debited $108.00, which was due on 4.25.09. This overdrew my bank account, which has resulted in $289.71 in overdraft fees and I was told by a customer care rep at Bristol on 4.20.09 to fax the info over to them but she "doubted" that they would reimburse me. My insurance agent also called Bristol and he was told the same thing. I am contacting the Better Business Bureau and the Colorado Insurance Commissioner regarding this issue, and I am mailing a letter to Bristol today. I will fight them as far and as long as I have to on this. I filed a dispute with my bank and am awaiting the paperwork to fill out.

due to some sort of mistake made by my insurance agent caused some sort of second policy that was termanated incorrectly resulting in a bill for over five hundred dollars sent to collections which how now become a daily problem for me because of harassing phone calls from bristol wests collection agency i went to farmers to get leonna to clear up the mistake she assured me she would take care of it and appoligized for my inconvienence but two months later i still recive bills and phonecalls on a daily basis

This is an attempt to bring this case up to date and continue moving forward. With that I am asking for your full cooperation and speedy assistance with this. D. G was the Insurance Adjuster who has been dealing with us in this matter. On December 29, 2008 Corinna was in an accident with her 2003 Ford Ranger Pick up. Because of the black Ice and weather conditions she was not speeding or driving recklessly, however the accident still happened minutes from our home. Since then we have had the most difficult time with communication with Bristol West.

I am concerned because of the threats and intimidation to Cory about releasing her truck and signing off the title so that she would receive what Darrell deemed an appropriate amount for her truck. Cory is 20 years old a new mother and a hard worker. She didnt need the added aggravation of this type of behavior. Cory, like so many other people who pay for insurance expect to be covered and treated with the utmost respect when a tragedy strikes. Cory was given, what myself and so many other people believe a very low estimate of what her truck was worth. With all expectation that she would just take it. I also feel like she was treated like a statistic and not a human being with feelings or emotions.

Since all of this has happened we have dropped Bristol West from our insurance coverage. This is what I would like to see happen within a very short time. A re evaluation of what the truck is worth. A fair and speedy settlement to Skowhegan Bank so that Corinna can move on with her life. An apology letter to Corinna for the conduct and unfair business practice of Bristol West and its employees.

To date no settlement has been made therefore 2 Vehicle payments need to be made. Resulting in a severe financial hardship.

My daughter has been paying for full coverage on her truck for over a year now. She had an unfortunate accident on some Black Ice a few weeks ago. And this company has been bullying her and treating her with such disrespect all for the intensive purpose of paying her the least amount of money. Instead of working with her and explaining things to her as they should since she is 20 years old. They have been forcing her to make irrational decisions and have caused even more distress in her life.

The stress that my daughter has endured while taking care of her 11 month old baby, working and healing from the accident has been unbelievable. Now the Company is giving her only a very minimal amount of money towards her new truck which is leaving her with a financial burden that should have been covered.

We were in an accident on 10/08/08. The person that hit us was found guilty in court and the person's insurance company has refused to pay for the damage to our car. They never return phone calls or anything. An adjuster was quick to come and look at our vehicle but they won't do anything. We are extremely frustrated and we noticed that they have numerous other complaints filed against them as well.

We received a notice that there was a class action suit over 3 years ago and I needed to do NOTHING to be included, but have not received any other information, Please advise what to do!

We are still waiting for refund

Cancelled insurance policy, after payment had been sent on time for non-payment of premium, could not locate the check that was mailed to them for 3wks. after recieving a cancellation letter from the company on September 01, 2007 sent a letter requesting that they enforce the cancellation and return the payment, they proceesed the payment and offered to send a $17.00 refund check. After they unable to verify that they had received the payment on September 07, I obtained a new policy with a different provider, but i'm being charged for services they did not render.

No resolution at this time. However this caused great emotional and financial stress.

I was in an accident September 7th, 2005, not my fault at all, I called the morning of the accident knowing I only had liability, but I wasn't sure if I had towing and I asked the claim dept. and they said no - you have liability only. Then I recieved a check in the mail 15 days after my accident, and I thought maybe since I didn't have a car to insure anymore, they returned my premium. Then my Laywer recieves a letter from my insurance company stating that I was cancelled due to non-payment. The funny part was that I had auto-withdrawal from my bank account setup - so I went and found where they withdrew the money and sent that in prooving that I did pay them, happened to be the day before they say I was cancelled. Then they wrote another letter stating that in fact they made a mistake, I was really cancelled for non-proof of mileage. Another bogus reason - but I don't know how to proove that they never even asked me for some kind of proof of mileage.

So, now even though the accident I was in, wasn't my fault and because Bristol West (my insurance carrier) is playing this unbelievably cruel game, I will not get the settlement that would set this accident straight and at least if nothing else get my life where it was before the accident. All because they won't say yes I was legal, I had insurance, so the driver that fell asleep at the wheel on the highway, who hit me head on gets away scott free and I'm left more broken than I ever thought possible. This is so wrong because I pay my insurance expecting when something were to happen that I would be OK, and turns out surprise, surprise, that Bristol West /Coast National Insurance gets away with this cruel treatment. I can't afford to sue them for bad faith, even though I would win.

I called the Marshall Insurance Agency, who utilize Bristol West Insurance Group as an underwriter. Marshall Insurance originally quoted standard liability insurance rates for me of $76 per month, without any tickets or accidents in the last three years, plus a non-refundable processing charge of $60. Each consequtive month, the insurance rate was raised. After four months, the rate was raised to the amount of $92 a month, plus a $11 Installment fee, and a $10 late fee. The total was $113 each month. The first excuse; Bristol said that the rates were being raised as a result of going through Marshall Ins Agency to utilize them. This was not brought to my attention prior to the original contract being signed. The second excuse; a ticket from over three years earlier had not yet been removed from my record.

As a result, I called Geico and was quoted a rate $71 for the first four months, and the last two were free. They showed that I had no tickets on record. The end result was a savings of $480 in a six month period by switching to Geico.

I have had insurance through Bristol West Insurance (brokerage--Eastwood Insurance) for over two years. When I was to renew my insurance in July, I received notices in May that my insurance would be coming up for renewal. The first year I was insured, my monthly payments were $70+ per month (I can't remember exact figure). For 2002, I was informed that I would receive a good driver discount and my payments were down to $66 per month.

I had a DUI on my record, of which Eastwood Insurance was aware, and when my insurance came up for renewal in 2003, I was told that I had not been entitled to that good driver discount. Now my payments are approx. $84/month. It seems to me that this company is trying to recoup the fees for the discount that they gave me last year. Isn't the amount of insurance supposed to go down every year? Now it's higher than the first year I was with this company. Is there something wrong here or am I mistaken?


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