Ageas Insurance offers tons of different insurance policies through brokers, financial advisers and intermediary companies. It also sells its own home insurance and car insurance directly online. Find out more about this top insurer who is fast becoming a household name in the UK insurance market, including Ageas Insurance reviews, contact details and whether going through a broker is right for you.
All about Ageas Insurance
Ageas Insurance may not be one of the immediate names you think of when looking into insurance, but it is actually one of the biggest insurers in the UK. With over 5 million customers, Ageas Insurance is Britain's fourth largest car insurer, fifth largest home insurer and seventh largest general insurer.
The insurance provider is part of the larger Belgium insurance group of the same name: Ageas, which is the biggest insurance company in Belgium. Ageas Belgium has operations in an additional 14 countries (including the UK). It can trace its roots all the way back to 1824.
Timeline of Ageas
- 1824 - The roots of Ageas are founded with the creation of Belgian life insurer Assurances Générales (today AG Insurance).
- 1939 - The company starts to offer insurance policies in the UK.
- 1990 - AG Insurance buys Dutch insurer AME/VSB to form the financial services company Fortis. In the UK, the company operates under the name Fortis Insurance International.
- 2003 - The insurer launches its first independent insurance brand, Rias, in the UK.
- 2005 - The company joins forces with Age UK and specialises in providing insurance for the eldery.
- 2007-2010 - Fortis breaks-up and sells its operations as a result of the financial crisis. Its remaining insurance operations are rebranded to Fortis Holding.
- 2008 - In the UK, the provider starts its partnership with John Lewis Insurance.
- 2009 - It starts working with Tesco bank and together they form Tesco Underwriting.
- 2010 - Fortis Holding undergoes a name change to become Ageas. Its subsidiary operating in the UK becomes Ageas Insurance International.
- 2011 - Ageas UK joins with General Motors.
- 2019 - The insurer has 5 million customers and is the UK’s seventh largest general insurer.
How does it operate in the UK?
Ageas Insurance is a bit different to a lot of providers operating in the UK insurance market. It does not sell all of its policies directly to the public. In other words, you can not simply head to the Ageas website and buy an insurance policy, like you can do with other providers.
The only way you can buy most Ageas insurance policies is through insurance brokers, financial advisers and other intermediary firms that Ageas has made deals with.
However, there is an exception for home and car insurance. Ageas sells one home insurance and one car insurance policy directly. We will look into these below.
Currently, Ageas is in partnership with a range of UK companies, such as Age UK (coming soon) and John Lewis Financial Services (coming soon). It also owns the general insurer Rias (coming soon) and is the joint owner of Tesco Underwriting. So you might have come into contact with the provider more times than youthought.
Ageas Insurance Limited: what policies does it offer?
As mentioned above, you cannot buy all Ageas insurance policies online. This means there is little to no information about these policies on the Ageas website or elsewhere on the internet, making it a bit of a challenge to review some of its policies!
What we can look into is the two policies Ageas insurance does sell on their website: Ageas home insurance and Ageas car insurance. We will also take a little look at some of the features Ageas travel insurance includes, even though you cannot purchase this through Ageas directly.
Ageas home insurance
Ageas’ own home insurance policy is called Ageas Elastic. The emphasis of this policy is placed on putting the customer in control as much as possible. For example, it has:
- lots of optional extras you can add on to the base policy.
- No yearly contract - you pay monthly with a rolling contract and can cancel at any time.
- Flexibility on the excess you wish to pay.
To be honest, the only point that is particularly unique here is the rolling contract where you are not tied into the policy for a year. Most providers offer extras and let you choose how much excess you want to pay, but will tie you into a 12 month contract.
To see if anything else sets Ageas Elastic home insurance apart from the crowd, check out our complete guide to Ageas home insurance (coming soon).
Ageas car insurance
The car insurance (guide coming soon) offered by Ageas is fairly standard and includes an uninsured driver promise (meaning you are still covered if you are hit by an uninsured driver), and the promise to provide onward transport to any destination in the UK if your car breaks down or becomes undrivable following an accident.
There is also a range of extras you can choose to add on to boost your cover, such as legal expenses cover, breakdown cover, replacement car cover, key protection cover and personal accident cover. Find out more about what these extras include in Selectra’s Ageas car insurance guide (coming soon).
Ageas travel insurance
Through brokers and intermediary firms, Ageas provides travel insurance for single trips, annual multi-trips, long-stay trips and business trips. For each, there is only one level of cover, but there is the option to add on extra insurance, e.g. baggage insurance, cover for weddings abroad and winter sports cover.
For more information on the base policies and optional add-ons, head to our Ageas Travel insurance guide.
Are there advantages to buying insurance through a broker?
The simple answer is yes, there are some advantages to buying your insurance through a broker, but there are also one or two less positive points to take into account.
Insurance brokers are experts in insurance (or at least they should be!), which means they can offer you professional advice and really help you find cover that is suitable for you. Providers that only sell policies through brokers, such as Ageas and Covea, also do not appear on comparison sites so the best way to get quotes from such companies is through a broker.
If you have special conditions for your insurance - you need home insurance for a house in a high flood risk area, or travel insurance but have pre-existing medical conditions, or car insurance for a young driver - this is where a broker can really shine. Special conditions can raise insurance premiums drastically; a broker can help you get a better deal.
However, brokers do come with some baggage. As they have to get agreements with companies in order to sell their policies, a broker can not show you quotes from every provider out there, only the ones they are contracted with. This means you can get a better range of quotes through comparison sites. And never forget that brokers are sales agents. They charge commission and might push you to buy extra cover that you don’t need.
At the end of the day, there is no right or wrong when it comes to using an insurance broker; its personal preference. But we would advise that even if you do go with a broker, still do some research so you know what type of cover you want and what a reasonable price is.
Ageas Insurance reviews
Is Ageas Insurance any good? A great way to judge an insurance provider is to see how industry professionals rate its policies. This can tell you if they are comprehensive or just literally provide you with the bare basics. To see how Ageas home insurance, car insurance and travel insurance fare with the experts, check out Selectra's respective guide (Ageas home insurance, Ageas car insurance, Ageas travel insurance).
Here we are going to take a look at some Ageas Insurance reviews from current and past customers to see what they think of its customer service. Customer service is just as important as policy features. After all, there is no point having a great policy if you can never get through to the provider to make a claim.
Ageas Insurance receives very positive reviews on Trustpilot, with an overall rating of 8.8/10. This is higher than a lot of insurance providers we have reviewed. Out of 2,775 reviews, 71% rate Ageas as excellent. Customers here praise fast and friendly customer service, as well as Ageas’ prices.
Great fast efficient service and great prices would highly recommend. Angela
Unfortunately, the provider does not fare so well on the Review Centre. Out of 116 reviews, 102 only awarded Ageas Insurance one star. The principal complaint here was that Ageas does not pay out when claims are made, and gives into other insurance companies at the cost of its customers.
Ageas is possibly one of the worst insurance companies out there They are obnoxious and rude and only want to stress you out. Do not use. They never return calls and are quick to blame yourself (sic) before entering into an investigation about a claim. Anonymous customer
While we cannot comment on whether Ageas Insurance was right to reject the claims mentioned in these reviews, we can say that it is vital that you read all documents carefully before taking out a policy. Insurance policies have loads of exclusions, (items/conditions that aren’t covered). A lot of claims are rejected because people think they are covered for something that is actually not included in their policy.
Want an idea of what home insurers typically exclude from policies? Find out what is not covered right here.
Ageas Insurance contact number: claims and complaints
As Ageas insurance sells the majority of its insurance policies through brokers, your first point of contact when it comes to questions about policies or to get a quote, is an insurance broker that sells Ageas policies.
Another option is to reach out to Ageas Insurance through social media. By sending a message via Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, you can ask Ageas any questions that you have.
Make a claim
If you have an Ageas home, car or travel insurance policy, you can find the relevant Ageas Insurance contact numbers to make a claim in Selectra's Ageas home insurance, Ageas car insurance and Ageas travel insurance guides.
How do I complain to Ageas Insurance?
You can make a complaint to Ageas Insurance for any insurance policy through the company’s online complaints form. There is a different form for every type of policy. To make a claim, go to the Ageas Insurance website, find the correct complaints form, fill in all the required information and submit the form. Ageas will get back in touch with you.
If an online complaints form isn’t for you, you can send a letter of complaint to the following address. Make sure you include your full name, address, contact details, policy or claims number and how you would like Ageas to resolve your problem in your letter. If you have already spoken to an Ageas employee about the issue, include their name and the date you spoke to them as well.
Send a letter to:
Customer Services (complaints)
Ageas Insurance Limited
Ageas House
Hampshire Corporate Park
Templars Way
Eastleigh
Hampshire
SO53 3YA
Complaints handling
If you make a complaint to Ageas Insurance, will it be resolved efficiently? Let’s take a look at Ageas’ own complaints data from July to December 2018 to find out.
In this 6 month period, Ageas Insurance received 1.33 complaints for every 1,000 policies in force, which is one of the lowest ratios we have seen. Out of these complaints, it managed to resolve 94% within a total of 8 weeks, which is on the higher end of the efficiency scale when compared to other providers.
However, Ageas only upheld 43% of the complaints it received, which means only 4.3 out of ten complaints were treated as valid and therefore resolved for the customer. This is a very low percentage. Aviva for example, upheld 74% of the complaints it received for the same time-frame, and AXA 68%.
This either means that Ageas customers spend a lot of time complaining about nothing, or Ageas Insurance has a much greater tendency than other providers to disregard its customer complaints.
Ageas Insurance login
As Ageas Insurance does offer a car and home insurance policy directly, this also means it has an online account system for these policyholders, where they can:
- Update their personal details.
- Renew their policy.
- Make changes to their policy.
- Access and download any policy documents.
To log in to your Ageas online account, follow these simple steps.
- Go to the Ageas Insurance login page. You can do this by typing “Ageas login” into your search engine. Click the result that reads “Existing Customers - Ageas” and you will be taken to the Ageas website.
- On the page, click the purple button that says Login and you will be taken to the login page.
- In the box under Username, type in the username you used to set up your account.
- In the box under Password, type in your password (there is a handy option to Show Password to make sure you spell it correctly).
- Click the purple Log in box and you will be logged in to your account.
Under the purple Log in box it reads "Remember me". If you click the little square next to this, your password and username will be saved on the device you are using. Now, everytime you wish to log in using this device, your password and username will automatically be filled in so you don’t need to remember them.
If this is the first time you want to use your online account, you will need to create an account. It’s really easy to do so. At the bottom of the login page mentioned above, there is a purple button with Register written inside. Click this button, fill in all the required details, click Create my online account and voilá, you will have your own account all set up.
Selectra’s verdict
As Ageas Insurance has so many partnerships with different insurance providers and financial services, it offers a really wide range of insurance policies. Its policies also seem to be really flexible, meaning there is likely an Ageas Insurance policy to suit everybody, which we really like here at Selectra.
However, we are not fans of the fact that the company seems to disregard a lot of the complaints it receives from its customers. Furthermore, while there is nothing wrong with offering policies through brokers, it does make it harder to compare Ageas policy prices with other providers. It’s therefore hard to ascertain whether Ageas is good value for money or not.
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| Policies appear to be very flexible and adaptable to individual needs. | Did not uphold even half of the complaints it received over a 6 month period (July-Dec 2018). |
| Customer reviews praise fast and efficient customer service. | As most policies are only offered through brokers, it’s hard to compare prices with other providers without contacting a broker. |
Data and information correct as of August 2019.
All material on this page and the selectra.co.uk website is for information purposes only and does not constitute any form of financial advice. Selectra.co.uk is not responsible for any consequences that might arise from your use of the information provided.
Other providers are available and the best deal for you will depend on your individual circumstances. Please do your own research and seek professional advice if necessary (moneyadviceservice.org.uk offers free, independent advice on all financial issues).
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