"The path of my life is strewn with cowpats from the Devil's own satanic herd.” - Edmund Blackadder.
Mine is much smoother than that but sometimes the stress of simply making a change to the vehicle you own makes you feel like you are treading through a cowpat minefield.
Sorted today. A total of 134 minutes of phone time! Luckily, my mobile contract has unlimited minutes....
Coming soon....
What a fiasco. I logged into the insurance company's app that simply takes the user to the internet and their usual website.
One of the options is to amend your policy online, be that change of vehicle or address etc... I chose vehicle.
Then entered the details over several screen about the (possible) update vehicle. After about 15 minutes.... it can't quote for that vehicle and I need to call them.
As I had spent 45 minutes on with them at around 9.30am and was waiting for a call-back, this was the option the often repeated recorded kept telling me as it interrupted the awful "lift muzak" I was being forced to listen to on the line.
If the guy at 10.15am had said that to quote they needed me to specify what tracker device was fitted then I could have saved another few hours of my life getting nowhere.
The Malibu campervan we are interested doesn't have a tracker. It does have a Thatcham Category 1 alarm fitted and that comes with an immobiliser.
I found this out though when the call-back that never happened resulted in me calling them back at around 2.30pm. I navigated the queue and spoke to a nice young lady. Went through all the details again, as it looks as though the morning guy hadn't entered much into my account record. She went away, and that's when I found they can't quote as they need to know what tracker is fitted!
Whilst we were talking and she was putting me on hold to speak to her line management, I was googling "the best UK motorhome trackers".
From what she said it doesn't have to actually be fitted at the time of the quote (!!!) but it's a box that needs filling in to generate the quote.
Stupidly, I let her go to finish my research. Aaaarrgghhh.
The top selling and most recommended for a motorhome is the ScorpionTrack Motorhome S7. It's insurance company approved and is a subscription service. The initial purchase price for the unit and its installation is £189. The subscription works out at about £100 a year.
I called them back. Navigating the options quickly as I remembered once it started to press 2. Into the queue. It was before 5.30pm. They are open until 7pm. Speak to a different woman. went through who I am full name, date of birth, inside leg measurement, postal address etc.
Only to be told that there was no one to take the details of the ScorpionTrack Motorhome S7 but she will mark my account for the call-back.... She couldn't update the record with the ScorpionTrack Motorhome S7 so that when someone opened my account they could so the quote!
It's now 7.08pm. No call-back.
Although I do now own a ScorpionTrack Motorhome S7 for a van I haven't yet insured and therefore can't drive home on the 12th November nor make it legal by paying for the UK vehicle excise duty (VED) or more commonly known as Road Tax.
So it looks as though I will have to try again tomorrow. I seriously doubt that I'll get a call-back and will have to start the entire thing from scratch!!!
Once this is over and done with, I can then get the installer to give me a date to come to the house and install the tracker onto the Malibu.
The squirrels around here don't bother coming and giving you a choice.
They simply come and bite off the perches that the birds need to they can get the rodenty little faces into the feeders and eat as much food as they can get into their bellies.
Today after some shopping in Canterbury we had a little drive to Choose Leisure the motorhome and campervan (RV) dealers.
Over the last few weeks, and maybe months since April, we have lost a lot of faith in Marquis, the motorhome dealers, and Elddis, the manufacturers of Molly the Motorhome.
The full story will come out later when we have finally resolved the damp and the water ingress to parts of the body work and roof.
We talked about it when we were in Spain. maybe once the damp had been fixed under the 10 year SOLID warranty we'd look to get rid of Molly and by a campervan rather than a coachbuilt.
So for the last week or so we have been looking, off and on, on the internet for local dealers with vans for sale.
Should we stay with Elddis and go for a van, or move to a different manufacturer?
We saw a few different styles and sizes of vans at the Norfolk Campervan and Motorhome Show in July. There were some layouts that appealed to us, and of course we have quite a few different vloggers we watch on their YouTube channels. Some with vans and others with coachbuilt motorhomes.
There were really only two things that would influence the decision:
a) it has to have an automatic gearbox
b) it has to have a fixed bed
Most other things would be open to discussion ay the time.
Today we looked at a few different campervans and decided that we really liked a Cathargo Malibu 6 metre van. It's white and I would probably have wanted one of the dozen other colours but they are quite rare used. I have seen a few YouTube tests where one was orange and black, and another metallic deep red!
The model we looked at is called "Charming" as it comes with a host of optional extras already loaded. It meets our two main requirements.
I feel a deal coming along!
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| Halloween Stalker!! |
So there I was watching the TV. In my house. We have a Ring doorbell. My phone tells me that my delivery is going to be delivered from 4.15pm. It's 4.11pm.
No Ring on the doorbell. But it does notice someone has walked in front of it. Amazon guy. Dumps parcel down the side of the house. Takes photo.
Email from Amazon arrives to say it's delivered.
Clicking "No so great" actually seems to do f*ck all. Just takes me to the order page!
MAG has sought and received confirmation that the Government’s new Motor Insurance Taskforce includes motorcycle insurance in its remit.
Announcements were made last week of the first meeting of a new Government Motor Insurance Taskforce. The pledge to deal with spiralling car insurance costs was included in Labour’s election manifesto.
MAG expressed concern that all the rhetoric mentioned car insurance exclusively, as did last week’s announcements. The Department for Transport (DfT) press release stated: “New taskforce is a major step forward in getting a fair deal for UK drivers by rooting out factors that increase costs for car insurance industry.”
MAG has since obtained confirmation from Department officials that motorcycle insurance is within the remit of the new taskforce.
MAG’s Director of Campaigns & Political Engagement, Colin Brown, said: “Whilst it is disappointing that we need to go through the process of ensuring the interests of motorcyclists are being covered in this work, we are hopeful that the work of this taskforce will reveal why the needs of the motorcycling community should be given much greater attention by the Government.”
MAG has previously demonstrated that motorcyclists are disproportionately represented as victims in Theft of Motor Vehicle offences. Motorcycles constitute approximately 25% of all vehicles stolen despite only representing 3% of registered vehicles.
MAG also raised concerns over the lack of funding and focus on motorcycle road safety. Statistically, motorcycles are the road user group with the highest fatality rate on UK roads. MAG argues that insufficient funding and focus is given to this over-representation in road casualty statistics.
Insurance costs are driven by theft and personal injury liabilities. Lack of action on these two key factors naturally leads to higher insurance costs.
Colin Brown said: “I have previously requested the opportunity to meet Louise Haigh to discuss the key issues that the Government need to tackle to deliver meaningful change for motorcyclists. Bikers are voters and deserve to have their concerns heard by the Government. We hear the news about a new road safety strategy and now this new insurance taskforce, but motorcycling does not appear in the headlines for either. I hope that MAG can impress upon the Secretary of State why it is vital that the interests of motorcyclists are both heard and acted on.”
