Collingwood Insurance is a specialist in learner driver insurance, as well as young drivers, over 50's and some business vehicle cover. Read what we think of their negative reviews and see how prices compare. Quickly compare quotes from Collingwood against 100+ other car insurance brands by clicking the blue "Get Quotes" button below to see how much you can save.

In This Review

• Collingwood Car Insurance Review
• Customer Reviews and Ratings
• Cost Comparison and Discounts
• Cancellation fees, phone numbers and policy documents
• FAQs

Collingwood Car Insurance Overall Review

Collingwood car insurance can be an interesting option for learner and new drivers looking for specialised car insurance, due to their impressive customer reviews and plans designed specially to be flexible for the needs of a learner driver (i.e., an annual plan you can cancel—for a cost, however—and a short-term plan you can extend as you need).

Not only that, but Collingwood was an Insurance Choice Awards 2021 Winner as a "Treating Customers Fairly" Champion and Highly Commended as Best Specialist Insurance Provider.

While Collingwood excels at learner driver cover, and that's what we're focusing on in this review. Collingwood also specialises in other product areas:

Collingwood Car Insurance for Learner Drivers

Collingwood learner driver policies seem to have some great features and you can choose between Third Party, Third Party Fire and Theft or Fully Comprehensive to suit your provisional insurance needs. Remember that Third Party cover only pays for damage or loss to other people or property. If you want to protect your car in the event of damage (e.g., from fire or an accident) or theft you'll need Comprehensive cover.

And as you can see in our pricing analysis below, it seems that Comprehensive cover comes out as cheap or cheaper than lower levels of coverage (i.e., TPFT and TPO) anyway. With Collingwood, learner drivers have the option of buying an annual policy or a short-term learner policy:

Types of Collingwood Learn Driver Policies

What we like about Collingwood learner driver cover

What to be aware of

Collingwood Car Insurance Customer Service Reviews

Collingwood generally have mediocre customer reviews, with higher ratings for the learner driver policies. We read through hundreds of online reviews to find any common complaints and also what customers like about Collingwood. Here's what we found:

Collingwood Trustpilot

Collingwood learner driver insurance has earned a remarkable 4.7 out of stars at Trustpilot, with more than 9 out of 10 customers giving Collingwood Learner Driver and "Excellent" rating. And these figures should be quite reliable as they're based on over 10,000 customer reviews. As of the time of writing, this is one of the highest Trust scores we've seen for a car insurance company! And fewer than 2 in a hundred reviews rated Collingwood learner policies as "Bad."

The vast majority of Collingwood customers report an excellent service on Trustpilot. Here are a few samples from Truspilot of positive customer reviews for Collingwood to give you a feel for what people like:

"Insured my car while learning to drive at an affordable price."

"Very helpful with getting my learner insurance and also cancelling it."

"Rang up and spoke to 3 different people all very helpful would highly recommend."

"... It took her three tests to pass and even after that time she was still entitled to a refund. This was easy too, a quick call to say she had passed her test and they were so happy for her, congratulating her, and said how much money she will be getting returned to her account. Easy as that. Definitely use again for my other children."

"By far the cheapest price for learner driver insurance that I could find. Good communication. Easy to work with this company."

There aren't very many negative customer reviews. There are some older complaints about the website, but they've long been fixed. One consistent them relates to a recent change to their cancellation policy (it's now more costly to cancel their annual learner policy, which you have to do when you pass your test). Here are a few negative customer reviews of Collingwood car insurance from Trustpilot to give you an idea of challenges faced by existing policyholders:

"Beware of Collingwood learner driver insurance. They charge a £40 'cancellation fee' when you pass your test. As the point of a learner driver is to learn how to drive and then pass your test, you cannot avoid this charge. This cancellation fee is apparently buried in their terms of business document and is not highlighted on their website when you buy the product."

"I paid for a year as there were long delays on getting driving lessons and tests. My son passed first time, 10 months into the policy I notified them. From previous reviews I didnt expect a refund of any of the unused premium, what I wasn't expecting was to be charged a £40 cancellation fee on top of the full years premium that I had paid upfront."

"Collingwood learners insurance told me i was not insured at all due to the vehicle database showing my car was a coupe when in fact it is a coupe/convertible!! they then told me they do not insure convertibles and should have never accepted the policy but by this time they had already taken the £95.10 payment from me and issued a certificate etc so thought i was covered, and was told that policy should have never been accepted in the first place and i was never insured!!!"

"Yesterday I phoned Collingwood and gave a change of vehicle for my daughter. They took the payment and told me I was covered but no email came through. Today I have checked on the AskMID database and the car is not insured so I cannot use it. It is a Sunday so I can't contact them. This is really shoddy service and a total disgrace!"

Let's dig into the negative reviews. Regarding the first negative comment, keep in mind that while Collingwood sends new policies over to the DVLA on a daily basis, it's the DVLA that is responsible for uploading the details to the MID. This can take a few days. To see if you're insured check the Certificate of Insurance in the online customer portal.

One other "common" complaint (other than the cost to cancel an annual policy) were a couple of mentions of when Collingwood cancelled a new policy after it was discovered that the car was not insurable by Collingwood—they don't cover all types of vehicle, for instance convertibles, cabriolets, SUVs, vans or cars fitted with dual controls (or cars worth more than £20,000). As a result the driver had to pay cancellation charges and was without insurance. It seems the two instances of this problem were caused by user error and could have been avoided by the driver properly filling out the application with the correct car "body type" (e.g., Coupe, Coupe/Convertable or Cabriolet).

Collingwood seems to take the time to look into complaints, even listening to recorded calls if necessary, to see if there was a real problem that should be addressed or not. For example, one woman complained "Very rude call centre people—There are far better companies that supply the same cover, avoid all costs." Collingwood looked into the situation and discovered that a non-authorised caller requested a change to the policyholder's data. According to their duty under the Data Protection Act, Collingwood did not allow the non-authorised caller to make a change to the policy. (A policyholder can add a "Third Party Authority" to act on their behalf, but this was never asked for). So in the end, Collingwood acted in the policyholder's best interest and under FCA regulation. And apparently, they ultimately resolved the situation in a pleasant manner anyway—so not nearly as negative as the comment first appears.

Collingwood Smart Money People

On Smart Money People, Collingwood gets 4.9 out of 5 stars by around 1,500 customers. Overall a great result, but of course there are some complaints. We've included a few below to help you get the most out of your policy.

"I have given one star as I can not give none. Apparently if you cancel your insurance early you get charged a fee for it. I got a text message saying I had to contact recoveries because of a shortfall on the premium when I had paid in full and cancelled with a month left. Seems like a con to me. It's in your T&C's so beware people."

"Excellent can’t fault them at all, great for first drivers and great communication."

"The insurance was easy to arrange and seemed fine while learning (although we made no claims). However, on passing they issued a £25 bill rather than a reduction in the premium based on the months not used (but paid for). Collingwood then very aggressive in pursuing that amount. There is no mention of this on their website at all, it is hidden away in the detail of the T&Cs that are not sent out at any point. Feels like awful customer service to us and a shocking money grabbing approach to young people. Cannot recommend at all."

These reviews are very insightful, actually, so motorists know what they're getting. That is, if you get a learner policy, you would have to pay a cancellation fee when you pass the test and might not get a refund on the premium (depending on how long you've had the policy).

Collingwood Features

We couldn't do a full analysis of features on Collingwood learner policies, because the Policy Wording documents are not available on their website and they wouldn't send up a copy to review. That's made it difficult to get a completely accurate handle on things but it appears based on information we found elsewhere on the site that comprehensive, annual learner policies include windscreen and a courtesy car (for repairs by an approved repairer that are related to a claim). We suspect these policies are generally quite light when it comes to other features like repair guarantees, onward travel, etc. but cannot say for certain without the docs.

Optional Extras

Collingwood Car Insurance Quote Comparison

Collingwood is known for offering flexible policies to learner drivers at competitive prices—but how much does learner insurance really cost? We obtained sample quotes for a 17-year-old learner driver who owns a 1.0L 2015 Ford Fiesta to get an idea of how much the annual and short-term learner policies cost from Collingwood. Here's what we found:

FYI these prices are generally a lot lower than a new driver will pay once they've passed their test.

We noticed an interesting point from our test sample:

Short-Term vs. Annual Learner Policy: Which is Cheaper?

We tried to run some tests, but while we were unable to get quotes for an annual learner policy we did get the following sample quotes for a 19-year-old young man who is a learner driver living in NW London. (Your prices will certainly vary.) If you get both short-term and annual prices and want to compare, keep in mind the cancellation charges and refund policies as discussed in the next section.

It's always a good idea to compare the market before you buy a policy, however, especially when it comes to learner or new driver policies to make sure you'll getting a good deal. You can get a quote from Collingwood Insurance from our car insurance partner QuoteZone, a comparison website that works with over 100 brands in the UK car insurance market.

Poll

Which type of cover are you considering from Collingwood? We'd like to know what types of plans are most popular with motorists. Let us know which plans you're leaning towards and you can see what other people prefer, too.

Admin and Cancellation Fees

Unfortunately, we can no longer find their "terms of business" document online. Cancellation fees vary depending on the type of policy you have. According to this annual learner driver policy booklet and their old terms of business, we believe these are their standard car insurance fees, but be sure to check your documents to be sure:

What's the Collingwood Insurance cancellation policy?

Annual Learner Policy Cancellation: When cancelling an annual learner policy you would receive a refund, but this is calculated on a scale so the refund may be less than you expect. Plus there's a £40 cancellation fee. They uses the following scale to calculate the refund. Also, you won't get back the non-refundable intermediary fee of £70.

Short-Term Learner Cancellation: When cancelling a short-term learner policy you won't get any refund on policies less than 30 days in duration. For policies longer than 30 days, you can cancel in the first 14 days from the date you receive your policy documentation and receive a refund (unless you have made a total loss claim), which is subject to a charge for the period of cover you have received. However where cover has not started during this 14 day period, you will get a full refund of the premium you paid. After the 14 day cancellation period you can cancel your policy at any time, however you will receive no refund. The intermediary fee is not refundable, but there's no extra "cancellation fee" for short-term policies.

Important Collingwood Car Insurance Phone Numbers

Collingwood customer service is open on Monday – Friday: 9am – 7pm and Saturday: 9am – 1pm. They're closed on Sunday.

Collingwood Car Insurance Finance and Underwriting

Policy Documents

To find out more about the conditions and exclusions, read the policy document that's applicable to your policy.

FAQs

Other Car Insurance Reviews

If you'd like to compare Collingwood to other car insurance companies for learners, see our other learner car insurance reviews below: