General Accident Car Insurance Review: Is It Any Good?

General Accident Car Insurance Review: Is It Any Good?

An online, budget brand from Aviva. If you're after a low premium and don't prioritise customer service then General Accident might be a good option to consider.

Good for

  • Cheaper prices

Bad for

  • Customer service access (online only)

Editor's Rating

3.5/5.0

The guidance on this site is based on our own analysis and is meant to help you identify options and narrow down your choices. We do not advise or tell you which product to buy; undertake your own due diligence before entering into any agreement. Read our full disclosure here.

General Accident is a brand of one of the largest car insurance companies in the UK, Aviva. While you might get a cheap quote from General Accident, be aware that they're an online brand so you can't get customer support over the phone once your policy is up and running—read below to find out how this affects the most common customer complaints. To compare a General Accident quote to other brands in the car insurance market, click the blue "Get Quotes" button below to see how much you can save.

In This Review

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General Accident Car Insurance Overall Review

General Accident car insurance might suit those looking for cheap car insurance, but beware that it's an online insurance brand so you won't be able to call and speak to anyone in customer service over the phone after your policy is up and running. Existing customers do have one opportunity to speak with customer service—during their renewal window from when they receive their renewal invite until the renewal date, when a contact number is displayed within their online account.

After reading through customer reviews, it seems that the best way to reach General Accident is by messaging through the General Accident Facebook page. There is a 24-hour helpline for claims, glass repair and accident recovery, however.

3 Things to Know About General Accident Insurance

  1. A good way to reach General Accident is by messaging through the General Accident Facebook page
  2. General Accident is a part of Aviva, one of the biggest UK car insurance companies
  3. According to multiple customer reports from drivers with telematics plans, General Accident may cancel your policy if you're caught speeding excessively (e.g., 45 mph in a 30 mph zone)—if you needed another reason to stay within the speed limit!

General Accident Telematics

General Accident offers a telematics plan that theoretically helps safe drivers save more on their car insurance. Besides receiving an initial upfront discount, your driving behaviour throughout the year will be taken into account at renewal. There's an app to go along with the black box policy, for which you'll need to have a smartphone with iOS7 or Android 4, or higher.

Depending on your car model, you'll either get a small plugin device that you install yourself or, if that's not an option, they'll send out an engineer to professionally install a more suitable device in your car.

Drivers taking out a General Accident telematics policy should be aware that extreme or consistently bad driving behaviour may result in cancellation of your policy—this can include, for instance, being caught speeding. Each journey will receive a score between 0 and 100; you will also receive an overall score for each month. These scores are displayed in the app.

Here's what the black box device will record:

  • Time
  • Date
  • Location
  • Cornering
  • Lateral movement
  • Acceleration
  • Deceleration
  • Speed
  • Road type
  • Time spent idle
  • Mileage

General Accident Black Box Rules

The telematics device calculates your speeding score based on: Abrupt Cornering, Lateral Movement, Mileage, Hard Acceleration, Hard Braking, Speeding, Road Type, and Trip Time.

Your policy will be cancelled with seven days written notice as required by the Road Traffic Acts if you:

  • Score below 50 for three journeys over any 30 day period. Each time your journey score is below 50 they will send you a warning SMS and/or email advising you how to improve your driving, after the third warning SMS and/or email they will cancel your policy.
  • Have a monthly score below 50 for three months in a row
  • Exceed 45mph in a 30mph zone
  • Exceed 60mph in a 40 mph zone
  • Exceed 75mph in a 50mph zone
  • Exceed 90mph in a 60mph zone
  • Exceed 100mph at any time

In addition, if you incur three minor speeding warning messages (which occur if your car is driven over the legal speed limit) within any 30 day rolling period, they "reserve the right" to cancel your policy (with the same 7 day notice).

General Accident Features

Here is a high-level summary of General Accident comprehensive cover features for policies bought direct from the General Accident website—remember, these are always subject to conditions and exclusions, which you can read about in the policy documents.

How Good is General Accident Car Insurance?A Good Policy IncludesDoes General Accident Deliver?General Accident Comprehensive Coverage
"Must Have" Features
WindscreenFull repair or replacement
thumbs up
Up to the market value of your car if you use an Approved Repairer
Belongings£200+
question mark
Amount shown on schedule
Keys£300+
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If you buy the add on
Protected NCD2 times in 3 years (standard or optional extra)
thumbs up add on
If you buy the add on
Car recovery after accidentIncluded
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Included
Courtesy car (repairs)Minimum 14 days
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If you use an Approved Repairer (in GB, Ireland, Channel Islands and Isle of Man only)
Repairs guaranteed12-month guarantee
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Lifetime guarantee as long as you own your car
"Should Have" Features
New car replacementTheft or damage at least 60% of list price; cars up to 12 months old
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Included, if repairing damage is more than 60% of the car’s UK list price & vehicle is within 12 months of purchase
Stereo and satellite navMarket value for manufacturer fitted
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Up to the market value of your car if permanently fitted; otherwise personal belongings limit
Alternative transport & Hotel after accident£250+
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If you've been in an insured accident, they'll recover your car and get you home or to your destination (in covered area) OR up to £150 for overnight accommodation or public transport
24-hour emergency helplineStandard
thumbs up
Included
Courtesy car (total loss or theft)Standard or add-on extra
thumbs up add on
If you buy the add on (5 to 21 days)
Motor legal expensesStandard or add-on extra
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Included
Breakdown coverStandard or add-on extra
thumbs up add on
If you buy the add on
"Could Have" Features
Same cover in EUStandard or add-on extra
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Up to 90 days in any one trip
Child car seat replacement after accident, theft, fireIdeally replaced even if no visible damage
red x
Not included
Larger/premium courtesy carStandard or add-on extra
red x
Not available
Uninsured driver NCD protectionStandard
thumbs up
Included

General Accident Car Insurance Customer Service Reviews, Complaints and Ratings

General Accident generally has really improved in terms of customer reviews in the past year or so. But there are complaints, because as an online insurer, customers can only communicate with the company online or through email—a contact number is only available between a renewal invite and the renewal date. Let's take an in-depth look.

General Accident Ratings & Customer Reviews
Trustpilot customer service rating4.1 out of 5
Reviews.co.uk3.0 out of 5
S&P (financial strength rating for Aviva Insurance Ltd)A
Moody's (financial strength rating for Aviva Insurance Ltd)Aa3
Fitch (financial strength rating for Aviva Insurance Ltd)AA-

When understanding the financial health of an insurer, it is useful to look at independent financial credit ratings. In this case, since General Accident is part of Aviva, we looked at ratings for Aviva Insurance Ltd and found that all gave a 'stable' rating.

General Accident Trustpilot

Trustpilot reviews for General Accident are okay. General Accident insurance has been rated with 4.1 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot by close to 3911 existing customers. This is up from the terrible 1.4 four years earlier, one of the lowest Trustpilot ratings we've seen for an insurer. 24% of customers gave General Accident a 1-star "bad" review, but 64% have rated it "excellent". What are the most common complaints? Most complaints seem to relate to difficulty resolving problems or individual situations due to lack of a customer service call centre. How important is that to you?

Here are a few positive and negative customer reviews of General Accident car insurance from Trustpilot to give you an idea of challenges faced by existing policyholders, as well as a taste of what they like:

"Had an accident today and spoke to Melissa at general accident who was so helpful and made the process very smooth. Thank you for all your help and getting me sorted."

"Very competitive price, easy and clear to navigate and use."

"Apart from having to renew password every time I logged into my details, I found the experience top rate."

"Easy to set up insurance. Great price as well. Was £200 cheaper than my renewal price."

"The app was so easy to use and gave many options to choose from so that my car insurance is now more suitable for me and my pocket."

"Very competitive price. Good well known Company. So easy from start to finish. All you need ie Breakdown Cover etc inclusive all in 1 payment. Also the excess is easily affordable"

"Horrific service. Had a black-box insurance service which worked well for all of 9 months. On the 9th month, my policy was cancelled due to "multiple occasions of speeding" on a road which had recently had its speed limit increased from 30 to 40. Their out-of-date database containing speed limits has resulted in me losing my 2nd year of no claims bonus... their support on the matter has been minimal..."

"Awful service. You do not receive any telephone support after 28 days and the email communication is poor at best. Their App / technology is also very poor so you'll struggle to get anything resolved."

"Poor and slow communication, poor at defending the drivers it insures."

"They are only contactable by email, and do not adhere to their 24 hour SLA with responses taking almost 3-5 days at the very minimum, this raises it's own challenges when urgent attention is required. Also, their online service portal is extremely limited, which may as well be redundant. I'd quite happily pay that bit extra for customer services contactable via phone and a quality online service portal."

"You buy a policy with telematics and then they deduct points for driving to and from work even though you told them what you do for a living! And if you go below 50 points, they cancel your insurance, something I cannot afford to happen. Cancelled policy half way through the year as cannot risk staying with a company that does not respond to emails after 14 days and there is no telephone contact number."

On the other hand, some customers report an 'excellent' service (only 22%, however). Here are a few samples from Truspilot of positive customer reviews for General Accident (corrected for spelling):

"After a taxi drove into the back of me and reading the reviews I was dreading the whole process but the service I received was brilliant. I had to log the accident online, but the claim staff were so helpful and my car was booked in really quickly. There is a useful link so you can track your repair.

"As mine was a 'non fault' claim my excess was waived and I also qualified for a car upgrade. Hopefully I won't need them again but I was impressed with General Accident and will renew next year."

"Made a slight mistake on my policy called as soon as possible and it was handled professional and stress free would recommend."

"GA have always been great on price and I knew that service provision was essentially online only as a result. The app and web interfaces are very efficient."

General Accident Reviews.co.uk

On Reviews.co.uk, General Accident gets 3.0 out of 5 stars by over 500 customers. Again, most negative reviews relate to the lack of customer service, which can be an issue when you need a change, the app doesn't work or a problem arises. Some customers complain of policies being canceled suddenly with little warning.

Aviva is the underwriter of General Accident policies, so it's important to consider the financial strength of Aviva. Aviva has been rated solid A by S&P, A2 by Moody's and A+ by Fitch.

General Accident Car Insurance Quote Comparison

General Accident offers cheaper car insurance for those on a budget. Our recent check of 50 postcodes for a sample 30-year-old driver of a 2017 Ford Fiesta showed General Accident prices were some of the cheapest available and were roughly in line with brands like Quotemehappy.co.uk (another Aviva brand).

Average premium over 50 sample post codes for a 30-year-old driver of a Ford Fiesta
Churchill£416
Quotemehappy.co.uk£508
General Accident£510
Darwin£567
Swinton£589
diamond£598
Admiral£602
elephant£606
Hastings Essential£608
LV£673
More Than£752

Quotes will vary drastically for different driver profiles and cars, and on different days, so you may need to pay more or less than these sample rates. Use this information as an indication of how an insurance provider might compare in terms of price, although this can also change.

chart showing a cost comparison of LV= car insurance to Bell, Hastings, Quotemehappy, Hastings Smart Miles, Admiral Little Box, Churchill, Elephant and others

General Accident Car Insurance Discounts

As a budget car insurance brand, General Accident already offers lower-than-average prices. In addition there are a few other ways to save on a car insurance policy, such as savings for good driving records, no claims discounts and paying in full at the start of each policy year.

DiscountWho qualifies?
No Claims DiscountEach year you don't make a claim should increase your No CLaim Discount up to 9 years—General Accident doesn't go higher than 9 years.
Pay upfrontPay your full premium at the start of the policy to save money (variable APR)
Buy your policy earlyBuying your policy a few weeks in advance of the start date can save you money

Admin and Cancellation Fees

Here are some of the fees you might have to pay; for a full list see their terms and conditions.

General Accident Administration FeesRegular policyTelematics policy
Cancel your policy within first 14 days£0 if cover hasn't started, else £25£25 if device not installed/dispatch, else £100
Cancel your policy after 14 days£50£125 in first year, £50 after first renewal
Other telematics feessee terms, e.g. £70 to remove device or change your car
Changes made online (e.g., change address)£0 unless you make more than 5 changes, then possibly £30 per change
Changes made via customer services£30 + tax

You will also be charge Insurance Premium Tax on the fees.

Plus you'll pay a pro rate time on risk charge for the time you've been covered, if the policy started before you cancelled.

Important General Accident Car Insurance Phone Numbers

General Accident is an online company so does not have a regular customer service call centre. You can get in touch with customer service via the link below.

General Accident Car Insurance Contact Numbers
Customer ServicesContact form for help
24 Hour Helplines
Claims0345 030 7956
Accident Recovery0345 030 7956
Glass Repair Helpline0345 030 7956

Policy Documents & Claims

To find out more about the conditions and exclusions, read the policy wordings, important information document, terms and conditions, telematics terms, and more, which are available here.

FAQs

Yes, General Accident is an Aviva brand—General Accident policies are underwritten and administered by Aviva Insurance Limited.
What defines good? This varies from person to person. On the plus side, General Accident has quite high Trustpilot scores, is part of Aviva (a large, well-known insurer) and typically offers pretty decent car insurance for competitive prices. On the other hand, because they offer budget prices they have to save money elsewhere, like no phone customer service once your policy is up and running (after 28 days).
You can speak with someone at General Accident when you're buying your policy (you should get the number after obtaining your first quote online) or making a claim. Then, 28 days after your policy is up and running, they don’t provide phone support—General Accident is an online insurance company.
General Accident tends to offer pretty low car insurance prices and is underwritten by Aviva, one of the biggest UK car insurance companies, but beware they're an online company only so customer service access is pretty poor.
General Accident telematics policies have no curfew per se, but they do record the time when you drive and this could affect your score. Late night journeys are considered riskier, for example. General Accident says, "If you regularly drive at night this could affect your score and you may want to consider if this product is right for you."
To get a General Accident quote you can either go directly to their website or use a comparison site like Moneysupermarket.
Policyholders will be charged a £25 fee to cancel during the 14-day cooling off period and £50 afterwards (plus Insurance Premium Tax, of course). Those with a black box telematics policy may be charged a £125 cancellation fee.
General Accident comprehensive car insurance policies include windscreen cover. A windscreen claim will not affect your No Claim Discount. Be sure to call the claims line to arrange work by an approved repairer. By using an approved repairer, they'll cover up to the market value of your car, whereas they'll only pay a limited amount if you go to a non-approved repairer.
General Accident will send a renewal invite e-mail to policyholders with the new premium at least 28 days before your renewal date. If your policy is set to automatically renew (see your online account) and you don't have any changes to make, then your policy will renew without you having to do anything. More information can be found here.
No, General Accident is unable to offer insurance for drivers who do not hold a UK licence.
If you speed regularly or significantly or if your driving is repeatedly scored as risky (i.e. below 50 on their scale) then you will find your General Accident black box policy cancelled. Their rules about speeding and risky driving are quite firm, with automatic cancellation for certain scenarios. Read more above.

Other Car Insurance Reviews

If you'd like to compare General Accident to other car insurance companies, see our other car insurance reviews below:

Erin Yurday

Erin Yurday is the Founder and Editor of NimbleFins. Prior to NimbleFins, she worked as an investment professional and as the finance expert in Stanford University's Graduate School of Business case writing team. Read more on LinkedIn.

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The guidance on this site is based on our own analysis and is meant to help you identify options and narrow down your choices. We do not advise or tell you which product to buy; undertake your own due diligence before entering into any agreement. Read our full disclosure here.

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