I’ve just renewed my house insurance on a couple of houses, using Fabien’s insurance services. Elisabeth from his office handled the whole process and has been delightful to deal with, and must say that, in all my years of handling my French house insurance, this has to have been the most painless, most efficient and most satisfying experience to date. Right from the start, the process was simple and uncomplicated, filling a clear online template with info and then getting a quote which I then discussed over the phone to fine tune and finalise! On the flip side, the local agents in my area wanted at least a week to book an appointment in advance to make a ‘project’, and the response time to any emails was tardy to put it mildly - business and customer service seemed to be a rather foreign concept that only ‘others’ indulge in! I always thought it would be simpler and far more convenient to sort out my insurance with a local agent - no longer! Now requesting car insurance quotes from Fabien’s company and very much a convert from ‘must go local’. Thanks very much to Elisabeth & Fabien. And no, I don’t get any commission 
That’s a good reminder to get back in touch and get it done.
Indeed. I also have a quad that I use at the house and never intended to use it on the road, but nevertheless it had to be insured. So I opted for the absolute minimum insurance level with one of the local insurance agents. I just renewed the policy after one year and thought, it might be nice to actually use it on the road this year in the Summer, so I contacted the agent and asked what the premium would be for 3rd party fire and theft and they came back with a quote 3x my current premium. In addition to the surprise, I also felt like a criminal when they were quite bluntly stating that if I took the change in policy I would have to sign a sworn statement to prove I still owned the quad and that it was still in my possession. Why on earth would I upgrade insurance if I didn’t still own it??? Anyway, I took great delight in responding that, yes, I do obviously still own it otherwise I wouldn’t have requested the quote, and that I would not progress with changing the policy. And next year, will take great delight in cancelling the policy with them. Customer service going from strength to strength 
We have used Fabien for all our insurance. Been a godsend to have an insurance broker with a customer service attitude second to none.
Started using him before we actually left the UK - and would not change ever. Any problems we had were swiftky dealt with, either with a phonecall or a few emails.
And no - we also do not get a comission
and nor do we.
All our insurances are now dealt with by fabien and I can attest to the point made that it is a delight to do business with his firm - clear concise no fuss businesslike dealings are the absolute norm.
If you are not using fabien, review your options soon - you will not be disappointed…
What we appreciate is that he is used to dealing with english people, so you get the one line email acknowledgments that many French companies don’t do, and out of office notifications. So easy and so standard for UK customer service.
How many times have you sent something into the ether, into total silence for days or weeks? Very unsettling. I asked one woman why she hadn’t replied to an email re a major issue for weeks, and her reply was why should I until I had something to say? Very French.
As a point of balance on this subject that I have recently raised with Elisabeth at @Fabien s agency - I have recently been surprised with the number of add-on charges made.
We now have 3 motor insurance policies, a home policy and a double Mutuelle policy all with @Fabien.
The particular Direct Debit for 30 euros as an annual management charge for each of our policies was a surprise - checking in the charges grid, it is correct but I wasn’t expecting a charge to renew an existing policy - but there was also due to be a cancellation fee of a policy and a 50 euro new policy charge.
So possibly 5 x 30 euros to renew existing policies - or 50 euros for a new policy with a different provider + 30 euros to cancel.
I am unaware whether these charges are usual in France - we didn’t used to get charged them seperstely in UK, but we were more likely to go directly and deal with the insurance company rather than a broker.
I had thought that @Fabien would receive commission from the insurance company to cover their work but this may not be the case - hence the additional charges.
We have always received excellent service from @fabien and his colleagues but certainly the charges seem to be mounting up.
With all of lifes costs increasing (fuel, food etc) but income remaining the same we may need to head out on our own next year and use one of the many insurance comparison websites to get suitable cover.
That sounds surprising - the only additional charge that was ‘optional’ on my quotes was an additional 30€ processing fee if I chose to pay monthly, which I wont be taking as I will make a single annual payment for each policy. It would be very interesting to see Fabien’s response to your points.
Hi @Mat_Davies , we do get a commission from the companies but unlike many of our competitors we keep it to the lowest possible so that the ongoing premium is as cheap as possible for you. The downside of doing this is that we get paid very little for our service and that’s why we slowly upgraded all our contracts from 2018 with processing fees and renewal fees. We think it’s more fair and transparent and almost all of our competitors are doing it BUT they hide this in the premium which we don’t.
We see this as a tip in a restaurant (although I must concede that it’s automatically debited unlike a tip) so if you’re not happy with our services or don’t think that’s deserved we can always refund it. Same goes with changing to a new policy with the processing fee and we always disclose any fee we debit before (except for the renewal fee which happens a year later).
Those fees are here to pay for Elisabeth, Marianne and the team so that we can keep the quality of service to that level. We are always happy to refund any of our fee but that’s a commercial gesture and therefore something we do on a case by case basis as our “default policy” is to apply the renewal fee indeed. When our customers get back to us asking about the fee(s) we can also apply various discounts depending on each individual situations (for someone with multiple policies for example, we’re more than happy to only apply the renewal fee on some of the policies not all).
There is no cancellation fee though, on this Mat you must be mistaken as this would be simply illegal. Or if there is one it’s not from us
You are correct it was called an amendment fee to move from one provider to another.
This does contradict the email I received but is good news.
Other than it being within the table of charges there wasn’t an advance notice of it being debited.
@fabien - it may be worth having a telephone chat next week when you are free.
You are correct it was called an amendment fee to move from one provider to another.
No, no… we do cancel the policy and then edit a new one. So the 30e is the new policy’s processing fee. Amendment fees are for changes on a policy without cancellation and for this the usual rate is 15e (and sometimes for free if it doesn’t involve manual processing from us).
This does contradict the email I received but is good news.
Nothing is done automatically so by default you’re charged for the policy renewal but the refunds or non application of the fee on some policies is a commercial gesture that we apply on a case by case basis. In regard to the number of policies you have with us and your loyalty this will be a no brainer but we can’t talk about this publicly
Other than it being within the table of charges there wasn’t an advance notice of it being debited.
We send the renewal email which is probably what triggers your message here (usually at least a month before we actually make the debit(s)) and we also schedule the debits at least 2 weeks prior to the debit date so that it’s also visible on your bank account weeks in advance.
Not that I don’t want to discuss this any further but it’s getting really specific so I would prefer if we move this conversation privately so that I can answer your situation in particular instead of posting some generic statements publicly. You can send me an email with your inquiries and I’ll be happy to address any concerns that may remain on your side.
No problem - thanks for coming back to me.
I will drop you an email next week.
When I was running a company in UK the thing we really struggled to get was honest feedback from our customers which is vital to know how they were feeling and what we could do differently to improve - hence the comments above.
No problem, what matters the most is that you’re happy with our services so, at the end of the day, customer satisfaction is all that really matters
Thanks a lot for sharing this with us, your satisfaction is my top priority. If there is anything I can do to help just let me know 
I had the reverse [in a way]. To cancel the policy on my camper van I would have to provide evidence that I had sold it and it now belonged to someone else.
Perhaps this is something that FR law dictates, rather than insurers. The broker in this case being @fabien, of whom much well-deserved appreciation is in this thread.
It’s the Law…
I had a suspicion that’s the case. 
if you’ve still got the camper… you can reduce the insurance level to absolute minimum ( I believe)… it’s all in the link…
best of luck
As mentioned earlier, I took the minimum insurance for my quad and it was approx 30% of the third party fire and theft premium, so significant!