worst insurance company ever

After being loyal, paying customers of this company for about 2 years, my partner and I decided to change to another company after buying a new car and being offered a cheaper policy elsewhere. We contacted 1st Central and were told we would have to pay a £50 cancellation fee (this was fine, the other insurance policy had said they could cover this if we did switch to them). We called them back and told them we wanted to cancel. At this point we were told that that number had miraculously tripled to £150. We obviously questioned this (que an extra 15 phone calls, after being hung up on, disconnected, or put on hold for ridiculous amounts of time). After 2 weeks of me phoning them (all phone calls I was promised to receive never materialised), I lost my patience and asked to speak to a manager. The manager did 'not want to hear about my financial difficulty' (those were his words exactly, despite not being in financial difficulty, just did not want to part with a ridiculous sum of money for no given reason) and just wanted to know when he would receive the payment (this was now at £179). Received a letter a week ago stating we had to pay this total or further action would be taken against my partner and I (I opted for online payment, the phone calls were starting to total up to a massive phone bill, and calling to cancel had an extra 85p credit card charge).

Feel totally let down by this company, there Customer Service skills have little to be desired, I felt like I was bothering them every time I called. They seem to be marketing themselves for a younger customer and they have left me £179 down when I need it the least. Also add on an extra £50+ phone bill for being put on hold.

Please don't use this company, I would hate for anyone else to be ripped off to the extent that we have, or be pushed from pillar to post as we have been.