Needing to insure a UK-registered car that lives in Italy, we were recommended to Stuart Collins. In the last three years they have been unfailingly helpful and efficient and we have had no problems at all. For insurance of off-shore vehicles they are perfect.

After wasting hours of time with the big insurance companies what a relief to discover Stuart Collins. Professional, courteous and competitive, I recommend them without hesitation.

Have dealt with Stuart Collins for a few years and would highly recommend them. They are highly efficient and very friendly and any queries have always been handled quickly with no hassle.

I was insured with Stuart Collins for almost 10 years as I drove my UK car all over the continent with work. With their foreign policy you don't need to bring your car back to the UK each year like most others. I must have saved thousands in car rental costs. I did have to make a claim once and the case was handled quickly and I was sent a cheque. I found the two people I dealt with and the team at Stuart Collins prompt and efficient to deal wrt renewals and requesting information etc, and always very easy to contact via email or phone. I would reccomend them to anyone looking to bring a UK reg car to to the continent or Eire for extended periods. I know a few fellow contractors I reccomended them to are also very happy.

My wife and I have been with many insurance companies and Stuart Collins has by far exceeded our expectations in terms of customer service, value for money and overall customer care - it has restored our faith in car insurance companies. I was recently involved in an accident - non fault - and the company went above and beyond to support me with getting all the information and contacting the third party straight away. There was no hassle and everything moved as quickly as they could. It was a very stressful time for us because my wife was due to give birth that week and we were without a car. The Stuart Collins team checked in with us and did everything they could to ensure the process was as stress-free as possible. They called us - we didn’t have to call them which surprised me because normally with insurance companies, the customers do the chasing. I just want to thank the whole Stuart Collins team for their support and guidance through this stressful time and particularly Jan Eynon! You went above and beyond to ensure we had options for a replacement car in the meantime and sorted out our temporary cover. Highly recommend this company for great car insurance and even better customer service!

I found dealing with Stuart Collins very easy and professional and I was always confident that my interests were being looked after whilst I was a client over many years. Although sadly I have now had to re register my vehicle onto foreign plates and cease cover with Stuart Collins, I will continue to recommend them to friends etc and they will certainly be my first port of call if I should return back to a UK registered vehicle.

I needed to change my car insurer who was unable to offer me flexible European cover. It was difficult to find a company meeting these needs and I finally approached Stuart Collins & Co and requested a quotation. When I came to pay some weeks later it suddenly increased. When I tried to discuss the matter with a senior manager, I received verbal abuse and threatening behaviour. If you're looking for European coverage, go to Saga - half the price and a joy to deal with after the appalling service given to me by this company, and Saga met my needs 100%.

Terrible attitude, luckily he revealed his manner before I committed to his services. My advice would be avoid!

I used Stuart Collins last year and despite it being a little pricey, it was easy and pleasant to set up. This year when I tried to renew it, I had a completely different experience. I filled out an online quote, which I then had to keep chasing them about and was only met with 'check your spam inbox' for 2 days. When they finally sent it to my other email, I continued to have to chase them for the rest of the week to get the insurance completed. I was finally met with a series of very informal and rude emails from Stuart. When I sent him over my phone number (which I can confirm was checked and was typed out correctly) this is what I recieved: Not that "great".....cos the number does not work....now laying in a darkened room....ball now in your court....we open again at 2.00pm. Regards It was overall a very long winded and unprofessional experience that I did complain about, which ended in this email from Stuart: Really? in 52 years of running this business I have never experienced someone quoting a phone number that does not work...and when it is raised get an answer such as yours. We are closing our file. Regards I am genuinely shocked at this level of professionalism and also really disappointed because I simply just wanted to renew my insurance because I was a trusting client. I hope you are ok during these uncertain times of lockdown, but I do think a little bit of adjustments need doing when it comes to your client interaction.

I was delighed and relieved to find a broker who seemed to offer just what i was looking for - a policy that would allow me to retain my UK registered car in france for trips to the ferry and local use, instead of trading in a very old car for a measly sum when buying a new car. This company's approach to my request to do business with was to insult me, & be sarcastic about my request. This was in response to a very genuine polite query about their quotes as it appeared that they had not actually understood my request. Really strange approach to customer service. They have been in business for many year, perhaps they are past sell by date.

I saw this company recommended on different message boards as they specialised in Europe-wide car insurance. I spoke to them and agreed insurance for my car as I was due to be spending time in Europe. Then the week after buying the insurance policy I was forced to take my car off the road and cancel the insurance for it. That should have been hassle-free. Government rules mean you have cooling off period of two weeks, meaning you cancel the policy and get refunded the full amount that you paid, minus any administrative fees - fine. When I asked Stuart Collins Insurance to cancel the policy they told me that they would charge me 25% of my annual premiums to do it! This is apparently what they charge for any policies that are cancelled. I repeatedly and patiently explained to them that we were inside the cooling off period, so they legally had to refund my full annual premium and any other rules of theirs were irrelevant. They point-blank refused, and aggressively claimed that there was no such thing as a cooling off period. They only started to back down when I got the owner of the company to read aloud over the phone the official government rules on cooling off periods. He and his secretary were then really unpleasant handling the refund. I would sell my car and walk everywhere rather than deal with this dodgy bunch again.

We needed specialist insurance to have the car abroad for a year. The insurance they offered was about twice the price of our previous insurance but we were able to keep the car abroad more than the usual 30 or 60 days. The service was excellent with emails responded to in minutes not days. All very professional.

I am astonished to read the other review, which is very negative. We have used Stuart Collins for several years and have always experienced excellent service. I have recommended them to friends. They provide real 365 day European coverage (as opposed to 60 days at a time). We have had to claim twice, once because a Frenchman bumped our car. AXA legal department dealt with it and the Frenchman's insurance paid in full for our repairs, without us having any hassle. We also gotsome paint on our car from driving under a bridge in Spain that was being painted by someone who had not bothered to put up any warning signs. Result: green spots of paint all over our car. Our insurance paid for the paint to be removed by our chosen garage in France. Again, no hassle. They are not the cheapest but you get what you pay for, and we are very satisfied with their service.

This is a long one but there's not much info out there in the Googleverse so here's the full story from my perspective: I contacted Stuart Collins and Co for a quote and filled in their online form. I was not sent an email copy of the form so I had nothing to refer back to if I wanted to check the data. I received a reply with a quote which was higher than my current premium but expected as it’s a European policy. I received a curt reply when I asked for further information directing me to ‘read it online’ and then no further replies to at least one subsequent email. I printed off the ‘Proposer agreement’, completed it and called to ask for help with some of the questions. The lady was nice and polite but seemed in a hurry to get me off the phone using short one word answers where possible. I signed and scanned the document and emailed it across. I called to check that they had received it and I was told I’d be emailed once they had checked the agreement. That same today (16.06.2014) I received an email from “Jan” which went straight to my junk mail. Previous emails from this company had gone to my inbox. Yet Microsoft had red banners everywhere and I had to physically show the content. A warning message still remains : “Be careful! This sender has failed our fraud detection checks.” In her email, “Jan” stated that the quote had now increased from £676.06 to £852.74 as : “ On the original enquiry form, you stated you had your full licence for 11 years. On the proposal form you state you have 3 years full licence.” If the figure had been 33 or anything beginning or ending with 3 or even next to the 3 key, I could accept this could have been a mistake. It is not possible for that to have been a mistake so essentially they were accusing me of lying (this detail becomes relevant later). I replied to point out that I had not entered 11 and requested that they honour their original quote. I also requested evidence of what I had entered because I had never been provided with a copy. “Jan” replied with one word : “Evidence?” (very professional!) with some form details pasted below. As the form details were in plain text format, this is not true ‘evidence’. Understandably, I requested more concrete evidence such as a screenshot or really any kind of format which cannot have been altered and I also explained that in my previous employment (car insurance!) our online forms often sent incorrect information through because of their poor design, in particular when it came to numbers. I also confirmed that I would be obtaining quotes elsewhere, specifically with Asda as they offer 365 days European cover with no limit on each trip abroad (according to the advisor I spoke with). It seems that once they realised I was not going to give in and pay the additional premium, they decided that their “morals” were too high to provide me with the evidence I had requested and indeed, even to insure me! : “ I have spoken to him about this and he has suggested you use another supplier as due to your insinuating that we are telling anything but the truth, we are not prepared to do business with you.” – earlier detail becoming relevant: they had just finished accusing me of not telling the truth! What reputable insurer would ever refuse to provide irrefutable evidence (if possible to) when requested to do so by a customer whom they are attempting to extort an additional premium of £176.68 from? What reputable company would rather lose £676.06 (plus the European breakdown cover I was going to purchase so a total of £861.06) than simply apologise for the misunderstanding and write off the £176.68? I had never heard of them before deciding to go travelling and it took a lengthy Google search for their name to even appear. I don’t think they can afford to be so choosy. The whole experience of Stuart Collins and Co trying to get away with increasing the premium and then backing down in the most ludicrous way possible when they realised I wouldn’t bite is highly suspicious at best. Fortunately, I obtained a cheaper quote with Asda at just over £530 pa which I’m extremely happy with. It comes with a lot of extras that Stuart Collins and Co didn’t offer as a bonus and Asda is a much bigger name in which I place a lot more trust.