I have just looked too closely into a regularly renewed household insurance policy run by HSBC and uncovered an underbelly of the life of a British consumer. 

 The premium was increased by 100 per cent without notice or explanation.  The policy which I thought was with HSBC had been outsourced to Premium Scanner which had re-outsourced it to BDML which is owned by Capita. The insurance company is Prestige which on the Internet has a telephone number in Spain.  A premium charge is made on the 0845 number which begins with a lengthy rambling message. But this is not stated and the staff do not know what the charge is. In my first call to an rival insurance company, I was quoted less than half the HSBC premium for twice as much cover. HSBC claims to ‘search the most competitive price from our panel of insurers.’

In two hours of household admin this morning, I have found hundreds of pounds in small bills here and there that are being wrongly charged.