About Comfort Insurance

about

Who We Are

Comfort Insurance is a family business. We pride ourselves in providing friendly and knowledgeable service to our clients. Our team are here to help, so give us a call.

Peter and Pat

Peter and Pat Cue and their family have been active motorhome owners for over 30 years. In the mid-1990's Peter realised that there was little or no specialist cover available to motorhome owners, so he set about creating a policy that provided the additional cover that motorhome owners needed. This became the Comfort Insurance Scheme, and it quickly became a market-leader. Further schemes for private cars and household insurance have followed. Years later the Comfort scheme is still regularly winning awards for quality of cover and service.

Our History

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1966 – 1972

Peter Cue was a Fireman.

Memorable Dates in History
  • 1966 England won the world cup
  • 1968 the world’s first heart transplant
  • 1969 apollo 11 first people to land on the Moon
  • 1970 band ‘The Beatles’ split up

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1972 – 1979

Peter Cue went into Insurance and was a Commercial Broker.

Memorable Dates in History:
  • 1973 Sydney opera house opens
  • 1974 Abba won Eurovision
  • 1976 Concorde the first scheduled supersonic passenger flight
  • 1978 Grease hit movie screens

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1979

Victor Millwell Insurance was formed.

Memorable Dates in History:
  • Trevor Francis became the World’s first footballer to be bought for £1 million
  • Margaret Thatcher becomes the Country’s first female Premier

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1982

Peter and Pat Cue bought their first motorhome and identified a gap in the market for specialist motorhome insurance.

Memorable Dates in History
  • The Tudor warship, the Mary Rose, was raised from the seabed with millions of views watching the first live underwater broadcast
  • The popular film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is released
  • Prince William was born
  • The launch of Channel 4

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1987

Specialist motorhome insurance was added to their products.

Memorable Dates in History
  • It’s a Royal Knockout was aired raising over £1 million for Save the Children
  • Richard Branson crossed the Atlantic in a hot air balloon
  • The Black Monday Market Crash

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1993

Launched a product variation of Norwich Union’s Motoring Gold for Cars specifically for motorhomes.

Memorable Dates in History
  • Buckingham Palace opens for tourists
  • Shane Warne bowls “Ball of the Century”
  • 1993 the first Jurassic Park film was released

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1995

The Comfort Insurance Brand was launched.

A Solus agreement was set up with Aviva (previously Norwich Union), a major underwriter to become one of the biggest and best providers of motorhome insurance trading as Comfort Insurance in offices in Green Street, Upton Park.

Disability Discrimination Act came into force.

Memorable Dates in History
  • DVDs were released
  • The UK's coldest temperature was recorded at Altnaharra in the Highlands of Scotland at -27.2 degrees Celsius.
  • Microsoft released Windows 95

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1996

29th February Nick Jackson from CDL demonstrated the CDL system.  There was a slight issue with the system during the demo and one of the team asked whether it could be leap-year related and it turned out it was.  Having agreed a deal, the CDL Classic system was implemented a few months later.

Memorable Dates in History
  • First Women Jockey rides in the Derby
  • Dolly the world's first cloned sheep was born
  • Girlband the spice girls released their debut album which included the hit single “Wannabe.”

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1998

Peter had a puncture on the M11 and realised how difficult it was to replace at the roadside which led to breakdown cover being bolted on and we were the first motorhome insurer to offer breakdown cover.

Memorable Dates in History
  • Good Friday Agreement
  • Titanic won 11 Oscars at the 70th Academy Awards
  • Google was founded
  • The UK hosted the Eurovision Song contest
  • The Angel of the North was completed

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Prior to 2000

There was no single code or rule book, just a number of voluntary codes covering specific issues.  This tended to cause confusion and adverse comments from Citizens Advice and the like.  In order to improve things a body called the General Insurance Standards Council (GISC) was formed and they produced a simple rulebook.

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2001

Moved offices to Goresbrook Road in Dagenham. 

Memorable Dates in History
  • 9/11
  • First Harry Potter film released
  • The apple iPod is invented
  • The Wikipedia website is launched

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2003

We were the first motorhome broker to introduced Quote and Buy online. The problem at this time was motorhomes did not have an ABI code so software systems such as CDL could not make a quote facility for these vehicles.  Our solution was to create from scratch a make and model list (inclusive of models from past years) and then apply a simple group rating structure which was accepted by Aviva (then Norwich Union) and usable by CDL.  This launch gave us a big advantage over our competitors.

There were some problems and challenges with the simple rule book produced by GISC and in 2003 the EU issued the Insurance Mediation Directive requiring all member states to follow a complex set of rules.

Memorable Dates in History
  • England win Rugby World Cup
  • Last commercial Concorde flight
  • Who wants to be a Millionaire coughing scandal

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2005

GISC ceased to exist and the new rules were overseen by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).  FSA already regulated the financial services industry and we (general insurance) inherited this very complex rule book.  We applied to be authorised during 2004 and regulation started in January 2005.

Memorable Dates in History
  • England regain the Ashes
  • Peter Kay's charity video brought Tony Christie's 'Is This the Way To Amarillo' back into the charts.
  • Prince Charles and Camilla marry
  • London was announced as the host city of the future 2012 Olympic games.
  • The Civil Partnership Act comes into force in Britain
  • Norman Foster designs the “Gherkin” in London
  • Facebook launched in the UK

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2006

The CDL Classic system ceased and Strata was introduced.  We were among the first CDL customers to deploy this system.

Memorable Dates in History
  • A whale found swimming in the River Thames
  • Darwin’s oldest tortoise dies at 176
  • Last edition of Top of the Pops

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2008

The financial crisis of 2008 caused the government to re-think how financial services was regulated, and the FSA was divided into 2 new organisations, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA). The PRA reports directly to the Treasury and is responsible for the major financial institutions such as banks, building societies and insurance companies.  Insurance brokers are authorised and regulated only by the FCA. 

Regulation has been an ongoing cause of debate since it started. Firms in the UK pay far more than any other country for authorisation and our Handbook of Rules is much more complex than the original EU requirement.  In short, we are over-regulated.  The financial and time cost of this has caused many small brokers to give up and sell out.

We researched and created a simplified rating structure similar to the way classic cars were rated.  There was a lot of debate with Norwich Union about rating areas but eventually our rating structure was accepted.

Memorable Dates in History
  • Lewis Hamilton became the youngest ever Formula One World Champion in motor racing
  • Barack Obama becomes the first African American to be elected as US President

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2010

New Business online was introduced

Eclipse C8 was born – we bought the book of business from Aviva

Memorable Dates in History
  • The Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland erupts and created an ash cloud so large it grounds air traffic over much of Europe
  • Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world is completed in Dubai

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2014

Twilight Campervan product was introduced.

Memorable Dates in History
  • The launch of the Invictus Games, a Paralympic-style sporting championship for wounded soldiers
  • TV show Friends celebrated its 20th anniversary

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2015

A new world record was set for the most people in a VW T2 campervan.

Memorable Dates in History
  • Facebook site passes a billion users
  • NASA finds flowing water on Mars

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2018/2019

Integration of the Cydesk system.

Memorable Dates in History
  • 2018 - The wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle
  • 2018 - Super Blue Blood Moon was seen for the first time since 1866 (a total lunar eclipse during the second full moon of the month while the moon was at its closest to the earth
  • 2019 - Britain's Hottest day on record
  • 2019 - Boris Johnson became the Prime Minister
  • 2019 - Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg became the face of climate change activism

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2020

Ability to renew online and download documentation.

November 2020 marks 25 years since the Disability Discrimination Act became law in the UK. The law was the first of its kind to protect those with disabilities from discrimination in areas including employment, the provision of goods and services, education and transport.

Memorable Dates in History
  • Brexit from the European Union became official
  • The COVID Pandemic sent everyone into lockdown.

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