ASA Adjudication on Warranty Direct Ltd

Ad

A magazine ad, for Warranty Direct, stated "Our warranty now covers much more of your car! Making it the most comprehensive warranty on the market ... we are the industry's leading provider of direct car warranties ...". The ad included a list of what was included in the cover.

Issue

Warrantywise, which believed it offered a more comprehensive warranty, challenged whether the claim "... the most comprehensive warranty on the market" could be substantiated.  

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Warranty Direct (WD) said they had been selling car warranties since 1997 and continually assessed the warranty market to ensure they always offered the most comprehensive warranty cover possible. They asserted that they were the first in the market to remove the 'wear and tear' exclusion, the 'consequential loss' exclusion and the exclusion on failure found during service or MOT.

WD argued that Warrantywise had not compared the correct warranties in their complaint. They believed Warrantywise should have compared both companies' premium cover: WD's 'LuxuryCare plus' cover with Warrantywise's "Total". WD asserted that their 'LuxuryCare plus' cover covered all car parts and was fully comprehensive; they argued that Warrantywise's 'Total' cover offered optional extras to bring it up to the same level as 'LuxuryCare plus' which they believed was bad practice. They believed it was not correct to count optional extras in a level of cover. WD listed a number of points that they argued showed Warrantywise's 'Total' cover was inferior to their own 'LuxuryCare plus' cover.

WD sent detailed analysis of every other car warranty on the market. They believed the analysis showed their 'LuxuryCare plus' cover was the most comprehensive cover on the market.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA considered that readers were likely to understand the claim "... the most comprehensive warranty on the market", especially in conjunction with the claim "Our warranty now covers much more of your car", to mean that WD offered a car warranty that covered more aspects than any other car warranty on the market. We considered that the claim did not imply that WD offered every single individual aspect covered by every other car warranty, but that their warranty covered more aspects in total.

We noted Warrantywise had referred to WD's 'LuxuryCare' cover in their complaint, rather than the 'LuxuryCare plus' cover. We noted the 'LuxuryCare plus' cover covered the majority of aspects that Warrantywise considered were missing from the 'LuxuryCare' cover. We noted there were some items that were covered by Warrantywise, either as an automatic part of the cover or an optional extra, that were not covered by 'LuxuryCare plus', such as misfuelling. We considered, however, that the evidence sent by WD showed that WD offered a warranty that covered more aspects in total than any of the other car warranties they had sent details of. We considered, therefore, that on the basis of the evidence we had seen, the claim was likely to be acceptable if it made clear the basis of the comparison.

We noted, however, the ad did not make clear that the claim was based on WD's "LuxuryCare plus" cover, rather than any of their other levels of cover. We considered that readers could infer from the ad that any car warranty they took up with WD covered more aspects than any other cover on the market. Because we understood that was not the case, and because the ad did not make clear the basis for the claim, we concluded that the ad was misleading.

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 19.1 (Other comparisons).

Action

We told WD to make clear the claim was based on their "Luxury Care plus" cover in future ads.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)