Mark Bates Ltd has now received more than 22,000 reviews on Trustpilot, with an overall score of 4.8 out of 5. Trustpilot currently lists us as the highest rated mobility insurance company in the United Kingdom, ahead of every other provider in the category. Those figures are the result of a decision we made some years ago, which is to ask every single customer for a review, without exception, and to publish the results somewhere we cannot control.

A lot of companies collect reviews selectively. They invite the customers who have just had a good experience and stay quiet with the rest, or they gather comments on their own website where the unhappy ones never appear. We do not do that. Every customer receives an invitation to review us on Trustpilot, whether they have a free month’s insurance with their new mobility scooter, had their home insurance with us for years or they have just been through a claim. The person who had a problem gets the same invitation as the person who did not as that is the only way the score means anything.

We use Trustpilot rather than our own review page for the same reason. Trustpilot is independent. Reviews are published as customers write them, we cannot remove one we would rather people did not see, and Trustpilot's own rules do not allow companies to offer incentives for reviews, to invite only happy customers, or to pay to hide bad ones. You can read how Trustpilot enforces this on their site. When someone is comparing us with another insurer, we want them to be looking at the full record, not a curated one.

We have specialised in insurance for older and disabled customers since 1994, and everything is still done from our office in Grantham. Sales, customer service and claims all sit in the same building, and reviews are read by the same people who answer the phones. Several changes to the way we work over the years have started with a comment on Trustpilot, and that only happens because we ask everyone, not just the people we expect to be pleased.

We are proud of the score, but we are prouder of how it was earned. With more than 22,000 reviews behind it, 4.8 is not a good week or a lucky run. It reflects tens of thousands of separate conversations, renewals and claims, handled by a UK team who know the products and know their customers. It is the same standard we have held ourselves to since the company started, and it is why so many of our customers stay with us year after year.

If you would like to see what our customers have said, you can read them on our reviews page or directly on Trustpilot.