Your car insurance company has told you that they are going to increase the amount you have to pay in insurance for your car each month. You are not happy about this. Write a letter to your insurance company. In your letter: - explain Why you are writing to them - Why you think the insurance should not be increased - What you want them to do
Sample Response
Dear Sir or MadamDear Sir / Madam, I am writing to you as I recently received a letter from you informing me that the insurance premium for my car is going to increase from next month. As you will be aware if you check my records, I have held my insurance with your company for nearly seven years now. During this time, I have never had an accident and never needed to makenever had any reason to make a claim on my insurance. I understand that price increases are sometimes necessaryat times prices need to be increased. However, the proposed increasethis increase you are suggesting will raise my monthly premium by 20%will result in a 20% increase in the amount I pay each month, an amount I consider excessivea rate I feel is too much. I would therefore like you to respondwrite back to me and explain why such an increase has been proposed. If you are unable to justify it to my satisfaction, then I am afraid that I will have no other option but to switch to another insurermove my insurance to another company. I look forward to hearing from you. Yours faithfully,you, Yours faithfully, Mr Mahmoud Khan
Why this response received Band 8.0
The letter is concise, formally appropriate, and persuasive, using a strong record of claim-free insurance to challenge the proposed increase. Its main limitation is that the requested outcome focuses on receiving an explanation rather than directly asking the company to reconsider or withdraw the increase. The highest-priority improvement is to state that desired action explicitly and organise the grounds and request in separate paragraphs.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The purpose, objection, supporting reasons, and requested response are all clear, with an appropriately firm formal tone.
Ask directly for the increase to be reviewed or withdrawn, in addition to requesting an explanation.
Coherence and Cohesion
The reasoning progresses smoothly from notification of the increase through the customer's record and objection to the requested response.
Use separate paragraphs for the reason for writing, the justification, and the action requested.
Lexical Resource
Precise insurance vocabulary and controlled formal expressions communicate the complaint clearly and professionally.
Replace the slightly awkward phrase ‘a rate I feel is too much’ with ‘an increase I consider excessive.’
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex sentences are varied, accurate, and well controlled throughout, with punctuation supporting clear meaning.
Maintain this control while shortening the longest conditional sentence for even greater directness.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
Your car insurance company has told you that they are going to increase the amount you have to pay in insurance for your car each month. You are not happy about this. Write a letter to your insurance company. In your letter:
- explain Why you are writing to them
- Why you think the insurance should not be increased
- What you want them to do
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.