would you pay?
 

I cancelled an insurance policy about 4 months ago on a car I got rid of as it wasnt my thing, I made a phone call got the usual banter about staying with them but the car was sold and it wasnt needed. so I left it at that. cancelled the direct debit with the bank as i always do.

I also followed this up with an email to the broker confirming that I required it to be cancelled.

well when I bought my current car, I rang the insurance company up and asked for it to be insured, they tell me that the old policy is still running do i want to add it onto that one? I explained that it was meant to have been cancelled and I wouldnt be paying for any mess up on their behalf, the person agreed and said it must have ben n oversight on their part. so I said yes please that saves messing about as you have all the details, and didnt think anymore of it.

anyway the company has tried to take a large amount from my account to pay for the monthly instalments and I didnt have the funds to cover it so my bank cancelled the DD for me.

I had a call last week saying you owe 4 months worth of payments, bearing in mind id only had the car covered for under a month, I refused to pay stating the above and they said they would call me back later, I got a call from them whilst I was driving so I pulled over and they hung up before I could stop.

today I have recieved a nasty letter saying I owe £164 for what is basically a months insurance on a basic car. I would expect to pay that for a ferrari or something but not an alfa romeo lol.

what should I do??? gisc? ombudsman?? Im not sure how to approach it as I have used the company in the past with no issues and I really like the broker I talk to and I would hope to use them in the future, ( hence no names mentioned)

your input and opinion please, :)

I'd go straight back to the broker if I were you. Since you sent them an email confirming cancellation, both you and they have proof that the policy should have been cancelled.

I have checked and my sent folder has been cleared since I sent it. I have tried to contact the broker but I can never seem to get hold of him anymore.

Letter to insurers explaining THEIR problem, asking for THEIR help to sort it. To the head of whichever dept is pursuing you for money.

It's what I did for my eldest when he had probs with Tesco not wanting to give him his 2 yrs ncd when he moved to Privilege. Got a letter back within a week with confirmation of his correct ncd.

I have direct debits for just that reason. They can run on if you don't check or simply forget about them.

Too late this time but please ALWAYS keep a hard copy print-off of cancellations.

My daughter wasn't checking her account but when she did found she was paying £25 per month for phone insurance when the company knew they had replaced the phone under contract over a year before.

dl

This happened to me when i was 17.

I had a supper-dooper Nova SR with the whopping 1.4 engine. I quickly tired of this staggering 90BHP of mayhem though and got a Cav GSI 4x4 with a supreme 150BHP of potential wickedness. Sadly though i couldn't bear to part with my lovely Nova (I'd have it again now In fact) so kept it and got a new policy for the Cav..

Now the funny part....ready for this all you young folk out there......3rd party ins on the Cav with no no-claims and having had a licence for about a year was a whopping £900odd i think. You wouldn't get insured on a invalid cart for that now would you :lol1:

Then, suddenly 150BHP of craziness just wasn't enough so i had to get a Cav 4x4 Turbo. And for some reason the Nova insurers WOULD insure me on that so the Nova finally went and the Turbo put onto that policy that had a years NC by now too :)

So i needed to cancel the GSI insurance....but to do so the bastids charged me 2/3 of the full premium and threatened court action and the like to get it. So being young and foolish i paid up :(

Then about two years later they had been taken over by another company that asked me for a payment of about half what i had previously paid. I prove i had paid double that already and they said sorry and refunded me the difference :D

So in the end i had about 3-4 months insurance on a Cav GSI age 17 for about a fiver or something :)

An early WIN in a subsequent life full of winning ;)