I didn't want to renew my car insurance with Company X so I cancelled the DD and thought no more about it.
Seems it had something called "auto-renew".
So I get a letter saying I owe them for the full amount of the policy.
Phoned them today, said I don't want insurance with them; they cancel the policy but say I'm liable for about £90 cancellation admin charge.
If anyone has stayed awake to read this far, do you know if there's any way of getting that charge waived?
Or do I just suck it up?
I've never encountered or even heard of "auto-renew" before -- I generally shop around for car insurance. It "feels" unfair but it's not impossible that I didn't have my legal team check the small print a year ago.
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How are they going to recover the £90 if you refuse to pay it?
@Grunfeld, cancelling the DD is not sufficient to cancel a policy.
If you had auto renew on then I reckon you do owe them the cancellation fee.
I would suck it up.
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So, beware of "auto-renew" THAT'S the take home message from this one. I didn't even know it existed.
And on a personal note just to make it feel like justice haha, I will aim never to spend another penny in the supermarket chain where I got the car insurance.
Tesco's loss is ASDA's gain cos I'll deprive them of £90 in the first fortnight.
I understand they probably have you by the bollocks but it's worth a try.
My my insurance is withTesco as well so I'll watch out! Thanks for the heads up.
Buggered indeed. EDIT -- Just seen Iamnobody's: waive as goodwill idea. I'll have a go. I'm sure I'll be chatting to them again.
On the positive side I've said that I'd already phoned them to cancel it *cough* so they'll have to go through the farce of pretending to look through the call logs, and writing to me, and I'll query that all the way, and basically string it out till they call in the debt collector and thereby at least I'll get the £90 of admin that I'm bloody paying for.
You can avoid spam from them - and any reputable company - by ticking the opt-out box for marketing comms. Next year, when when the new DP regs come into force, you'll have to actively opt IN for all the spam mails, so it'll be even easier to avoid.
I agree there are reputable companies -- I've got plenty of disposable emails with "0" beside them. But some household names are in the hundreds. And you never know who's who until it's too late.
I really hate spam so that's how I handle it. If they didn't send it, I wouldn't feel like I needed to do it.
They didn't contact her about it until they had called in the debt collection agency who wanted to charge a £50 processing fee.
We called them up and managed to sort it out but it was a lot of hassle.
If Yes, you should be able to cancel without question due to the 14 day "cooling off" period.
I had the same thing with my home insurance with Legal and General....I went with someone else - their renewal docs didn't make it clear it would auto renew, so thought nothing of it and noticed I'd been charged.
So I called them up, and they cancelled and refunded straight away because I was in the 14 day cooling off period.
Interestingly the guy said "if you pay insurance by DD, it will more than likely auto renew so you just need to make sure you cancel the DD if you don't wish to take the policy on for another year"....so according to him, cancelling the DD is sufficient, which is contrary to what has been said on this thread.
In my case if i choose to change insurers I always phone the current insurer to say that i don't want to continue with them, and ask them what i need to do next. I usually record what they say and follow to the letter.
Its a weird world at times, but it used to be that if you didn't hand over the cash they assumed you had gone.
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
All it means is they can't take the money from you, so they'll pursue you for it and mark them as missed payments on your credit file.
I accidently forgot to cancel an insurance policy on a vehicle I'd sold. I noticed on the day it auto-renewed so phoned and
asked to cancel it. As it was within the 14days, and I hadn't received any days of policy cover, they just stopped it without me having to pay.
I think auto-renewal is a legal requirement. I stand corrected, though.
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