Being charged insurance after car stolen

glyttergyrl

Hi there,

I was wondering if some one could tell me whether this is standard practice as it seems a bit odd to me.

My sister is insured by Direct Line and her car was stolen on the 11th. Her policy expired on the 16th but they told her that she needed to continue paying insurance for another week in case they found it and she has it back. As this was until the 18th they said she had to renew her policy which she did and now they want to charge the cancellation fee to cancel it.

I was under the impression that you shouldn't be paying insurance for a car you do not have, what does eveyone else think?

Many thanks

Helen

DVardysShadow

She has been had by a lying scumbag.

neilmcl

DVardysShadow wrote: »

She has been had by a lying scumbag.

That's a bit strong. :eek:

glyttergyrl

DVardysShadow wrote: »

She has been had by a lying scumbag.

Someone after their commission for another policy perhaps?!

neilmcl

Your sister should be entitled to cancel under the standard 14 day cooling off period so I'm not sure why they're going to charge her a fee, maybe it's just an admin fee. TBH I'd be more concerned about getting the claim sorted.

glyttergyrl

She's out of 14 days now though, that's annoying!

I don't think she's heard from them about the claim yet, the only letter was the renewal letter.

She wasn't even going to make a claim as the car wasn't worth the excess plus increase in price due to here losing the no claims. The only reason she did was because they found it a couple of days later (still while she was covered) and she would have had to pay the recovery company £150. She actually would have been better off if the police hadn't found it!

bryanb

So she has her car and it's insured, What's the problem?

neilmcl

All starting to sound a bit strange now. I do wish OPs would give the full story when starting a thread instead of leaving crucial information out. :rolleyes:

glyttergyrl

She doesn't have her car, they haven't decided what to do with it but when I went to pick her stuff up from it I would imagine it's a wrie off.

I didn't miss out crucial information, the question is in my original post the rest is irrelavant, I was just ranting!

bryanb

glyttergyrl wrote: »

I was under the impression that you shouldn't be paying insurance for a car you do not have, what does eveyone else t

If the car is in the care of the police/a garage etc. and is still in her name. She does "have it" legally.

Who are "They"?

glyttergyrl

bryanb wrote: »

If the car is in the care of the police/a garage etc. and is still in her name. She does "have it" legally.

Who are "They"?

That's a good point actually, it would actually still be in her name until it was declared a write off.

"They" is the insurance company, I just mean they haven't decided whether it's a write off or to fix it. I think it would be driveable from what I saw but I would think the work involved would cost more than the car is worth.

Thanks for your help!