Cancelling my car insurance policy after an accident

mattymoo

Dunstonh - it doesn't sound right to me.

Billdrick - when you made the claim, did you claim from your own insurer or from the other persons insurer? Did your own insurer ever pay you anything?

Can you also say what your premium was and how many months you had to go with it? Just to give 2 examples at opposite extremes
Policy = £5,000 per annum and you have £550 to pay, being 10 months or so into the policy - I think most people would agree the insurer was right.
Policy = £600 per year and you cancelled 1 month in, owing around £550. Assuming your insurer never paid you anything then I think most would agree the insurer was wrong to insist on the outstanding premium.

Annisele

I think Dunstonh is right.

The Financial Ombudsman Service publishes a technical note on motor insurance - it says:

Usually the [motor insurance] policy is a yearly contract and the full premium is payable even if the vehicle is written-off during the year. If the policyholder paid the yearly premium up-front, no refund is due. If the policyholder was paying the yearly premium by monthly instalments, the outstanding instalments are still payable.

StanVanDamn

Annisele - You are correct but in the original problem - the third party insurance company paid for the total loss of the vehicle. So Billdrick insurance company shouldnt have paid a penny so he shouldnt have to pay the remaining premium.

billdrick

mattymoo wrote: »

Dunstonh - it doesn't sound right to me.

Billdrick - when you made the claim, did you claim from your own insurer or from the other persons insurer? Did your own insurer ever pay you anything?

Can you also say what your premium was and how many months you had to go with it? Just to give 2 examples at opposite extremes
Policy = £5,000 per annum and you have £550 to pay, being 10 months or so into the policy - I think most people would agree the insurer was right.
Policy = £600 per year and you cancelled 1 month in, owing around £550. Assuming your insurer never paid you anything then I think most would agree the insurer was wrong to insist on the outstanding premium.

The third party's insurer (Direct Line) paid for a hire car and when the garage wrote off my car, Direct Line also paid me what they thought the car was worth. My insurer (M&S, or Sabre) didn't pay anything out to me.

I renewed in September 2009, first payment was £89.07, then £89.05 per month. The policy was cancelled in January (after they took the January payment).

mattymoo

M&S Insurance is handled by Budget Insurance Services Ltd (not good). They are a broker and may well have placed the business with Sabre, an insurance company.

I did find this policy wording on the Sabre site - http://www.sabre.co.uk/files/PC%20-%20Policy%20Booklet%20UK%20&%20NI%20-%20%20June%202009%20-%20Z.pdf
Even more variants here - http://www.sabre.co.uk/policy-wording-summary.html but I think I picked the right one for the date in question.
Relevant section is the last para of D5 - Cancellation - on page 5 of the pdf file. Seems to back up their claim for no refund. I looked for a similar clause in a More Than policy and could not find it.

dunstonh / dacouch - is this wording common? Seems rather unfair if so.

StanVanDamn

Your right Matt play fair!

Cant believe they can do that though thats shocking!! Your paying for something your not using.