Incorrect date of birth - Home Insurance!!

Cheekychappie

Hi
I hope someone can help. I have renewed my home insurance in mid february and they sent me the documentation which I checked. My date of birth was wrong by 10 years. They had me as 50 not 40!! I have spent 3-4 weeks chasing the broker (Swintons) to get them to change it. When finally they did come back they said it was an increase in £127 on the premium!!! They said I should have been charged for last year as well as it was wrong then too!! So they "did me a favour" by not retrospectively charging me for £80 for last year but insist on the £127 this year!! They are saying it was my fault as I filled in my initial information on the various websites like moneysupermarket, confused etc. But having looked at my emails from what I can see I had it at the correct date!! I havent checked the site I finally used to get the quote I went for. Are those sites legally obliged to hold that sort of information for a period of time so I can check to see what I actually put in at the time? My gut feeling says that Swintons would have re keyed my information from moneysupermaket and it was them that got it wrong!!

To cap it all off I have told Swintons that I want to cancel as I should have been within my cooling off period (if they hadnt have taken so long to get back to me) but they said there is a £50 admin charge and a £20 service charge for cancelling!??!!

I am going mad or does this seem incredibly unfair!!!

Help please!!! :O(

Wutang_2

Seems like they are being more than fair to me! You paid a lot less last year and they are letting you off it.

dunstonh

I am going mad or does this seem incredibly unfair!!!

I agree with Wutung in that it doesnt seem unfair.

You got away with 12 months of a lower premium and you should have checked the details at the start. Doing it now is treated as an amendment and charged accordingly. They could apply to have the money backdated to previous years as well technically. So, they are doing your a favour (although realistically you wouldnt expect them to do it on house insurance).

The whole point of online applications is that it passes the liability to getting it right from the broker to yourself. So, if errors in input do occur, the fault lies with you.

If you have evidence that the date of birth was correct on the input then you should present it to them and show it as their fault. However, the only input that matters will be that you put into Swinton. Not anyone else.

Cheekychappie

I hear what you are saying. The question I have is from a financial compliance point of view do companies like moneysupermarket have to keep all customer interactions on record for up to 7 years. Ie - do you think its worth me asking them for the information from 2 years ago when I filled out the date of birth.

I am pretty certain I put in my correct date.

tinysandra

did you apply for details from internet as swinton are saying my fault for underinsurance on my house and I must have given details on internet:beer:

huckster

Cheekychappie

You can submit a subject access request under Data Protection to Moneysupermarket.
If you do a google for subject access request letter, there is a simple one on the Information commissioners Office (ICO) site. It is up to Moneysupermarket how much they charge for providing the info. The max is £10. They have up to 40 days to provide the info.

It is up to you whether you think it is worth it. When you received the policy documents from Swinton, you should have checked the information. Have a look to see if you have the first years documents.

keeno65

"did you a favour" my proverbial **se.
You didn't get off with anything, if you had made a claim last year do you think they would have paid out? I would count yourself as lucky you didnt have to make a claim.

And correct me if I am wrong, but if you accept the new premium, is it not then a new agreement, which you can then cancel in your cooling off period....

lindos90

Out of interest, why would HOME insurance be so much more expensive for a 40 year old than a 50 year old? (personal insurance I can understand due to medical things, but Home insurance??)

I know they calculate it on probabilities and other factors and all that, but apart from perhaps a slightly higher risk of a 40 year old having 'crazier parties' what would increase the risk so much?

dunstonh

40 year old is likely to have younger children, be at work during the day and have more expensive consumable items to insure than a 50 year old. Many insurers wont differentiate on the age but some will on that basis.

lindos90

dunstonh wrote: »

40 year old is likely to have younger children, be at work during the day and have more expensive consumable items to insure than a 50 year old. Many insurers wont differentiate on the age but some will on that basis.

Interesting, Thanks for taking the time to reply. I guess there are allsorts of assumptions you could make on a persons age, some fair, some unfair.

I just assumed that home insurance was based on the house condition, area and contents (minus people) never been asked how many children I have, (probably a good thing, that might triple the quote!):rotfl::rotfl: