£20 charge for cancelling insurance within 7 days

ipete

Last year I took out car insurance with Auto Trader Insurance. In the intervening time I have moved house and let the policy laps, or so I thought. To my surprise, Auto Trader have renewed the insurance charging my credit card and claiming that they sent details to my old address. I never received those details. When I asked Auto Trader to cancel the policy (within 7 days of its renewal date) they insisted in charging me a £20 fee for the cancellation.

Can they do this? I am wondering which way to persuade them? Because it is a continuation of service can I still use Distance Selling Laws to cancel? They charged my credit card so could I use section 75 to obtain a refund? And if the chap at the end of the phone won't respond who do I call?

Pete

gordikin

You in all likelyhood agreed to autorenewal when you took the policy out. Did you inform them of your change of address?

ipete

I probably did agree to the auto renewal, it would be in the small print, but does that mean I agreed to the £20 cancellation charge? I didn't tell them about my move I just expected it to lapse.

gordikin

The cancellation charge would likely be in the unread 'small print' too. £20 is cheap BTW. You should have informed them of your change of address.

pinkshoes

I had the same problem with AA breakdown cover, but I was quite sure I didn't sign up for automatic renewal (as you can always get a deal cheaper elsewhere each year), and was still picking up post from old address.

I asked them to prove that they'd sent a letter (which they couldn't), and nor could they supply me with proof of my renewal agreement, so eventually they refunded the whole amount (reluctantly!), with no fee.

Jonesy_McJones

If you have taken out insurance with someone else and therefore had two policies running at the same time, then give them proof of the new policy - I would have thought this would make them reconsider the cancellation fee.