Car Insurance Cancelled by Direct Line

addyboo

I have been with direct line for a number of years and towards the end of this years policy I decided to buy myself a new car, an import from Japan (A Nissan Figaro). When the car finally arrived I rang Direct Line to get them to remove my previous car and insure this one on its Chassis number (Something you need to do to be able to register the car in the UK) this went through Okay. I then registered the car with the DVLA and waited for my documents to arrive. In this time I receive a rather nasty computer written letter saying how I cannot register the car without number plates, and how it is illegal to drive a car without number plates (The car is in my garage and hasn't moved since I had it shipped here) the letter then went on to say I had 1 week or the insurance policy would be cancelled. So I thought, hey ho my registration will be here soon and today it came, I rang Direct Line and they told me that my policy had been cancelled, Ive lost my no claims bonus for that year and was due a £36 refund for the 2 months and 12 days of whats left of the policy (Although I calculate it as about £45) They then said they could start a new insurance policy from scratch and quoted me £330, £90 more than last year! Needless to say I declined and am upset that an Insurance Company can cancel your policy even though I had done everything I could and had paid all the premiums for the year.

huckster

Not sure Direct Line will cover Japanese imports. Insurance companies that allow the chassis number to be used, will only provide cover on a temporary basis, so if you did not give them a reg no. within a certain number of days, they would have cancelled the cover, after giving a warning.

Direct Line appear to have acted correctly, but if you are not happy, phone them to make a complaint.