Help needed.

Wowsa

I was thinking the house insurance was due when I today received a letter from Dial Direct informing me that they had tried to take out insurance payment of £199.57 but the bank have told them that authorisation is declined.
Apparently, as I have an on-line policy, I agreed to them doing this. Needless to say I did not read the pages of gen sent by email when I took out this insurance last year. In fact, I had never heard of this type of thing happening with insurance policies. Perhaps I have led a sheltered life!
Anyhow I phoned them up and protested only to be told I owed a cancellation fee of £35 plus - and I heard no more. I protested quite fiercely. In the end I put the phone down.
Has this happened to anyone else? What punishment can I expect?
Above all, what do I do now - apart from look for insurance on one of Martin's recommended comparison sites.
As I am an OAP I find this quite worrying.

Quentin

They are probably correct in what they have done, though check your policy to see if you did agree to autorenewal, and that they advised you of a fee to cancel.

If they have indeed acted correctly, then you also need to enquire as to whether or not they are considering this cancellation one which has gone down as a cancelled policy on your profile. (If so, then try and dispute this - otherwise you will need to declare the cancellation when looking to find insurance elsewhere, and won't be able to get quotes via the comparison sites)

It might be worth trying to get your policy reinstated to cut out the hassle.

Whatever the situation, you will now have no cover (due to the cancellation), which would be a worry no matter how old you are, so you need to urgently resolve this.

Wowsa

Thank you for your reply. I have indeed taken out insurance - cheaper than it was last year in fact. I was fortunate in that Dial Direct were not on the list and I could just tick 'another' when completing the form.
I have checked the wording of the policy from Dial Direct and they also state that they are entitled to increase the premium by 10% each year. Well last year I paid about £130 and this year they want just on £200 - so their maths aren't too good.
I now intend to sit tight and wait and see.
Thank you again.

Quentin

Glad you got covered.

But you do need to check that you haven't inadvertently accepted any assumption from your new insurer regarding having ever had a policy cancelled, or ticked "no" to any question regarding this.

Otherwise it could come back to bite you should you need to make a claim!