Insurance co refusing a refund after 5 days of purchasing an annual policy!!!

gamezbond

Hi all,
I am abroad due to work and was planning to go back to the UK soon for a couple of weeks before coming back out. Thought I would hire a car from Heathrow and use that instead of two taxi fares back and forth. While reading stuff about car rental on MSE, noticed that I should get car hire excess insurance. So had a look around and selected iCarhoreinsurance.com which came to roughly £40 for an annual policy. Was due to travel on the 10th but the flight got cancelled due to a strike by the airline staff. Next few flights were all full and instead of waiting on a chance, I changed my plans to travel when its a bit warmer. And thought I would buy an annual policy again when I travel.
I purchased the policy on 9th Feb and went through quidco that gives £13. So the policy would really cost me £27. I thought I would give my friend's address so if they do send anything by post (like a cover note etc) he can let me know immediately in case I need to sign something. Paid through my credit card which is registered to my permanent address. All went through ok and I received the key facts and policy wording pdf docs pretty much straight away. When all my flight plans got delayed, I thought I should cancel the policy for now, and buy it when I will take the flight home. So on 15th Feb I wrote an email to the company (customerservice@icarhireinsurance.com) to find out how they would be issuing the refund, would they issue a cheque or just straight back on my card I paid with. email is as below:

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Hi,
I purchased a European annual policy (details as below) on 09/02/2011 but is not required any more. If I wanted to cancel the policy in line with your 14 day cooling off period, how would you refund the money? Would it be back on my card that I used to pay?
Look forward to hearing from you,
Yours sincerely,
xxx

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I received a reply from the customer service as below (mainly saying that my premium is not refundable !!!

Hello Mr. XXX

Thank you for contacting iCarhireinsurance,com

Your policy incepted on 9th February, therefore under our Policy Cancellation Rule, your premium is not refundable. We have provided the cancellation wording as expressed in our policy documentation sent to you within the confirmation email when you purchased the policy.

Cancelling this Policy

Within 14 days of purchase: If within 14 days of purchasing this insurance You decide that it does not meet Your needs, Your premium will be refunded in full minus an administration fee. If however within the 14 days and/or since inception You have travelled, made a claim or intend to make a claim, or if the policy has incepted, then the premium will not be refunded.

After 14 days of purchase: If You decide to cancel the policy after 14 days of purchasing, then no refund of premium is available. If however, Your policy has not incepted, then Your premium will be refunded in full minus an administration fee.

If you have any other questions, you can call us anytime between 10:30am - 4:30pm Mon-Fri.

Regards,

Customer Service

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Thing is, I know its not a huge amount of money, but to have a policy against the FSA Rules of 14 day refund and simply refuse to pay is just taking the p*** :mad::mad::mad:

McKneff

Presumably it says somewhere how much the administration fee is, you didnt say.

(probabl £40 lol)

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Not everything has a 14 day cooling off period. It sounds to me like they're right.

withabix

Your policy had incepted, because you cancelled after the start date of the policy.

If you could get a full refund within 14 days, then everyone buying a 7-day policy for a holiday the day before they left would pay nothing for their insurance, because they would be able to claim the money back.

icarhireinsurance.com are completely in the right here.

What you SHOULD do is claim the cost of the excess cover from the provider of your travel insurance, because the reason for you wanting to cancel your excess cover was because of a flight cancellation.

FSA rules have NOT been broken, because they allow the insurer to charge an administration fee plus a charge based on the 'period on cover'. In this case (where a very small premium is charged), it is unreasonable to expect there to be a refund after these allowable charges.

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I don't fancy the OP's chances of being able to do that either.

gamezbond

McKneff wrote: »

Presumably it says somewhere how much the administration fee is, you didnt say.

(probabl £40 lol)

Yes it does in the pdf docs. It is £10 plus tax.

gamezbond

withabix wrote: »

If you could get a full refund within 14 days, then everyone buying a 7-day policy for a holiday the day before they left would pay nothing for their insurance, because they would be able to claim the money back.

Sorry I didnt say in my first post, its an annual policy. I read in the FSA cancellation rules that the 14 day cancellation rule applies only to the long term policies. I will try to post the rules here too.

gamezbond

BTW guys I did email them back, quoting the FSA rules and they have replied back asking a few questions this time (but this time they didn't plainly refuse to refund, just been awkward). I am trying to login to my email but am on a different pc and network. I will post the replies soon as I get to my email.

I don't really mind losing the £10 admin charge as FSA does allow that, but FSA rules don't say no refund due because the policy incepted within the 14 day period. In fact most policies like car insurance etc would start somewhere within the 14 day period when purchased. And even if they wanted to deduct some more money due to the time on risk, I think the FSA rules allow that on pro-rata basis which would be 6 days out of 365 !!

mikey72

Have a read of

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/54/insurance.htm

seems clearcut, assuming it applies to your type of policy.

gamezbond

mikey72 wrote: »

Have a read of

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/54/insurance.htm

seems clearcut, assuming it applies to your type of policy.

Cheers Mikey72. is this a "pure protection" type of policy or not, do you know please?
Sorry not really familiar with too many legal definitions

mikey72

gamezbond wrote: »

Cheers Mikey72. is this a "pure protection" type of policy or not, do you know please?
Sorry not really familiar with too many legal definitions

No idea I'm afraid.
Best to ring the FOS for advice. If you look for the "contact us" on the link above it's an 0800 number.