Unbelievably stressful van insurance query - please help!

BaldPlumber

Here’s my story and I hope that someone can offer some money saving advice for me, apologies for the long post.

I took out van insurance with Dial Direct, part of BISL, via a price comparison website last March. During the course of the year I had one no fault accident and received a 100% final settlement via my solicitors on February 1st. Also, during the years cover, my 3 penalty points expired, so I have a clean licence. I paid about £500 fully comp.

I left the country for 3 months from 1st January to 31st March, during which period my van was off road and parked on private property. It was taxed and MOT’d and not SORN.

On my return I found that Dial Direct had automatically renewed my insurance and increased the policy by approximately £1,900! They had already debited my bank account by £194 as the 1st month’s payment. I immediately phoned customer services who asked me to email them a scan of my passport showing I was abroad for the times stated, which I did. They were also unaware that my accident claim was settled in my favour and said they needed 3 working days to confirm this. I heard nothing from them again and so called to ask what they were doing to rectify this ludicrous policy amount and to ask why they had renewed my policy without my express permission. Their answer was (a) nothing and (b) it was in their terms and conditions. They did offer to cancel my policy for £630! Which I declined.

I then raised a complaint with the FOS and wrote a recorded letter of complaint to the company.

I then received a telephone call from someone in Dial Directs complaints department who seemed like a decent chap and he asked me to email him the same passport scan there and then. He then told me that it should be possible to cancel the policy and charge a pro-rata rate for the days used, but it would not be possible to cancel the policy from inception. He promised to call back with the figures.

He called back about an hour later and very apologetically explained that Dial Directs finance department would only accept a cancellation based on their short term insurance rates. The cost to cancel the policy would be a further staggering £867 plus an additional charge of £15 for not returning the proposal form, which you will remember I was not in the country to receive. I asked why he could not correct my policy premium as it seemed to be based on the fact that I had been responsible for the earlier claim. He said that the lowest he could get it was for £2000 despite the fact that I could get an online quote, via compare the market, for £530. The other problem was that the next payment was due the next day and as he explained, if I prevaricated in cancelling then the cost would go up and up.

So, I cancelled under protest and said I would pursue my claim with the FOS. I then tried to cancel my direct debit with the bank, but this failed as it was a card payment and, as it turns out, I had no way on earth of cancelling the payment.

So, my query is very simple. Do I have any chance of getting any of this money back? I have since taken out a new policy with another provider for a premium of under £500, but as it stands I have paid £194 + £867 + £15 totalling £1,076 for one month’s cover which I did not request, did not need and would never, in a million years have taken up had I been in the country to receive the documentation.

Just to add, I did not go through the T&C’s with a fine tooth comb as I have never experienced an automatically renewed motor insurance policy before.

Many thanks.

gordikin

Autorenew is now common. I've never had a policy with any insurer where it's not been stated openly. Have you checked back and had a looked to see if you have been informed the policy would autorenew?

2sides2everystory

Amazing how bad it is getting out there ... I would be livid in your shoes.

BISL is Budget Insurance Services Limited part of BGL Group. They have cornered a large part of the motor insurance market via heir relatonships with banks and others. Makes me glad that although I used their comparethemarket.com website to do all my initial comparisons this year I didn't buy through them.

http://www.bglgroup.co.uk/about/executive_team.php

You can perhaps understand that with a Finance Director whose name is Leech that it might be difficult for you to get your money back

However there may be some hope: http://www.bglgroup.co.uk/about/history.php

Scroll down to 2006. I think a PM to a certain MSE Martin might be in order for this one :money:

mikey72

Have a read of
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/39938318#Comment_39938318

with regard to the FOS's judgements on "short term rates",
and make a complaint to them under "treating the customer fairly" about the entire autorenew, and the price charged.
It's worth getting a new quote if you can, possibly under a made up name, with a similar postcode, but all the other details the same, for comparison.