14 day Cancelation Rule???????????

Furry_2

Hi all, can any of you money savers help with my problem.

I took out car insurance 12 months ago with Norwich Union and paid by direct debit. I received a renewal proposal from them a year later which was very high. So I took out insurance from another firm. Norwich Unions letter (which came with the new proposal) stated if I did not contact them the policy would be renewed. However I forgot to call them to say I did not wish to take up their offer to renew. I remembered to do this six days after the renual date. I thought it would be fine as I understood you had 14 days to cancel any insurance, but when I rang them I was told this did not apply to what they called a continuation. They said that with a continuation you only have 5 days to cancel, is this correct? (I rang on day six). They now want a hefty cancellation fee.

Is there any consumer law that could help or do I have to bite the bullet?

P.S If I had paid by credit card the policy could not have been auto renewed. So paying by direct debit didn’t help any.

Thanks for any advise.

jacquit_3

hi furry,

if you can prove that you had insurance elsewhere you should not have to pay the cancellation fee. send them a copy of your new certificate showing the start date of your new insurance.

Astaroth

You are entitled to cancel within 14 days of the policy starting or you receiving the policy documents - which ever is the later. Whilst you have a right to cancel this doesnt prevent the insurer from either charging a cancellation fee or charging on a pro-rata basis for the cover you have had. After 14 days you have no legal ground for cancellation though obviously the majority of insurers do allow this

Sponge

...if I did not contact them the policy would be renewed...

Are they really allowed to do this? I thought they had to wait for positive instructions before being able to do something like this, not simply 'wait for nothing'.

Edit:

I just googled this.

It appears to be geared towards cc/db payments, but I imagine the same applies to other methods. It looks like they can do it, if you agreed to it when you originally took out the policy.