Can I seek compensation from my former insurer?

brendanandrewoneill

Hello

I recently had my car broken into and items stolen. When I called my insurance to inform them of the incident, and to begin the claims procedure, I was informed that my policy had been cancelled by my insurers, because I had not paid my premium.

Now, I had paid the premium in full over the phone using my debit card (and they had acknowledged that this happened), however they told me that the bank had rejected the payment. But when I investigated this with my bank - they told me that no attempt had been made by the insurer, to take the money. I am in the process of getting letter stating this from the bank to cover what they told me over the phone.

The way I see it, is that my insurers cancelled my policy unlawfully. I had paid over the phone and had this confirmed at the time, and it seems to be a "technical" or "administrative" glitch on their part - which resulted in me not being covered when the break in occured.

I want to do this properly - and was wondering what the best plan of action is. Can I just go back to my former insurers stating that they should be liable for failing to action the payment properly and cancelling my policy - and therefore ask for money to cover the costs I incurred?


(apologies for the long post)

Would appreciate any advice anyone has - or similar experiences.

Bren

McKneff

Do you mean you paid over the phone using your debit card (you said direct debit in your post)


Did you not check your bank statement to make sure it had gone through.

Ask for a transcript of the phone call. Get the letter from the bank and then take it from there.

The only thing I can advise you of is if your paying for anything then pay with your credit card, this gives you protection when anything like this happens.

dacouch

Is it Aviva by any chance ?

When did the policy start and how much was the premium ?

brendanandrewoneill

No it was admiral

Premium was about £590 and i was paying instalments.

in august, one payment defaulted to i contacted them to discuss and they informed me that i would have to pay the remaining balance, which I did (but due to a problem their end, the payment was not successfully taken).

brendanandrewoneill

... McKneff, Yes thats correct I paid the remaining balance using my debit card.

I'll be honest - No I didnt check the statement to ensure it left my account. I've asked for the transcript but they have not given it to me. Im awaiting the letter from the bank.

My plan is to forward this letter to admiral and await for them to hopefully "admit" to being at fault. Once I've got that - I should be able to push for compensation.

In everyone's honest opinion - do you think I have a worthy case to go to the insurer? I envisage claiming up to £1000 (I had valuables stolen - but I also had to go through 3 days of hell sorting out all the issues surrounding the break in)

chanz4

were the valuables locked away

olly300

brendanandrewoneill wrote: »

... McKneff, Yes thats correct I paid the remaining balance using my debit card.

I'll be honest - No I didnt check the statement to ensure it left my account. I've asked for the transcript but they have not given it to me. Im awaiting the letter from the bank.

My plan is to forward this letter to admiral and await for them to hopefully "admit" to being at fault. Once I've got that - I should be able to push for compensation.

In everyone's honest opinion - do you think I have a worthy case to go to the insurer? I envisage claiming up to £1000 (I had valuables stolen - but I also had to go through 3 days of hell sorting out all the issues surrounding the break in)

Make it clear to Admiral that you are making a formal complaint and mark anything you send to them with the words "Formal Complaint". Also send any letters to them by recorded signed for post making sure you have a copy of them.

That way if they drag their feet you can take them to the financial ombudsman service.

Annisele

I think you have two separate issues: should the insurer have cancelled your policy; and should the insurer pay your claim.

Obviously the second depends on the first, but questions about where the valuables were (and what the policy says about locking them up) aren't relevant if the insurer was correct to cancel your policy. In principle you're responsible for paying - but I entirely accept that if you tried to pay and the insurer didn't take the money, then the insurer is at least partly responsible. If you were saying that all this happened last August then I'd say it was your fault - you really should have checked a statement in all that time - but this August I have a fair bit more sympathy.

If everything happened exactly as you said - and you can prove it, which might be tricky if you can't get the phone call - then I think you do have a case against the insurer. However, it's possible that the problem was with the bank all along - so if the bank doesn't produce the letter you want sharpish, you might be tempted to make a complaint about the bank.

(As an aside, I reckon "I think you made a mistake" gets peoples' backs up far less than "you acted unlawfully" - I'd start with the slightly softer approach; you can always ratchet up if you need to).

MarkyMarkD

If a policy is cancelled for any reason, your insurer should write to you to notify you of the fact. If they didn't do this, then the cancellation isn't effective.

Or if you were unfortunate enough to have your car broken into, just a few days after they cancelled your policy (so the letter hadn't time to arrive) and just a few days after bouncing your monthly instalment payment, you are very unlucky indeed! Or maybe in that combination of circumstances, they might find the coincidences rather unbelievable.

InsideInsurance

McKneff wrote: »

The only thing I can advise you of is if your paying for anything then pay with your credit card, this gives you protection when anything like this happens.

To go slightly off topic..... is this statement true? No actual payment was made, only attempted, so would section 75 apply?

Just to ensure that I understand what happened correctly, Admiral did the authorisation call to your bank, which your bank gave but then failed to go on and collect funds?

The come back is going to be that you should have noticed the money in your bank still but I would suggest you will have a strong case if you have a letter from your bank stating the above.

brendanandrewoneill

thanks for all the feedback guys.

Okay well to futher explain - I feel as though I did everything i could to make payment by phoning the right person to pay the premium. Admiral aknowledge this and they have a date for when it happened, and a name of the person I called. I will of course push for a transcript of that conversation when taking things further.

Admiral stated that they attempted to take the payment and gave me a specific date. Now the bank are going to send me a letter to basically contradict this statement, by writing that no attempt was made to collect the funds from the bank account. This is where I feel the issue lies.

As for the cancellation letter, yes admiral did send this - but i was away for a week when this letter was sent - and so never actually recieved it!
As for monitoring my account - No I did not check my statement. But would this be an issue? Am I responsible for ensuring that the funds leave my account, or is it more that admiral should be responsible for collecting the funds? Or is it a bit of both??

Letter from the bank should arrive this week. My first point of call i feel is to send this to admiral and wait for them to admit that they made a mistake. Then my next point of call, would be to raise a complaint asking for compensation money, to cover any costs i've incurred out of the dispute. Does this sound like the right plan of action?

Appricate the advice - Many thanks

Bren