Car Insurance Black Mark - what can we do?

moments_of_sanity

We recently went onto a DMP and were in the process of changing the bank accounts over, our old bank must have notified the insurance company that the DD was cancelled.

The payment for the insurance wasn't due for another 3 weeks so we weren't overly worried. 10 days later we got a letter saying that the policy would be cancelled in 7 days due to the DD not having been set up for the new bank (even though it wasn't due for another 1.5 weeks), DH called them and they said they 'had written' to us before, we said we hadn't received it but were happy to give it to them - which we did.

They then advised us that the policy was in the process of being cancelled and there was nothing they could do to change it!

It now seems that a 'marker' has been put on us as all insurance quotes are coming in about £150 more than the previous quote and one insurer told us tonight that some insurers won't even touch us now!

Is there anything we can do about this? We hadn't missed a payment at all and the insurance was fully up to date so I don't understand why the policy was cancelled! They don't have a problem contacting us by phone when they want to sell us break down cover etc but for some reason couldn't ring to ask for the bank details!!! They can't even provide me with a copy of the letter that was sent.

InsideInsurance

£150? are you sure your declaring you've had insurance cancelled? I'd expect it to be closer to £1,500 loading on all your insurances and 95% of insurers won't touch you!

Did you contact them within the 7 days mentioned? Did the letter state it would be cancelled unless you did something within 7 days?

Norman_Castle

£150? are you sure your declaring you've had insurance cancelled? I'd expect it to be closer to £1,500 loading on all your insurances and 95% of insurers won't touch you!

Similar thing happened to a friend. New quotes were approx £150 more.

System

I believe that cancellation of a policy due to a failure to pay a premium at renewal, should not be logged against you as a true policy cancellation.

Ask the insurance company to confirm in writing that they have not recorded this as a cancelled policy on their own systems and also ask them to confirm if this has been logged on the CUE industry database.

You can also request what data is recorded about you on the CUE by completing a Subject Access Request Form.

See Watchdog thread for more info : https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3533067

InsideInsurance

Who mentioned Renewal?

vusys1

moments_of_sanity wrote: »

We recently went onto a DMP and were in the process of changing the bank accounts over, our old bank must have notified the insurance company that the DD was cancelled.

did you instruct the bank to cancel as only you or the bank cancel the DD?

Was your original bank one of the debtors?

The payment for the insurance wasn't due for another 3 weeks so we weren't overly worried. 10 days later we got a letter saying that the policy would be cancelled in 7 days due to the DD not having been set up for the new bank (even though it wasn't due for another 1.5 weeks), DH called them and they said they 'had written' to us before, we said we hadn't received it but were happy to give it to them - which we did.

Insurance companys need at least 14 days to setup a DD with new bank details as they apply 10 days before the due date to check if the money is available. Did you tell the ins company of the account

They then advised us that the policy was in the process of being cancelled and there was nothing they could do to change it!

Unless there are other serious issues, they should be able to stop the cancellation process, either by taken your bank details over the phone or card details for the payment due to enable the DD to be setup for next month.

It now seems that a 'marker' has been put on us as all insurance quotes are coming in about £150 more than the previous quote and one insurer told us tonight that some insurers won't even touch us now!

Is there anything we can do about this? We hadn't missed a payment at all and the insurance was fully up to date so I don't understand why the policy was cancelled! They don't have a problem contacting us by phone when they want to sell us break down cover etc but for some reason couldn't ring to ask for the bank details!!! They can't even provide me with a copy of the letter that was sent.

They have to supply a copy of that letter if requested....if you went to the ombudsman how would the Ins company have a case if they are not able to produce a copy of the letter to backup their action.

System

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Who mentioned Renewal?

I did obviously in error...but what I said holds true for missed payments during the policy term too - Doh

(It would make life much more straight forward if everyone paid the annual premium rather than having these monthly credit payments - I'm not really being serious )