Hastings Direct.. Warning New T&C... AVOID

Cobby2

A year ago I bought a car insurance policy from Hastings Direct. It was the cheapest online quote I could find at the time.:(

A month ago I received a renewal quote which was much higher than I was expecting and not one I would be happy to pay. Much Higher than I have ever paid in over 20 years of car insurance. I still have no endorsements, no accidents and a protected full no claims bonus, same car and same me.

About 2 weeks before the insurance contract was due to end, I received a phone call from Hastings Direct asking if I wanted to go ahead with the new quote. I said no. I would shop around etc.

The day after my contract with them expired, I received a phone call from my credit card company alerting me to a possible fraudulent debit of my credit card. Not once but twice, Hastings Direct had tried to debit my card for the cost of the renewal.

It is in the (T&C)terms and conditions of my contract with Hastings Direct in section 9 where it is clearly typed "we won't automatically renew your policy if your payment fails to be authorised"

Meanwhile I had of course Insured my car with a cheaper company, and didn't think it necessary to inform Hastings because I had already said I wasn't having their insurance and their payment collection attempts had failed.

Two days later I received a phone call from Hastings Direct demanding payment in full for the new policy they had just issued.
I refused to pay, because it was issued against my wishes, and I was already Insured elsewhere.
The caller demanded I disclose who I was insured with, at first I refused, but she stated that if I did not then i would still be liable for the new policy issued by Hastings Direct.
So I told her which company I was now insured with, at which, she stated that I must send them proof of that other policy in order to cancel the policy they (Hastings) had issued.

Incidentally anyone can check if a car is insured by typing in the registration number on the MID website database. Even Hastings Direct can check, so she was lying to me.

She stated to me it was standard practise across all motor insurance companies to automatically renew policies. I didn't believe her and have since phoned several and found out she was lying to me on that score too, it is not standard practise at all for 1 year policies paid in full. Hastings Direct was the only company with such a policy that I found, though there may be some others around somewhere.

I insisted that the policy Hastings had issued was inavlid and should be cancelled.
Next day I received the policy paperwork in the post from Hastings along with a letter demanding payment in full with 7 days of the date of the letter.

The day after that, I received another letter confirming that they had graciously cancelled the policy with a date two days after they had issued it, BUT that I owed them £33 in fees. Again demanding payment with 7 days of the date on the letter, or the DEBT would be passed to a Debt Collection Department.

I do not owe them anything. They are in breach of their own terms and conditions, and have mis-used my personal data and payment details to fraudulently issue a car insurance policy in my name. Potentially invalidating the legitimate policy I bought elsewhere.

It concerned me more to read in the NEW T&C from Hastings Direct that the wording regards not renewing a policy when payment had failed to go through, has been completely removed and not replaced with any new clause.

It seems that regardless of whether you say you don't want to renew, and regardless of the contracted terms and conditions on the older policies, Hastings Direct are renewing their customers' Insurance Policies even when they have not received any payment for it, and by the wording in their letters to me, they then consider the customer to be in Debt to them for the cost of that policy, or at the least in debt for the cancellation fees.

I will not be paying them anything, because they are at fault, breaching our contract, and in doing so mis-using my personal details and my payment details.
Had the credit card company not flagged this up as a potential fraud, Hastings Direct might have ended up sitting on Hundreds of my Pounds and I would now be fighting to get it back.

My Advice on the new T&C for Hastings Direct is

1. If you have not yet got a policy with them, Do Not get one.

2. If you already have a policy with them, check the wording in section 9 of the terms and conditions. If the paragraph about renewals not being automatically issued if payment fails, is missing, then please write to them NOW!!!
Confirm in writing that you do not wish to have your policy renewed after the one year contracted term. Ask them to reply confirming receipt of your letter.

3. Contact the credit card company or the bank through which you paid Hastings Direct, regardless of the wording on your policy. Instruct them to block any and all attempts by Hastings Direct to extract money from your credit card or bank account.
Just in case Hastings Direct choose to go ahead and renew your policy anyway regardless of your contract or your wishes.

4. If you have had a similar experience, please write to the Information Commisioner about Hastings Direct for breaches of the Data Protection Act 1998,
also write to the Financial Services Authority/Ombudsman to report what has happened, and while you are at it,
contact Consumer Direct (Trading Standards) and then add your experience to forums online like this one.

Hastings Direct have already fallen foul of the law and been heavily fined by the FSA. They are fast heading in that direction again if my experience is typical.

simply put, your data and payment is not safe in the hands of Hastings Direct. Is it worth the risk of finding yourself unwittingly in debt to them or a debt collection agency for the sake of a cheaper quote?

I would also take issue with their staff who call up demanding payment. The one I spoke to was very pushy and demanding, and she lied to me in regard to our contracted terms and conditions and also insisted that Hastings Direct's own company policies being standard practice for all Insurance companies. Don't fall for their baloney, and don't allow yourself to become the next unwitting victim.

AVOID AVOID AVOID

FOX_HOUND

Cobby2 wrote: »

A year ago I bought a car insurance policy from Hastings Direct. It was the cheapest online quote I could find at the time.:(

A month ago I received a renewal quote which was much higher than I was expecting and not one I would be happy to pay. Much Higher than I have ever paid in over 20 years of car insurance. I still have no endorsements, no accidents and a protected full no claims bonus, same car and same me.

About 2 weeks before the insurance contract was due to end, I received a phone call from Hastings Direct asking if I wanted to go ahead with the new quote. I said no. I would shop around etc.

The day after my contract with them expired, I received a phone call from my credit card company alerting me to a possible fraudulent debit of my credit card. Not once but twice, Hastings Direct had tried to debit my card for the cost of the renewal.

It is in the (T&C)terms and conditions of my contract with Hastings Direct in section 9 where it is clearly typed "we won't automatically renew your policy if your payment fails to be authorised"

Meanwhile I had of course Insured my car with a cheaper company, and didn't think it necessary to inform Hastings because I had already said I wasn't having their insurance and their payment collection attempts had failed.

Two days later I received a phone call from Hastings Direct demanding payment in full for the new policy they had just issued.
I refused to pay, because it was issued against my wishes, and I was already Insured elsewhere.
The caller demanded I disclose who I was insured with, at first I refused, but she stated that if I did not then i would still be liable for the new policy issued by Hastings Direct.
So I told her which company I was now insured with, at which, she stated that I must send them proof of that other policy in order to cancel the policy they (Hastings) had issued.

Incidentally anyone can check if a car is insured by typing in the registration number on the MID website database. Even Hastings Direct can check, so she was lying to me.

She stated to me it was standard practise across all motor insurance companies to automatically renew policies. I didn't believe her and have since phoned several and found out she was lying to me on that score too, it is not standard practise at all for 1 year policies paid in full. Hastings Direct was the only company with such a policy that I found, though there may be some others around somewhere.

I insisted that the policy Hastings had issued was inavlid and should be cancelled.
Next day I received the policy paperwork in the post from Hastings along with a letter demanding payment in full with 7 days of the date of the letter.

The day after that, I received another letter confirming that they had graciously cancelled the policy with a date two days after they had issued it, BUT that I owed them £33 in fees. Again demanding payment with 7 days of the date on the letter, or the DEBT would be passed to a Debt Collection Department.

I do not owe them anything. They are in breach of their own terms and conditions, and have mis-used my personal data and payment details to fraudulently issue a car insurance policy in my name. Potentially invalidating the legitimate policy I bought elsewhere.

It concerned me more to read in the NEW T&C from Hastings Direct that the wording regards not renewing a policy when payment had failed to go through, has been completely removed and not replaced with any new clause.

It seems that regardless of whether you say you don't want to renew, and regardless of the contracted terms and conditions on the older policies, Hastings Direct are renewing their customers' Insurance Policies even when they have not received any payment for it, and by the wording in their letters to me, they then consider the customer to be in Debt to them for the cost of that policy, or at the least in debt for the cancellation fees.

I will not be paying them anything, because they are at fault, breaching our contract, and in doing so mis-using my personal details and my payment details.
Had the credit card company not flagged this up as a potential fraud, Hastings Direct might have ended up sitting on Hundreds of my Pounds and I would now be fighting to get it back.

My Advice on the new T&C for Hastings Direct is

1. If you have not yet got a policy with them, Do Not get one.

2. If you already have a policy with them, check the wording in section 9 of the terms and conditions. If the paragraph about renewals not being automatically issued if payment fails, is missing, then please write to them NOW!!!
Confirm in writing that you do not wish to have your policy renewed after the one year contracted term. Ask them to reply confirming receipt of your letter.

3. Contact the credit card company or the bank through which you paid Hastings Direct, regardless of the wording on your policy. Instruct them to block any and all attempts by Hastings Direct to extract money from your credit card or bank account.
Just in case Hastings Direct choose to go ahead and renew your policy anyway regardless of your contract or your wishes.

4. If you have had a similar experience, please write to the Information Commisioner about Hastings Direct for breaches of the Data Protection Act 1998,
also write to the Financial Services Authority/Ombudsman to report what has happened, and while you are at it,
contact Consumer Direct (Trading Standards) and then add your experience to forums online like this one.

Hastings Direct have already fallen foul of the law and been heavily fined by the FSA. They are fast heading in that direction again if my experience is typical.

simply put, your data and payment is not safe in the hands of Hastings Direct. Is it worth the risk of finding yourself unwittingly in debt to them or a debt collection agency for the sake of a cheaper quote?

I would also take issue with their staff who call up demanding payment. The one I spoke to was very pushy and demanding, and she lied to me in regard to our contracted terms and conditions and also insisted that Hastings Direct's own company policies being standard practice for all Insurance companies. Don't fall for their baloney, and don't allow yourself to become the next unwitting victim.

AVOID AVOID AVOID

Strangely enough my car insurance is up mid nov and Hastings is the cheapest quote I've had being £80 cheaper than my current insurer, Churchill. There are a couple of others within a few pounds of my hastings quote so maybe I'll look at them instead.

Many thanks for highlighting it.

property.advert

FOX_HOUND wrote: »

Strangely enough my car insurance is up mid nov and Hastings is the cheapest quote I've had being £80 cheaper than my current insurer, Churchill. There are a couple of others within a few pounds of my hastings quote so maybe I'll look at them instead.

Many thanks for highlighting it.

You must also consider reputational risk. Whilst I have heard about Hastings, I bet most of the population have not, whereas I bet most of the population have heard about Churchill.

In a dispute, I could do little to harm the reputation of Hastings but I could severely damage the carefully and expensively garnered reputation of Churchill.

I would consider that.

Just an aside, have you gone through the policy wording of Hastings as you should never buy any insurance solely on price.

Cobby2

Trouble with Hastings is they disregarded the contracted terms and conditions, and still went ahead and issued a policy knowing that payment had been stopped by the credit card company.

Today received information from credit card company in post, for me to confirm that the debits were unauthorised by me. I have written back explaining everything, hopefully will add to the fraud file on Hastings that the credit card company must already have.

ROY47

The 2 mistakes you made was when you decided NOT to renew with hastings you didn't ask for written confirmation off them that you will not be renewing and you didn't call them when you say "and didn't think it necessary to inform Hastings because I had already said I wasn't having their insurance"

Cover your ar.. everytime these days

I still agree that hastings are wrong

I did not renew this year with admiral and insisted on having written confirmation that I was not renewing with them

I had to argue with them ,they said it's not our policy to give written proof of not renewing . but I insisted I had proof

Cobby2

Great advice Roy47. I will certainly be demanding confirmation letters in the future.
Lessons learned.

MarkyMarkD

I'm sorry, Cobby, but I find the way you have explained what happened rather unfair to Hastings and rather divergent from what normally happens.

If an insurer has terms which say that it will automatically renew your policy, the last thing they will do is phone you to get confirmation. That makes no sense. They will simply renew it automatically, on the assumption that is your wish. (Having informed you, in writing, with the renewal quote that this is what would happen).

So, I do not understand exactly why Hastings called you.

It seems rather more likely that the call was from another insurer asking if you wanted to go ahead with their quote (perhaps, one which you had obtained online, maybe from a comparison site?). And you thought it was from Hastings, and said "no, I'll shop around". But then you had not told Hastings that you wished to cancel your auto-renewal.

Meanwhile I had of course Insured my car with a cheaper company, and didn't think it necessary to inform Hastings because I had already said I wasn't having their insurance and their payment collection attempts had failed.

But they wouldn't have made the collection attempts until your renewal date; and you wouldn't have known their collection attempts had failed until this point.

And you cannot cancel a credit card continuous payment authority. The only way the payment collection attempt could fail was due to lack of available credit.

And a credit card company is very unlikely to perceive a debit from a recognised insurer as a fraudulent transaction, even if it was made twice.

Very strange tale.

Cobby2

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

I'm sorry, Cobby, but I find the way you have explained what happened rather unfair to Hastings and rather divergent from what normally happens.

If an insurer has terms which say that it will automatically renew your policy, the last thing they will do is phone you to get confirmation. That makes no sense. They will simply renew it automatically, on the assumption that is your wish. (Having informed you, in writing, with the renewal quote that this is what would happen).

So, I do not understand exactly why Hastings called you.

It seems rather more likely that the call was from another insurer asking if you wanted to go ahead with their quote (perhaps, one which you had obtained online, maybe from a comparison site?). And you thought it was from Hastings, and said "no, I'll shop around". But then you had not told Hastings that you wished to cancel your auto-renewal.

But they wouldn't have made the collection attempts until your renewal date; and you wouldn't have known their collection attempts had failed until this point.

And you cannot cancel a credit card continuous payment authority. The only way the payment collection attempt could fail was due to lack of available credit.

And a credit card company is very unlikely to perceive a debit from a recognised insurer as a fraudulent transaction, even if it was made twice.

Very strange tale.

MarkyMarkD
I assume you are either a loyal customer or staff member of Hastings, so I shall clarify the points you raised in your post, if indeed my experience is as you state 'divergent from what normally happens'.

firstly... I have very recently moved address, and I only have one Insurance Policy in the world. So the only Insurance company that would have known my name and new phone number was Hastings. And if Hastings try and imply that it must have been a call from another Insurance company, then they will only be burdoning themselves further, because the only way any other Insurance company would have those details at that time, was if a staff member at Hastings or the Company itself had passed on my details to a 3rd party or rival company without any authority to do so. I did not 'shop around' for lower rates until several days after that call from Hastings, because my elderly car was being assessed to see if the costs to repair would be worthwhile in order to pass its MOT, or whether they would be uneconomical in which case I would have needed to buy a new car and send my old one to the garage in the sky.

secondly... I did not have a credit card continuous payment policy with Hastings or any other company for that matter. I paid Hastings in full under their old terms and conditions.
Now that you mention it, perhaps Hastings knew that my contract was the old sort and that is what caused them to phone me about the renewal. Pure speculation on my part, however I was informed by the caller that they had called from Hastings and they knew the sum of the renewal quote.

thirdly... I have held a credit card with the same company for over 25 years, they do know my spending habits and I have a high enough credit limit, enough to buy a new car outright, and there was nothing owing on the card when the attempts to debit it were made. I have used it for many odd large payments in the past, and I agree that a debit from an Insurance company would not ordinarily have flagged up as suspicious. Doesn't the fact that it did, not ring alarm bells. Perhaps I was not the credit card company's first such customer to have a case involving Hastings !!!!

Regarding the highlighted quote in your post
Quote:
Meanwhile I had of course Insured my car with a cheaper company, and didn't think it necessary to inform Hastings because I had already said I wasn't having their insurance and their payment collection attempts had failed.

Please re-read it in the context of my post, noting the two previous sentences, which appear to have escaped your notice.

My contract (the policy) expired midnight on a Sunday. The credit card company contacted me just after 9am on Monday, regarding the debits.
My new policy taken out elsewhere was paid for and covering my car, with the debits from Hastings having been stopped, and in the knowledge that I had told Hastings I would not be renewing, I did not make attempts to contact Hastings on the Monday to query the attempted debits. I had no reason to imagine that they would issue a new policy. Contrary to their terms and condition of contract with me, they did so anyway.

However divergent this is from Hastings normal way of doing business is not for me to say, I hope it is an isolated incident, but given that credit card company called me, I would postulate that is not an isolated case at all.

My original post was not aimed at being 'unfair' to Hastings, it was a fair and truthful account of my experience with Hastings, and given my experience [divergent from the norm or not] I cannot recommend anyone else to take out a policy with them.

MarkyMarkD

Nope, I have nothing to do with Hastings or any other insurer.

But threads on MSE with "avoid" or "warning" in the title are normally unfair comments based on one-off adverse experiences.

Your additional information makes it seem far more likely that, as you suggest, they called you because you were not subject to a continuous payment arrangement, and the member of staff simply made a mistake in recording the outcome of the call as "successful sale" rather than "customer not interested".

Believe it or not, mistakes happen and it's not always a conspiracy.

Wording in your post like:

They are in breach of their own terms and conditions, and have mis-used my personal data and payment details to fraudulently issue a car insurance policy in my name. Potentially invalidating the legitimate policy I bought elsewhere.

is just hyperbole. They are not in breach of their terms and conditions - they have made a mistake. They have not mis-used your personal data - they have made a mistake. They have not fraudulently issue a car insurance policy - they have made a mistake.

Cobby2

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

Nope, I have nothing to do with Hastings or any other insurer.

But threads on MSE with "avoid" or "warning" in the title are normally unfair comments based on one-off adverse experiences.

Your additional information makes it seem far more likely that, as you suggest, they called you because you were not subject to a continuous payment arrangement, and the member of staff simply made a mistake in recording the outcome of the call as "successful sale" rather than "customer not interested".

Believe it or not, mistakes happen and it's not always a conspiracy.

Wording in your post like: is just hyperbole. They are not in breach of their terms and conditions - they have made a mistake. They have not mis-used your personal data - they have made a mistake. They have not fraudulently issue a car insurance policy - they have made a mistake.

Is it also just a convenient mistake that they have removed the wording from their old terms and conditions, the clause that protected consumers from being issued with policys when payment had failed (for whatever reason) ?

It is not something that they have chosen to mention in the accompanying letter either. The letter which draws consumers attention to all the other clauses which have altered in the past year.
Was that a mistake too?

I would have thought their legal team that draw up or revise the terms and conditions document must have proof readers and editors.
Have they all made a mistake?

Looks to me like a very deliberate decision on their part, and anyone contemplating renewing or buying a policy from Hastings should be made aware of that change to the terms and conditions.

That is the reason why I highlighted it in my original post, in bold font, and mentioned it in the title of the thread. Warning New T&C... AVOID
and used my experience to illustrate why not having this clause in place can cause consumers to find themselves in debt to Hastings and being hounded by the debt collectors after 7 days from the date of policy issue if payment has not been received.

In regard to my own case,
IF they made a mistake, then they should have admitted to their mistake and voided the policy as soon as they were aware of it.

I would have accepted that, but they didn't admit any mistake, and are hounding me for cancellation fees and demanding to see proof of the policy I had taken out with another company.

iainscomputer

The problem here is the Insurance company having the right to auto renew a policy, this catches out a lot of people & quite often it renews at a lot higher premium. It is not just motor policies, travel insurance & breakdown cover are now starting to auto renew.
I had a motorcycle policy with Carole Nash, they do not auto renew & just send 3 renewal notices in the post, these other companies could do this, but they are more concerned with collecting premiums which their customers don't want. There is no loyalty in the insurance industry & policy holders will generally get a better deal shopping around.