Halifax pet insurance

annah1212

Hi everyone! I have what I think is a weird situation with Halifax pet insurance and am thinking of writing to complain, but wanted to check first to see if anyone can confirm my suspicions that they're in the wrong.

I have three cats who are all currently insured with Halifax, with cover due to end on 6 September. I had a letter last week to tell me Halifax are pulling out of the pet insurance market (which I had heard) and that they would no longer be offering me insurance. Which was fine except that the letter went on to tell me that from 6 September, all three cats will be insured with another company, BDML Connect. It gave an extortionate price for the premium (in total more than three times what I pay now) and absolutely no details of how to cancel the policies - just made it sound like a done deal that I would now be with this company for my insurance.

I searched online and found much cheaper insurance for the cats, so I then cancelled the direct debits for the Halifax policies (my last payment has already been taken), and emailed BDML to say I wanted them to cancel the policies, making the point that I had never wanted them in the first place. They replied that they would cancel them.

But then today, I received a letter from a company called Premium Credit saying they will be collecting the payments on behalf of BDML for the policies. The letter was asking me to return a signed credit agreement within seven days but said they would start taking money from my account with or without that agreement. I've just checked my bank account online, and there are three direct debits set up to Premium Credit - and I have never authorised any of this! I have now cancelled them.

I suppose my first question is can it really be legal for Halifax to give all my details including my bank account details to another company without my permission - and is it then legal for them to set up three direct debits I have never asked for or given permission for? How can this happen - surely if this was legal, anyone could set up a direct debit on anyone else's account any time? And finally, now that I've cancelled them, can Premium Credit just set them up again, or will my bank stop them because I've cancelled them once?

Grateful of any thoughts as the whole thing is quite odd to me, and I am feeling rather bullied into insurance I never asked for!