Insurance charge...

alberto2012

Hi.

My car insurance expired on 8th Dec.
I was insured with Elephant. I was not happy with the renewal quote from them, so I took out insurance with another provider.

I emailed Elephant on 15th Dec to cancel all dealings / cover with them, (a little late I know but was / am in process of moving home.. very stressfull and busy!)

I received email reply from Elephant (on 17th) telling me I did not provide required details for them to proceed (my date of birth + postcode) I provided them with details in my next email (on 18th Dec)

Yesterday, (sunday 30th Dec) I received an email from them telling me :
"We cancelled your policy on 08/12/12 and there is an outstanding amount of £ 47.18 owed to us. This is for the time on cover and includes an administration fee.

We have previously written to you to ask for this payment but had no response.
If we do not receive payment within the next 7 days, we will send the detailsn of your outstanding amount to our debt collection agency. This action will result in an additional charge of £20.00. "

Where do I stand as a consumer?
I know I am guilty of not informing them closer to the 8th Dec, but surely there is a period of time for 'cooling off' / cancelling?

Do I have to pay this nonsense fee? Even though they claim to have cancelled my policy on the original expiry date, which was what I wanted anyway??
And what do they mean "time on cover"?

Hope someone can help,
Thanks

Stooby2

I would first check your documents to see if there's anything about automatic renewal as otherwise they shouldn't have renewed the policy without your say so - check very carefully as it may be in the small print.

If there's nothing there, I'd write to them, explain you did not ask for new cover with them, nor agree to a year of cover, so will not be paying the charge. "Time on cover" means the time they were insuring you - i.e. the time between the 8th and the 15th.

Joe_Horner

Stooby2 wrote: »

"Time on cover" means the time they were insuring you - i.e. the time between the 8th and the 15th.

Except that they say they cancelled the policy "on the 8th" which means no time on cover since the old one lapsed.

vaio

If the policy auto renewed on the 8th then cover was in place from the 8th to the 18th. Insurers can't backdate cancellation so 10 days cover has been provided.

If the policy didn't auto renew on the 8th then no cover was provided but equally no cancellation was needed as no policy existed after the old one lapsed on the 8th

Something sounds wrong