Retrospective Car Insurance Charges: Please help!

Squidsin

Hi

I have just received an email from Admiral car insurance, advising me that they are going to charge me an additional £250 on an expired insurance policy as they have just discovered that I have an old speeding conviction which they claim I did not declare when I took out the policy.

I did everything through Moneysupermarket and am adamant that I declared the conviction; it is declared on the insurance policy for my wife's car and I have checked to ensure that it is listed on my moneysupermarket quotes page.

My main issue is that the cost uplift in premiums quoted by most insurers is negligible between having 0 points on my licence and 3 points (circa £10pa). I have ran both options through moneysupermarket.

Admiral say that the difference in their policy is £125pa and it is in accordance with FSA guidelines to charge me retrospectively for the 2 previous expired years. My position is that had I known they required this level of uplift in premium then I would have used another insurer who would not have charged me this amount and by levying this amount from my account the opportunity to change insurers was not provided to me.

Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Quentin

All you can do is follow Admiral's complaints procedure over this. It will be set out in the policy docs.

Then if you remain unhappy with their answer escalate to the FOS (at no cost to you).

If you get no joy there, then your last route is taking this to court, thgough this won't be free!

dunstonh

My main issue is that the cost uplift in premiums quoted by most insurers is negligible between having 0 points on my licence and 3 points (circa £10pa). I have ran both options through moneysupermarket.

Irrelevant. What matters is Admiral's position.

Admiral say that the difference in their policy is £125pa and it is in accordance with FSA guidelines to charge me retrospectively for the 2 previous expired years. My position is that had I known they required this level of uplift in premium then I would have used another insurer who would not have charged me this amount and by levying this amount from my account the opportunity to change insurers was not provided to me.

If the audit trail shows you did declare the conviction then Admiral cannot charge you. If the audit trail shows you didnt declare it then they have every right to come after you for the money. Assuming the latter, what you may have done if price was different wouldnt matter as it was you that failed to disclose.

If you feel Admiral are in the wrong and you did disclose then make a complaint. Admiral will check the files and see. If you did you will be fine. If you didnt then they are in the right.

Squidsin

Many thanks for your respective responses. Admiral have said that they will query the log of the information provided by Moneysupermarket and the date that the discrepancy was drawn to their attention as I thought it strange that they identified the discrepancy 6 days after my most recent renewal when it has been 2 years since I had last asked anyone for a motor insurance quote and can prove that the information was disclosed on these applications at this time.

I cannot help but think that if I did have a claim during the previous 2 years then the insurer would have invalidated my policy due to non disclosure and refused to pay out. A cynical person may suggest that this is a case of an insurer having their cake and eating it; there was no risk to them in insuring me as they would not have paid out on any claim but are still able to claim for the balance "due" once the policy had expired.

Has anyone else suffered a similar fate?

llyamah

Squidsin wrote: »

I cannot help but think that if I did have a claim during the previous 2 years then the insurer would have invalidated my policy due to non disclosure and refused to pay out. A cynical person may suggest that this is a case of an insurer having their cake and eating it

I completely sympathise with this.

I am by no means authority on this, but can't you just refuse to pay. What are they going to do; take you to court? Not likely.

Seems to me like the burden of proof is on them to prove that you did not give the correct information to money supermarket, not the other way around. Even if they prove it, they're going to have a hard time forcing you to pay the money.

Like I say, I am not authority and I'd be interested to see what more knowledgeable forum members have to say, but I seriously wonder whether you could just tell them to get lost here.

FlameCloud

llyamah wrote: »

I completely sympathise with this.

I am by no means authority on this, but can't you just refuse to pay. What are they going to do; take you to court? Not likely.

Seems to me like the burden of proof is on them to prove that you did not give the correct information to money supermarket, not the other way around. Even if they prove it, they're going to have a hard time forcing you to pay the money.

Like I say, I am not authority and I'd be interested to see what more knowledgeable forum members have to say, but I seriously wonder whether you could just tell them to get lost here.

They will just pass it to a debt collection agency.

Squidsin

llyamah wrote: »

I completely sympathise with this.

I am by no means authority on this, but can't you just refuse to pay. What are they going to do; take you to court? Not likely.

Seems to me like the burden of proof is on them to prove that you did not give the correct information to money supermarket, not the other way around. Even if they prove it, they're going to have a hard time forcing you to pay the money.

Like I say, I am not authority and I'd be interested to see what more knowledgeable forum members have to say, but I seriously wonder whether you could just tell them to get lost here.

The impression from Admiral was that they were just going to take the money from my credit card if they were happy that their information was correct without any further discussion and leave it to me to try to recover the monies if I considered this unfair.

llyamah

Squidsin wrote: »

The impression from Admiral was that they were just going to take the money from my credit card if they were happy that their information was correct without any further discussion and leave it to me to try to recover the monies if I considered this unfair.

Change your credit card details - call your credit card co and tell them you've lost your card. They won't be able to take the money then.

dunstonh

Insurers typically have the card information set up under a continuous payment authority. A change of card would not affect that. You would need to actually close the account full stop.

It would still leave a debt that would be past on to debt collectors. Also, Admiral may choose to log it in a way that may require the OP to declare it to future insurers as a non-disclosure issue.

I would let Admiral sort the complaint out before taking any action.

dacouch

If you say it's only making £10 or so difference on quotes, have you run the quote through with ADMIRAL (Any other Insurers quotes are entirely irelevent) but changed the date of the convictions to make them the same age they would have been for the disputed years.

For instance if your Speeding was October 2010 and the disputed years are 2011 to 2012 and 2012 to 2013 you would have to enter the conviction on current quotes as Oct 2012 for 2011 to 2012 and Oct 2011 for 2012 to 2013.

This is assuming your renewal date is circa the last few months.

This will give you an approximate idea.