Cancelling car insurance policy - is this right/fair/legal?

Aretnap

sithemadmonkey wrote: »

The insurer would have given OP the opportunity to insure the new car on the old policy, but he had already insured the new car elsewhere before ringing the insurer to cancel.

Hence why the advice from most posters here is to see if the old insurer will cover the new car, before trying to cancel the new policy.

Oh I get that - if the OP didn't take up the option of transferring the policy, that's up to him. My point was that the advice often seems to be "many insurers will agree to transfer the balance of the policy to your new car - see if yours will". In light of the Financial Ombudsman's view I quoted above shirley it should be more along the lines of "your insurer should offer to transfer the balance to your new car. If they won't do this, make a complaint"?

Prothet_of_Doom

I noticed this in the T&C's. I wanted to insure my Son for 3 months as a named driver on my wife's policy over the summer, and noted that it would be cheaper to cancel the old policy (we would get back £60 after admin fees), take out the new policy £1450 for the year, wait 3 months, and remove him from the policy, gaining £1000 back.

I nearly fell for it, but noticed that if there was a claim in the 3 months, we would have to keep the insurance all year, and could not get the £1000 back. So rather than 3 months insurance costing 450, it would be £1250 (wifes insurance was about £200) if there was a claim.

It pays to read the T&C's before parting with money.

dacouch

Aretnap wrote: »

Oh I get that - if the OP didn't take up the option of transferring the policy, that's up to him. My point was that the advice often seems to be "many insurers will agree to transfer the balance of the policy to your new car - see if yours will". In light of the Financial Ombudsman's view I quoted above shirley it should be more along the lines of "your insurer should offer to transfer the balance to your new car. If they won't do this, make a complaint"?

I think from memory the FOS have recently changed the section you quoted from it's previous which in effect stated many Insurers would cancel without refund in the event of a total loss.