Paid car insurance twice!

M0ney

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Back to the original post...

I was insured with RAC until tomorrow but unknown to me they have renewed my policy, just got it in an email and they thanked me! But I have already paid for cover with Zurich and they are going to charge my credit card on Thursday. How do I go about stopping this from happening?

I haven't in any way, shape or form agreed to this.

McKneff

You will have agreed to it when you took out your first policy under 'auto renew' this is normal nowadays, its also normal for people not to read the terms and conditions fully.


You should have got a letter regarding the price of the new policy. ie an auto renewal letter giving you the choice to contact them to not renew.


You should ring them at your earliest opportunity. they may need some sort of proof that you have taken out a policy elsewhere.

M0ney

Thanks so much for the quick response, I work away from home regularly so I haven't seen my post for the last few weeks, and the email informing me of the auto-renew was the first time the contacted me via email. I feel there should have been an email warning me that this was coming...Anyway, thanks again, I'll ring them tomorrow I see their helpline isn't open at the moment.

Ultrasonic

When did you agree the new policy with Zurich? You may well still be within a no-fee cancelation period. If so, do that.

You will have agreed to the auto-renewal with the RAC when you took out the original policy, meaning cancelling this without charge is less likely. But no harm in phoning up and asking, but bear in mind that you are in the wrong here, not them.

McKneff

No, it doesn't come by email., it will be in your pile of post, unfortunately, but if you explain to them you may be able to sort it out, but remember to look at the terms and conditions of the new one, or ring and ask, because exactly the same thing could happen again next year. Good luck and hope you sort it out
x
Annie

M0ney

Ultrasonic wrote: »

When did you agree the new policy with Zurich? You may well still be within a no-fee cancelation period. If so, do that.

You will have agreed to the auto-renewal with the RAC when you took out the original policy, meaning cancelling this without charge is less likely. But no harm in phoning up and asking, but bear in mind that you are in the wrong here, not them.

Seems a bit unfair that they can do that to people they should be required to get consent in order to sell me a product the onus shouldn't be on me to tell them I don't want to buy their product, this doesn't happen when buy anything else. I am grateful for the advice but I can't agree with you when you say I'm in the wrong.

Anyway, I called Zurich on Saturday, I think they said it would either be £15 or £25 if I cancelled within the first 14 days.

M0ney

McKneff wrote: »

No, it doesn't come by email., it will be in your pile of post, unfortunately, but if you explain to them you may be able to sort it out, but remember to look at the terms and conditions of the new one, or ring and ask, because exactly the same thing could happen again next year. Good luck and hope you sort it out
x
Annie

Thank you Annie

I think they are being very sly every other aspect of the policy they sold me is online. Believe me, I won't be letting this happen again. :mad:

Mark_Mark

M0ney wrote: »

Seems a bit unfair that they can do that to people they should be required to get consent in order to sell me a product the onus shouldn't be on me to tell them I don't want to buy their product, this doesn't happen when buy anything else. I am grateful for the advice but I can't agree with you when you say I'm in the wrong.

Anyway, I called Zurich on Saturday, I think they said it would either be £15 or £25 if I cancelled within the first 14 days.

You will have given your consent to auto renew when you took out the initial policy.

Ultrasonic

M0ney wrote: »

Seems a bit unfair that they can do that to people they should be required to get consent in order to sell me a product the onus shouldn't be on me to tell them I don't want to buy their product, this doesn't happen when buy anything else. I am grateful for the advice but I can't agree with you when you say I'm in the wrong.

I agree with you that it is an approach that I don't like, but you are in the wrong because this definitely will have been something that you agreed to one way or another when you took out the original policy. By the sounds of it you may also be at fault for not reading your mail.

Insurance companies will point out that this auto-renewal prevents you ending up being uninsured by forgetting to renew.

Ultrasonic

For next year, once you've found the best quote for the following year, it is always worth phoning your existing insurance company to see if they can match or beat this price. If they do it's less hassle for you. If they don't, tell them then that you do not wish to renew, and go with the new quote instead.

M0ney

Ultrasonic wrote: »

I agree with you that it is an approach that I don't like, but you are in the wrong because this definitely will have been something that you agreed to one way or another when you took out the original policy. By the sounds of it you may also be at fault for not reading your mail.

Insurance companies will point out that this auto-renewal prevents you ending up being uninsured by forgetting to renew.

I said above I haven't been at home for a few weeks, so no I don't accept fault for not ready mail that I haven't even touched yet. So I won't accept that. As for the not reading the policy word for word, no doubt I'm guilty of that so haven't picked up on the auto-renewal part but I paid for this policy over the phone (not online or via a letter) so I should have been warned of any potential further charges to my credit card when I handed over my credit card number.

I'm shocked that this is even legal I haven't actively consented to any further charges to my credit card. Imagine if I ordered groceries online from Asda and they added to the invoice in small print that they would charge my card again next week and deliver more shopping and that I would need to phone and tell them I wanted to cancel it or they would charge to the card again.