Paid car insurance twice!

Ultrasonic

M0ney wrote: »

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.

The insurance company will have written to you at the address you gave them, advising you of your renewal quote and telling you they would take payment for this from your credit card unless you contact them to say otherwise. It is not their fault if you are not there to read your mail. I understand you are annoyed but you absolutely are at fault here.

This is absolutely industry standard by the way. I have also had automatically renewing contracts for goods and services other than car insurance for what it's worth.

Hopefully you'll get this resolved without losing much if any money though.

M0ney

RAC will refund all the money, today is the first day of the policy. From what she was saying if I hadn't called on the first day of the policy it could have been a different story.

I still feel that if they can email me to inform me that the renewal is in progress and the funds have been charged to my credit card the could just as eaily email me a couple of weeks prior warning me that this was coming...All's well that ends well though.

McKneff

Glad you got it sorted x stick something in your diary or on a calendar to remind your self in say December in big red letters. x


Or of course an alert on your phone or something. I am old, I forget about all these electronic devices lol;)

Mark_Mark

M0ney wrote: »

RAC will refund all the money, today is the first day of the policy. From what she was saying if I hadn't called on the first day of the policy it could have been a different story.

I still feel that if they can email me to inform me that the renewal is in progress and the funds have been charged to my credit card the could just as eaily email me a couple of weeks prior warning me that this was coming...All's well that ends well though.

They probably did it the old fashioned way and wrote to you.

londonTiger

isn't there a 7 day cooling off period for insurance? Does that apply to renewals?

colino

Complain and complain again looking for compensation. My wife cancelled by phone her "convenient autorenewal" well in advance of the renewal date with Elephant. I was there and she eventually passed me the phone as the little trunkie was trying so hard not to, "lose her as a valuable customer". As we had already done the online search for a better deal (Yep, even Elephant were cheaper than the autorenewal") we agreed the autorenewal would not happen, but they would phone back the day before the current expiry to see if they, "could give an even better deal."
They did not call back and we didn't care as we now have a better deal with LV.
Two weeks later, my Wife noticed her account has the autorenewal debited by Elephant and on calling (despite all the BS about recording calls) had no way of checking the info!
Eventually got the money back, no apology letter (which was promised) and no note of the compensation discussed.
As we move to new VED, I bet a lot of car insurance companies are preparing continuous, monthly renewed, car insurance in the hope that, as now, people just won't bother with the hassle of checking out the best deals and get lumbered by creeping monthly rises.

M0ney

It's probably worth saying as well that RAC asked for my new policy number and the name of the insurer.

arcon5

Colono,
Your situation is very different to ops - being yours was dealt with, op didn't respond to her correspondence.

Op,
Many companies do auto renewal.
Orange for example don't phone or email me every month asking me to agree to continue my pay monthly sim only package the trailing month.
Neither does my broadband provider, electric company. Etc.

colino

arcon5, the monthly ones you have signed up for, e.g., Orange, mean that you can opt out without penalty monthly, they aren't annual contracts. The others will be timed contracts but as you haven't bothered checking for alternatives, you don't know when you can opt out without penalty and they will continue to provide, and bill you, for their services until you wisen up.

M0ney

arcon5 wrote: »

Colono,
Your situation is very different to ops - being yours was dealt with, op didn't respond to her correspondence.

Op,
Many companies do auto renewal.
Orange for example don't phone or email me every month asking me to agree to continue my pay monthly sim only package the trailing month.
Neither does my broadband provider, electric company. Etc.

Car insurance isn't camparable to electric, mobile or broadband. If I took out any of those 3 on a 12 month contract, they would not be able to automatically sign me up for another 12months and charge the bill to my bank/credit card at the end of my contract without my consent and I don't think car insurance companies should be allowed to do that either.

The DVLA aren't even allowed to do that to you for a tax disc!