Can Insurance Companies Just Cancel Policies Without Proper Notification?

nozone_2

A friend of mine, is experiencing difficulty with the CIS Insurance Company. To cut a long story short, she has numerous policies with them, but due to a missed direct debit payment they have cancelled a motor policy in her grandsons name, consequently he was spot checked by the police and the whole story unfolded that the policy had been cancelled. The strange thing is that they then took the Direct Debit accordingly after all of this had happened, but still maintain that the policy is cancelled. So therefore her grandson now faces going to court for driving without insurance, a year ban, and possibly having to take his driving test again. The CIS are refusing to budge on this matter saying that they sent a letter, but no letter was ever received!!
Are Insurance companies allowed to do this? At the very least one would have thought that a notification of cancellation of any Insurance policy should be sent to the registered person Insured by recorded delivery!

INSURANCE COMPANIES MUST SEND REGISTERED POST NOTIFICATIONS FOR ANY AMENDMENTS OR CANCELLATIONS TO POLICIES!!!!!

shudder

When paying by direct debit insurers generally put a clause in giving them the right to cancel if any of the payments default.

I am not sure of the procedure when it comes to paying by direct debit but if someone were to pay the policy in full then the broker/insurer has an obligation to provide 7 days written notice of cancellation to the last known address (this does not have to be sent recorded).

I am not sure of the legal standing if they have cancelled the the policy and then subsequently taken a further payment.

The first course of action would be to make an official complaint to the CIS and then if this is not resolved satisfactorily then comlain to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Link to CIS compliants policy:

http://www.cis.co.uk/servlet/Satellite?c=Page&cid=1126249218075&pagename=CISv2%2FPage%2FtplCISv2PageStandard&loc=l

brazilianwax

So the policy was in the grandson's name? The insurers would have written to him then, not your friend.

As for the direct debit - it may have been too late to cancel that.

What was the timeline? Was he stopped within days of the policy being cancelled or a longer period?

dunstonh

Are Insurance companies allowed to do this?

Yes.

At the very least one would have thought that a notification of cancellation of any Insurance policy should be sent to the registered person Insured by recorded delivery!

There is usually more than one letter sent out. Often 2 or 3. One may go missing as post isnt great but all of them?

Registered post is not required.