WARNING Admiral Insurance

MrsFMS

I insured my car with Admiral for the last year. No claims so no problems. For renewal I found a cheaper insurer and as I have always done, stopped the renewal payment on the Admiral policy thinking this would be the end of it. I ignored the renewal documents as well as the first reminder letter thinking that with the payment stopped this would be sufficient notice of cancellation(having better things to do with my time than sitting on hold on a premium rate phone line as no email address is provided for cancellation).
After the second letter I thought that I had better phone them to make sure they had cancelled the policy. I was told that I had to pay £49.50 cancellation fee, plus £15 administration fee, plus days of cover from 6th August (final date of policy). I argued that as the payment had been stopped this was sufficient notice of cancellation of policy and I was categorically NOT paying them anything more. I asked to speak to the supervisor who was on another call and the advisor "used his initiative" and has supposedly cancelled anything outstanding now.
So be warned- Admiral are sharks and if you sign up, be prepared to pay an extra wallop on top of the "cheap" policy from the comparison website.
Has anyone else had these problems?

FlameCloud

Stopping the payment method does not cancel the policy. You were in the wrong if this is all you did.

Aretnap

It's the norm. If you're on auto-renewal and want to cancel the policy you have to tell them in accordance with the terms and conditions. Cancelling the direct debit doesn't cancel the renewal, any more than not paying your gas bill cancels your contract with the gas supplier (it will eventually, but only after they've charged you for more gas, and late payment fees).

It can be a pain (the time I spent telling the Admiral phone bloke that I really did want to cancel is 15 minutes of my life that I'm never going to get back) but that's how it works. If you don't like it you need to find an insurer which doesn't auto-renew, or allows you to turn auto-renewal on or off by clicking a box on their website (Endsleigh do this).

MrsFMS

Thanks guys- I had no idea. I have never come across this before. I have just realised I have my home insurance with them as well so will make sure I cancel it directly. Hopefully they won't try to charge me an "admin" fee!

Quentin

To be on the safe side, send them written confirmation of your cancellation and return your certificate. (It's unusual for an issue like this to be closed down in the circs you describe)


(Get a proof of posting)


(We often see threads regarding insurers call centres where telephone conversations such as yours were mysteriously never noted on the files!)

societys_child

will make sure I cancel it directly.

When the annual policy is ending, you're not cancelling the insurance.

If you want to take a policy with another provider, simply tell your current provider you don't want to renew.

wongataa

MrsFMS wrote: »

I insured my car with Admiral for the last year. No claims so no problems. For renewal I found a cheaper insurer and as I have always done, stopped the renewal payment on the Admiral policy thinking this would be the end of it. I ignored the renewal documents as well as the first reminder letter thinking that with the payment stopped this would be sufficient notice of cancellation(having better things to do with my time than sitting on hold on a premium rate phone line as no email address is provided for cancellation).
After the second letter I thought that I had better phone them to make sure they had cancelled the policy. I was told that I had to pay £49.50 cancellation fee, plus £15 administration fee, plus days of cover from 6th August (final date of policy). I argued that as the payment had been stopped this was sufficient notice of cancellation of policy and I was categorically NOT paying them anything more. I asked to speak to the supervisor who was on another call and the advisor "used his initiative" and has supposedly cancelled anything outstanding now.
So be warned- Admiral are sharks and if you sign up, be prepared to pay an extra wallop on top of the "cheap" policy from the comparison website.
Has anyone else had these problems?

If you had bothered to read your renewal letter (which tells you the renewal quote - how did you know your new insurance was cheaper if you did not look at your renewal quote?) it states in the first couple of lines if you do not wish to renew phone up and tell Admiral. This is the same procedure with pretty much all insurance companies.

Next time read mail that is relevant to financial matters and you will not have these problems again.

David_InsDef

wongataa wrote: »

If you had bothered to read your renewal letter (which tells you the renewal quote - how did you know your new insurance was cheaper if you did not look at your renewal quote?) it states in the first couple of lines if you do not wish to renew phone up and tell Admiral. This is the same procedure with pretty much all insurance companies.

Next time read mail that is relevant to financial matters and you will not have these problems again.

Wow, what an unhelpful and frankly aggressive response. Yes the auto-renewal process is utilised by the majority of insurers, but it's a highly questionable one and I'm confident that at some point it will either be outlawed or subjected to more stringent rules by the regulators. It's badged up as being for the policyholder's convenience but that's absolute BS - everybody know that this practice is designed to do one thing - benefit the insurer and / or the broker.

OP, are you able to evidence that you had arranged cover elsewhere - this would help your case. In your shoes I would escalate it as a formal complaint and stand your ground. That said, one thing you do need to have in the back of your mind is that the instalment plan with Admiral is actually a credit agreement - ensure that Admiral don't assassinate your credit record also......

Regards

David.

matttye

I got caught out by this - with Admiral!

My insurance auto-renewed with them after I had taken out a new policy with Hastings.

Went back and had a look at the e-mail with my renewal information in it and I saw it said that I must contact them if I didn't want to renew, otherwise it would auto-renew.

Accepted it was my fault and I rang up and cancelled. They gave me my money back minus a cancellation fee.

Ah well, we live and learn Taught me to leave a buffer in my current account as well as it literally left me with a zero balance, and I could've got bank charges but luckily didn't.

[Deleted User]

Auto-renewal is a scam. They send you a letter, which you might not even get since it's just normal mail, that says "if you do nothing we will assume you agree to our new contract (which we probably didn't bother to include) and debit your account". If you don't agree the only way to cancel is waste money writing to them, recorded delivery of course, or calling a premium rate phone number.

Aretnap

http://www.saynoto0870.com/ is your friend as far as the premium rate number goes. Or look for the "calling from abroad" number which most insurers have on their website, and use that.

While I do find auto-renewal irritating at times (see above) I do think that te amount of opprobrium at attracts on this forum is disproportionate. If you're organised and remember your renewal date, phoning up to cancel is a relatively minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things. If you're disorganised and forget your renewal date, it's better to risk paying an uncompetitive rate for next year's policy than to risk driving uninsured. I certainly wished that Swinton had auto-renewed my breakdown insurance a few years ago when I called them to report a breakdown and discovered that my cover had expired and the renewal letter had evidently got lost in the post.

Yes insurers do it because it encourages people to renew through inertia, but that doesn't mean it can never be in the consumer's interest as well.