Auto renew Sheilas Wheels

InsideInsurance

Mr_K wrote: »

An old fashioned letter sent by recorded delivery should do the trick. Phone calls can always be denied. (Yes, autorenew is a trap for the benefit of insurers profits only).

Guess the regulator is wrong about it reducing uninsured drivers etc? Just look at the number of threads about people saying they forgot about their renewal, were it not for autorenewal they'd have been uninsured.

Technically you should follow the instructions rather than defaulting to letter. Secondly if you are that concerned that you wear tin foil hats etc you should send it by regular mail not recorded delivery but get a certificate of posting from the post office. The law considers something posted as something received unless the recipient can prove otherwise. Someone could refuse a recorded delivery letter and then could evidence that by the lack of the signature on delivery.

timbo58

Insurance is specifically exempted from the interpretation of the ICAC regulations which came into force in June 2014.

In that those regulations (as my local TS office interpret them anyway) specifically prevent auto renewal options being pre ticked, it is my understanding that only insurance can pre tick auto renew on services due to the possibility that non auto renewal may leave the customer without insurance and committing a criminal offence.

Yes, it's a PITA, however you agree to all of the conditions * at the time you take the insurance initially, it's not reasonable for you to pick and choose what you think is fair after you have accepted the terms in full.

*Unless those conditions could be argued successfully as unfair, however they would have to be markedly different to all other insurers terms to satisfy a court I would imagine.

Aretnap

*Scarlett wrote: »

I have a thought that they want you to phone to attempt to stop you from leaving - maybe a bit of discount.

Or just to tell you how you should stay put because their cover is so much better than the cover you're thinking of switching to.

"Yes sir, I realise that Acme Insurance have quoted you £300 less than we have, but the really important thing you have to consider is that they won't give you free cover for your tax disc holder like we do. Can you really afford to risk having to pay for a new tax disc holder yourself sir? Are you absolutely sure that you want to cancel your renewal? I really think you're doing the wrong thing here."

That was ten minutes of my life that I'll never get back.

(Joking aside, if you're organised enough to remember your renewal date then phoning up to cancel is a fairly minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things, and if you're not organised enough then it's better to risk paying slightly over the odds for next year's cover than it is to risk driving uninsured.)

InsideInsurance

timbo58 wrote: »

Insurance is specifically exempted from the interpretation of the ICAC regulations which came into force in June 2014.

In that those regulations (as my local TS office interpret them anyway) specifically prevent auto renewal options being pre ticked, it is my understanding that only insurance can pre tick auto renew on services due to the possibility that non auto renewal may leave the customer without insurance and committing a criminal offence.

Yes, it's a PITA, however you agree to all of the conditions * at the time you take the insurance initially, it's not reasonable for you to pick and choose what you think is fair after you have accepted the terms in full.

*Unless those conditions could be argued successfully as unfair, however they would have to be markedly different to all other insurers terms to satisfy a court I would imagine.

Havent read the consumer contracts (ICAC) regulations in full but have to say from what I have read there is nothing that stops automatic renewal/ indefinite contracts as long as its clear to the consumer and they are informed how to decline the renewal/ cancel

With insurance, gyms and many others its not a case of it an option to have autorenewal and its defaulted to yes but that its conditional to agreeing to autorenewal to be able to agree - ie you cannot buy it without autorenewal.

David_InsDef

Insurance providers utilise auto-renewal for one purpose and one purpose only: to capitalise on consumers' inertia.

Yes, there will be a cohort of customers that benefit from continuity of cover when they would otherwise have forgotten to renew / arrange alternative cover - but this isn't why the insurance companies do it.

Why do you think they make it so difficult - as the OP highlights, not only did they ignore an instruction 11 months ago not to auto renew - they now insist the only way they can cancel is via the phone.... Really??

timbo58

Hi II, our local TS interpreted the legislation to mean that any tick box cannot be pre ticked (whether on the payments page or connected to it or elsewhere) and must only be 'opt in', even if warnings before payment is made are crystal clear.

FWIW I disagree and think that is a poor interpretation of the legislation, however upon investigation it does seem the only 'industry' allowed to have an opt in as a default is motor insurance apparently.

InsideInsurance

David_InsDef wrote: »

Insurance providers utilise auto-renewal for one purpose and one purpose only: to capitalise on consumers' inertia.

Yes, there will be a cohort of customers that benefit from continuity of cover when they would otherwise have forgotten to renew / arrange alternative cover - but this isn't why the insurance companies do it.

Why do you think they make it so difficult - as the OP highlights, not only did they ignore an instruction 11 months ago not to auto renew - they now insist the only way they can cancel is via the phone.... Really??

Without doubt that customer retention and reduced operating costs are major reasons for insurers to do it but its not the only reasons.

Remember that under the RTA the insurer can continue to be liable for a short number of days after the policy ends if there is no other insurance in place so its in the insurers interest to ensure that either the customer has insurance in place and/ or they are getting paid for that additional cover at the end

i II, our local TS interpreted the legislation to mean that any tick box cannot be pre ticked (whether on the payments page or connected to it or elsewhere) and must only be 'opt in', even if warnings before payment is made are crystal clear.

FWIW I disagree and think that is a poor interpretation of the legislation, however upon investigation it does seem the only 'industry' allowed to have an opt in as a default is motor insurance apparently.

You are missing my point, this isnt about a tick box being completed or not but fundamentally that you can only take the contract out by having it on autorenewal, ie there is no way of agreeing to buy without agreeing to autorenewal.

Looking at the legislation as well as some guidance notes that others have written there is nothing there that I can spot which would make autorenewal being compulsory illegal as long as its clear to the consumer at the time that this is the case and they are informed how to cancel.

Whilst adherence of large companies is not necessarily the best yard stick to judge the law by but a quick look at a couple of gyms, sky tv, BT, electricity company etc none of them now have tick boxes for renewing the contract but say that after the first X months the contract will automatically continue and to cancel you must ....

If this were the case can imagine the phone calls everyone starts getting when their electricity, gas, water etc are cut off after 12 months because they didnt actively tick a box saying they want the contract to renew after the initial period

timbo58

Sorry II, I take your point.

However surely it is up to the service provider whether they want to provide only a service with AR, so I agree with you -as long as it is clear you are agreeing to an AR, there is no issue.

Local TS thought the only way to 'prove' it was clear was to add an unticked agreement box on the payment page itself, I disagree but that isn't relevant here.

InsideInsurance

timbo58 wrote: »

Local TS thought the only way to 'prove' it was clear was to add an unticked agreement box on the payment page itself, I disagree but that isn't relevant here.

It is a debatable one.

I saw with some advice to solicitors (you'd have thought solicitors could understand law well enough not to need generic advice on law but still) that wasnt for checkboxes but that there should be an "I agree" type button rather than just a "continue" and presuming that a continuation followed by a payment was sufficient to demonstrate acceptance to the terms.

Whilst this law doesnt apply to insurance the question of what is required to show agreement to terms is something that has been discussed many times anyway ie if you need a check box on agreeing to condition or not etc, compliance people generally saying they want one, solicitors sitting on the fence and the commercial guys saying no way at all do they want one.

The last time I saw web stats for an insurer's website the Assumption/ Key Terms page on average was "seen" for about 5 seconds and that includes the load time, time for the person to scroll down through the 10-15 bullets, find the I Agree button, press it and the the click to be acknowledged by the insurer's webservers.

Whilst much of these law changes are designed to protect consumers from big nasty companies in reality they need protecting from themselves more than anything else.

David_InsDef

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Whilst much of these law changes are designed to protect consumers from big nasty companies in reality they need protecting from themselves more than anything else.

I'd argue that there's a reasonable amount of 'design' goes into the process (by insurance providers) that encourages that type of automaton behaviour in consumers.

There is the argument that consumers could / should be given some penalty-free time after the event to fully digest what they've signed up for; but then we all know about the huge cash cow that is the cancellation fee......