8 years no claims bonus.... thought I had 9, hit hard

rs65

savings_my_hobby wrote: »

the quote was £247.21 with all the extras I required and always have

You might find that the extras are non-refundable, which might explain why the cancellation charge was so much.

Did your renewal notice from your old insurers not show the NCB years?

savings_my_hobby

rs65 wrote: »

You might find that the extras are non-refundable, which might explain why the cancellation charge was so much.

Did your renewal notice from your old insurers not show the NCB years?

good point but even if the extras are non refundable it should not amount to £90 because the extras only amount to £29 this combined with admin fee and cover for 10 days does not come nowhere near £90.

And no the renewal quote did not even mention NCB, it contains a a paragraph explaining that they will auto renew, a price breakdown, the excess charges and finally a 0844 number to contact if I dont want to auto renew, although I stated when I purchased the insurance 12 months ago I did not want auto renew and i certainly want to avoid phoning a 0844 number, looking at the contact details now. Renewals and customer service numbers are 0844 (you wont need to phone renewals as they will auto renew and you must pay extra phone charge if you want to make a complaint it seems) and sales/claims number is 0800, funny that

FutureGirl

You don't HAVE to phone the 0844 number, you can call the 0800 number and they can transfer you through to the correct team.

The fee they're charging you to cancel your policy would be for non refundable stuff of £24 as you said, then a cancellation fee (which is not the same as an admin / amendment fee), and then the cost for the cover you've already had, including the raised premium.

Cornucopia

What it comes down to is that getting motor insurance for around £300 is a reasonable deal, in the grand scheme of things.

Yes, you've had some hassle, but there's little point complaining, for example, about a £90 fee that you didn't have to pay.

savings_my_hobby

FutureGirl wrote: »

You don't HAVE to phone the 0844 number, you can call the 0800 number and they can transfer you through to the correct team.

The fee they're charging you to cancel your policy would be for non refundable stuff of £24 as you said, then a cancellation fee (which is not the same as an admin / amendment fee), and then the cost for the cover you've already had, including the raised premium.

but according to the T'S and C's under the cancellation heading it states that if a policy is cancelled within 14 days you must pay an admin fee of £13.69 plus the cover received , in this case 10 days, others on here have mentioned the extras which are not refundable but they only amounted to around £29, add them all together and it's quite away from £90, like I have stated the guy on the phone could not point out where in the T's and C's it is written that £90 is the default cancellation figure, I have read the whole document, it's as if they pluck an unreasonable figure out of the air to deter a cancellation.

I appreciate your advice regarding the 0800 number, but to me at least, it's further evidence of the sly tactics employed by a company who receives money without the need to provide a service due to the fact I was with then for 3 years and did not claim.

savings_my_hobby

Cornucopia wrote: »

What it comes down to is that getting motor insurance for around £300 is a reasonable deal, in the grand scheme of things.

Yes, you've had some hassle, but there's little point complaining, for example, about a £90 fee that you didn't have to pay.

if that was the original quote, yes, when the original quote is £247.21
and this get hiked up £50 through no fault of my own (last claim jan 2005) then it leaves a sour taste, if you read the OP you would know the original insurer quoted me this amount anyway.

on your second point I did not have to pay the (undisclosed - key point) £90 fee because thats too much to give away (36% - around 4 months cover), talk about being bent over a barrel, I did however manage to get the £50 additional charge reduced to £36.10 after I put the phone down and left them with the impression I was going to cancel. they phone me back with the £36.10 offer. So I would say the £13.90 was worth complaining for.

The point you should take from this is some insurance companies will mug you off if you let them, I could have not complained and paid the full £50.

Although if it had not been for the incompetence/spite of the previous company I would have paid the original £247.21 quote and had nothing to complain about

Quentin

savings_my_hobby wrote: »

but according to the T'S and C's under the cancellation heading it states that if a policy is cancelled within 14 days you must pay an admin fee of £13.69 plus the cover received....

Are you sure the fee for cancelling is only £13.69?


Cancellation charge is usually a separate charge altogether from the admin fee insurers charge for making changes to the policy mid term, and this quoted £13.69 is much cheaper than the norm.

FutureGirl

It is kind of your own fault, you put the incorrect NCB. You didn't confirm/clarify your NCB prior to buying the product. They have then charged you the extra premium + the admin fee.

Who is your insurance with? The usual cancellation fee is around £50+?

custardy

savings_my_hobby wrote: »

Hi everyone,

does this sound fair? I needed to renew my van insurance at the end of may, I switched insurance providers to get what I thought was a better deal. My original insurance providers quoted me £309.71
which was ok but I knew I could do better, the thing which really aggravated me was the fact the original providers tried to auto renew something I always ask specifically to opt out of as I prefer to shop around.

so i go on confused.com, found a better quote and contacted the new company, the quote was £247.21 with all the extras I required and always have. so they send me a letter asking for proof my non claims bonus (I told them it was 9 years, as I believed to be true having never received proof before) so I phoned them up when I realise I could only prove 8 years so then they try to charge me £56 extra = over 20% extra for one measly year, now surely this is excessive?

I mean 8 years is a pretty good record right? I'm pretty sure if i'd have told them 8 years right off the bat it would have not have amounted to £303.21.

in the end we agreed £36.10 extra but that was after I threatened to cancel and they threatened to charge me £90 cancellation fee, although I cant for the life of me find this £90 charge in the terms and conditions and nor could the insurance call centre guy point out where this was written. very stressful and expensive experience.

by the way the previous insurance company would not send me proof until my policy with them expired so I could not wait for the proof to arrive (which took 6 days)

all in all I saved £26.40 instead of £62.50

Because you dont have 8 years until that year is complete.
You could simply have asked then to confirm your NCD safe in the knowledge a letter would come confirming this.

savings_my_hobby

custardy wrote: »

Because you dont have 8 years until that year is complete.
You could simply have asked then to confirm your NCD safe in the knowledge a letter would come confirming this.

That is another good point, although I remember renewing with them last year and I had 8 years NCB then, this was done by phone and I received no proof (didn't need it as renewing with the same company as they had a competitive quote) - even on the price breakdown it fails to mention NCB discount, so I can be forgiven to expect the 8 years NCB to evolve into 9 years.

perhaps there is some secret clause that states NCB is not awarded by this company for the last year you are with them;)