Car insurance - Buying top up miles just before end of policy

KarlB12

Hi there,
Wanted some advice about the situation I'm in with my car insurance.
I'm with carrot and I have 2 weeks left until the end of my policy and not many miles left on my account. They monitor my miles with a telematics unit.
I have a very important trip I need to make before the end of my policy which I will need 200 extra miles for, cancelling this trip is not an option.
Carrot only sell top up miles in units of 1000, which means 800 of those will be wasted if I buy them.
The cost of buying 1000 top up miles is about £130 going on my last quote.
I will call them tomorrow asking if they can make an exception considering I only have 2 weeks left on my policy to let me buy just 200 top up miles, but I'm thinking the answer will be no.
The cost to cancel my policy early is £100, so as it stands, it looks like cancelling my policy is the cheapest option. I will get insurance from another provider to make sure I'm not driving uninsured.

Questions:
If I cancel my policy 2 weeks early then will I still get a full year's no claims bonus?
Do I have any grounds to go to an ombudsman and say it is unfair that I have to buy top up miles in units of 1000 given that I only need 200?
Do I have any grounds to say that it is unfair to charge me £100 to cancel early given that there's only 2 weeks left?
Is there any other suggestions anyone has?

Thanks

Quentin

1) You won't get any NCD for this year if you cancel the policy early.


(If this is your first year, then having a year's NCD for next year's policy should make a significant difference to the premium - do dummy quotes online with and without this year's NCD to see what difference the extra year will make to your NCD)


2) You have little hope the FOS will deal with your complaint on the grounds of the condition being "unfair".


3) If the £100 is purely a cancellation fee then it is on the high side - though the FOS have already accepted insurers are allowed to charge cancellation fees when policies are cancelled early, so your grounds for complaint might be better based on the amount rather than the policy being 2 weeks from its end. A goodwill gesture might be the insurer's response if you make a complaint to them.


If you do want to get the FOS involved, then you must first make formal complaints to the insurer and await their replies before being able to escalate them to the FOS. (Though whatever the outcome of getting the FOS involved it won't cost you anything to follow the procedure and see if they do come down on your side)

forgotmyname

Hire a car for the journey?

If thats not an option it sounds like paying the £130 now is likely to save you more with your next policy and the no claims earned.

Adding extra miles in blocks of 1000 is how the policy works and they would have told you at the beginning, or it would have been in the terms and conditions.
Complaining costs nothing but your time though.

KarlB12

Thanks for the advice.
So it looks like cancelling the policy is out of the question since it would not be worth loosing my years no claims.
I will be phoning them later today.
If I cannot negotiate with them to sell me only 200 miles given that I'm so close to the end of my policy then I will raise a formal complaint with them.
To me it only seems fair that any miles left over at the end of my policy should be refunded.
If I have bought them, and I didn't use them, (and they were expensive), then common sense says I should get some of my money back.

irishjohn

It is unlikely that you will be able to negotiate a purchase of 200 miles.

The computer system used to administer their policy sales will have the 1000 miles option as it is the one they offer, but probably will not enable them to sell other mileage allowances. Thats progress for you!

You need to list your options, and their associated costs - including postponing or cancelling the journey.

One you have listed these options, their pros and cons and associated costs it will become apparent to you what option you should take.

rich13348

Depending how old you are hiring a car for the day ought to cost no more that 50/60including insurance.

Aretnap

Or you could try looking for a separate one day policy to cover you for this specific trip - Google "short term car insurance". Should cost a lot less than £130, though if you're young and/or newly qualified you might not find that a lot of providers will cover you. You might also need to speak to Carrot and check that they won;t sting you for the excess mileage charge anyway when the telemetics unit says that you've done an extra 200 miles.

forgotmyname

That would be a pickle, If they took out short term for cover for a day or week the box will still show the miles clocked up.

If the OP had a claim would the 2 companies go 50/50 on the claim? Would temp cover disable the current insurance?

EdGasket

Can you disconnect the speedo cable so it doesn't clock any miles or is it done by GPS?

System

The Carrot FAQ says:

"If you go over your stated annual mileage and carry on driving for too long without topping-up, bear in mind that your policy could become invalid and get cancelled."

What does "carry on driving for too long" mean? Surely not just one unexpected journey?

This seems a rather expensive way of getting car insurance. You presumably originally said you would do something like 10,000 miles. Yet if you had in fact correctly estimated the mileage as 10,200 miles would it really have cost another £130?
Or is it only so much because you want to buy top-up rather than pay at the start?

Aretnap

forgotmyname wrote: »

That would be a pickle, If they took out short term for cover for a day or week the box will still show the miles clocked up.

If the OP had a claim would the 2 companies go 50/50 on the claim? Would temp cover disable the current insurance?

Dunno - hence the need to clarify with the main insurance company. If there was a way of getting them to suspend the policy for the day, or if they just didn't offer provide cover once the mileage was exceeded, it might work, hence the suggestion to look into it. Or it might not.