Mobile insurance

tealcsg1

Well, back in 1998 I bought my first mobile. I remember at the time that I had phone insurance for 3.99 a month. Over the months and years I forgot about this insurance and it was only a month ago I was looking at my direct debit lists and to my amazement, it was still being taken out of my account!! I immediately cancelled this direct debit and called the company that was withdrawing funds from my account. They took ages trying to find my details as I had moved etc. Finally they said yes your are still insured for a phone you purchased in 1998. I wanted my premiums back. Here is the email that Citymain admin sent me. What do you think? Can I get more or shall I take what they are offering?

Further to your recent contact with our office, we would like to take this opportunity to advise you that Citymain Administrators Ltd is the claims administrator on behalf of Underwriters in respect of KJC insurance scheme. We are also responsible for the collection of premiums.

We would confirm your details were transferred to us by KJC as having accepted the insurance, when you purchased a Nokia 3410 handset on 4th July 2000. The insurance offer and information was available to view and remove during the sales process.

Our letter confirming the setup of the insurance/Direct Debit was also sent to your address on 2nd December 2000. This was a separate letter to that of the purchase of the phone, and separate to that of your mobile network contract. We also enclosed a copy of the policy documents, which confirm that the ‘period of insurance’ is for each billing month as they are not annual policies and so will continue to run until such time as a cancellation request is received from you. It does not end when the mobile phone contract ends. The terms and conditions also advise that the insurance is transferable on to a replacement phone. As no contact has been made from you in relation to this policy, it continued.

We can only act on the information received from KJC and are not responsible for the sale of the Insurance.

It is an individual’s responsibility to regularly monitor and reconcile their own banks accounts, and therefore we would maintain that Citymain Administrators Ltd and the Underwriters are not responsible for the direct debits being taken unknowingly. In this we are unable to accept liability for the payments already taken however, as a gesture of goodwill, due to the length of time that this policy has been in place, the Underwriters have agreed on this occasion to a refund of £240.00.

We trust that under the circumstance you will agree that this is a fair and reasonable offer, and if you wish to accept, we would ask that you please confirm by signing and returning a copy of this letter by post, or scanned and sent by email.

-taff

It was your responsibility to cancel the insurance, not theirs to check you still needed it.
You can only ask they refund the premiums, not insist, and they do not have to do that.

You're lucky they are refunding some of it to be honest, and you're not entitled to ask for more for a mistake that you made.