Insurance charging me £700 for a cancelled policy

zuba181996

So i was insured with tesco for their black box insurance and had been paying £220 a month with 5 months left on the policy, but one of my payments i gave late which lead to them sending me a letter demanding the outstanding payment for the last 5 months in one go; and obviously because im a student i cant afford to pay all that in one go!

So i ended up cancelling my policy all together because they were going to cancel it wihtin a week anyway if they didn't receive the upfront payment and ended up taking out insurance with another company which was £300 cheaper than what tesco were demanding and this was for a whole year whilst still paying it monthly and no box.

My dilemma is today i recieved an email from tesco a month or so later asking me to pay £729.01 but i am no longer insured with them?!

DUTR

But you had an annual policy, not pay as you go.
So the full annual fee is due whether you cancel or not.

shaun_from_Africa

zuba181996 wrote: »

My dilemma is today i recieved an email from tesco a month or so later asking me to pay £729.01 but i am no longer insured with them?!

You are no longer insured with them but when you took out the policy it would have been for a year with the repayments spread over that period.
You cancelled the policy and even though you no longer need it, you are still expected to pay the premium that you arranged at the beginning.


The premium would have been about £2500 with a bit extra added for the credit which would bring the total to around £2600.
Split over 12 equal payments would be about the £220 that you were paying.
As you've only made 7 payments (total of about £1540), this will leave a balance of about £960 and it looks like Tesco have reduced this to allow for the time you no longer need.


If you don't pay what you owe, you may well find that something gets added to the database of info that insurers use to swop information and if this happens, you could find that getting insurance in the future is far harder and much more expensive.

grumbler

DUTR wrote: »

But you had an annual policy, not pay as you go.
So the full annual fee is due whether you cancel or not.

Well, my policy is annual too.
However, the T&C say:

If you cancel the policy after this time [14 days] the return will be the premium paid, less the proportionate charge for the number of days for which cover has been provided. The cancellation fee specified in Your Policy Details [£50] will also apply if the policy is cancelled before the first renewal date.

:think:

My understanding is that "the full annual fee is due whether you cancel or not" only if you had an accident.

londonTiger

you are a student and decided to be a motorist paying £2640 p.a for insurance.

That's where you made your mistake.

londonTiger

DUTR wrote: »

But you had an annual policy, not pay as you go.
So the full annual fee is due whether you cancel or not.

that's really daft, people dont plan their life in 365 day chunks. It's an annual policy - does not mean you're in a 12 month binding contract. Even the crappiest insurers will allow you to cancel your car insurance and just charge you an admin fee and then give you a pro rata refund for the remaining term paid for.

It really depends on what admin fees tesco are charging and whether tesco have added up the accured charges from previous unpaid months. Students have no financial and common sense it seems for all we know £400 of this could be accrued charges from non payment.

In addition, tesco will only cancel the insurance from the date they are notified. OP may have done the classic mistake and just assuming that they cancelled the DD therefore the insurance in cancelled. But that is not the case. Insurer ceased the policy from the date when they were informed of the cancellation when they chased the debt.

OP pull your finger out and ask for a breakdown of costs.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

londonTiger wrote: »

you are a student and decided to be a motorist paying £2640 p.a for insurance.

That's where you made your mistake.

Perhaps at the time OP is a new driver, or has no NCD, and that was the cheapest at the time he took out the policy.


Unlike you who used his car for business use and only had basic car insurance policy and announced it to the whole forum that was a mistake!.


If your insurance was underwritten by insure the box (Tesco use them or Caitlin insurance) check the terms and cons, you could be liable for outstanding mileage or a pending claim.

stator

Ask them for a breakdown of the charges, you are entitled to one.

If you were paying monthly then you also need to check the T&C of the credit agreement as well as the insurance policyh. The insurance policy should give a proportion refund if you had paid anually but I dont know about the credit agreement

londonTiger

atrixblue.-MFR-. wrote: »

Perhaps at the time OP is a new driver, or has no NCD, and that was the cheapest at the time he took out the policy.


Unlike you who used his car for business use and only had basic car insurance policy and announced it to the whole forum that was a mistake!.


If your insurance was underwritten by insure the box (Tesco use them or Caitlin insurance) check the terms and cons, you could be liable for outstanding mileage or a pending claim.

Complete lies and complete non sequitor. Stay on topic.

It is pretty clearly OP is on a financial tightrope which is evident from them missing payments. And being a student. Owning a car as a student is one of the dumbest moves anyone can make.

You can megabus from London to Cheltenham for a pound if you book properly. No reason to drive at all.

loskie

have you had any claims or anyone claimed against your insurance?

rudekid48

loskie wrote: »

have you had any claims or anyone claimed against your insurance?

Yep. Check out the OP's other posts. Has been paid out for a total loss and even managed to damage the courtesy car :rotfl:

Looks like that's the reason for having to pay the full premium - there's been a claim.