hastings smartmiles insurance cancelled

hollow

my daughter recently passed her test and got insurance with hastings smart miles , within a week she recieved an email threatening her with insurance cancellation as she had not had the black box fitted . got in touch with them immediately and they stated they had tried to phone the landline and as no one had answered they were goingt o cancel her insurance in 7 days.
she asked why they didnt try her mobile number or even get the company that fit the black box to email her , their response was they couldnt do that , even though they could email her to tell her they were going to cancel her insurance , anyway they arranged a time to fit the box . the guy came out to fit it and refused as the car has a factory fitted spoiler on the boot lid (citroen c2 1.4 sx)
he said he would have to find out if it was ok to fit the box or wether the spoiler would have to be removed . this was last thursday 21st july 2016 . she rang them friday next day to see what was happening , to be told no one in department to deal with it and to phone today . this morning she recieved an email saying her policy had been cancelled .
i rang them and asked why , i also recorded the call, the guy on the other end said because she had not had the box fitted they had to cancel her insurance , i explained about the spoiler bit and said the company that fit the box was supposed to get in touch with you thursday last week , they have no record of any correspondance with the company .
put on hold for 5 minutes for him to come back and state reason we have cancelled it is because of the spoiler .
i reminded him that only 5 mins or so ago he had said that they had not even spoke with the black box fitters and knew nothing about the spoiler .
i said i guess your company doesnt know its head from its !!! .
i asked to be refunded as the initial payment of approx £200+(cant remeber exact figure) was for the box fitting . he said a refund would be given but would take 14 days , marvelous when it takes them 30 seconds to process the payment in the first place , told him i wanted to complain and e said that takes 7 days to process as well . i asked for a confirmation by email of a refund and also of a complaint and asked for it within 15 mins . he said it would be straight away . well its been 6 hours and nothing .


will the cancellation affect her insurance with another company ? as i believe it was their fault (or the black box fitting company who obviously do not correspond with each other ) as they cancelled her insurance as they believe she had intentionally avoided the box been fitted .


proper bunch of monkeys running the outfit .with young operators on the phone who to me sound like they need to go back to school and get some more education first .

Quentin

Assuming the spoiler wasn't an undisclosed modification then she looks to have grounds for complaint.


(If the spoiler isn't standard equipment then they do have grounds to cancel)


Get the reason for cancellation in writing and take it from there.


As it stands this cancellation will need disclosing, so if the spoiler isn't the reason for the cancellation she needs to follow this right through and if successful ensure she gets it in writing that the cancellation does not need disclosing to other insurers

Hastings_Direct_company_representative

Hi,

Thanks for sharing your experience here, I'd like to be of help. Could you please email your full name, DoB and reg (or policy number) to help@hastingsdirect.com? I can then ensure that your issues are being looked at.

Kind regards,

Joe