Will the debt collectors come knocking?

BigTubOfLard

Hi there. Long time lurker, first time poster.

I live in England but have a house in Ireland which was let out till recently. The tenants gave notice so I decided to sell. First thing I did was inform my insurance broker, Chill insurance, that the place would be empty from X date.

Shortly afterwards the broker informed me via email that because the tenants have moved out my cover will be greatly reduced e.g. no cover for vandalism. Fair enough, there's no one there looking after the place so I accept the new reduced cover clause.

However, about a month after this I get a phone call from the broker to say that the insurer is now upping the premium for my final month and wants another €60 - payable now over the phone. I tell them, "Hang on a minute. You didn't mention anything about any extra charges, just reduced cover." "Well if you don't pay the extra your insurer will cancel the insurance". I said fine, go ahead and cancel my insurance.

Several letters followed asking me to pay or my insurance would be cancelled (bear in mind that I only had a month left to run). Another letter arrives saying that my insurance is now cancelled. No problem - the house is up for sale and with an offer on the table I'm not worried about re-insuring it.

Yesterday I get another letter - "Failure to make payment will result in your file being referred to debt collection".

Now here's the thing: I live in England, have no other interests in Ireland and have no plans to ever set foot back in the place (I'm not Irish and have no family there). Is an Irish insurance company really going to send the lads from "Can't pay we'll take it away" round to my home in England for a €60 non-payment? I'd like to ignore these letters and start sending them back with 'No longer at this address' written on them.

sourcrates

Hi,

I doubt it, as you dont owe them anything.

I would say it was probably a computer generated letter you received, like a standard pay up or else response they typically send out.

Its unlikely to be followed up on, but maybe an attempt on your part to resolve the issue, may be the best thing all round.

National_Debtline

Hi there,


You could be chased in England for this debt, potentially via the English courts or via the Irish courts and then transferred to England.There would need to be a court judgement of some description for there to be bailiffs involved and it would seem a bit premature to be worrying about this.


For 60 euros this does seem to be causing a lot of worry. If you believe the debt is wrong you can raise it as a dispute to try and resolve the matter. Or, if it is correct, and you want to draw a line under things, it would seem easier to pay it and not use that company again.


Laura
@natdebtline

BigTubOfLard

Thanks Laura and Sourcrates.

It's not really causing me worry as such, more consternation.

They said "pay up or we'll cancel your insurance".
I say "go ahead". They cancel it (a mere 3 days before it was due to expire anyway), then tell me I still have to pay the fee.

What grates on me is that I wasn't told there would be an additional charge - only that I'd have reduced cover. If they had told me that after another month they'd whack on an additional I'd have cancelled it myself there and then.

BigTubOfLard

UPDATE: I took the advice of Sourcrates and sent a strongly worded complaint to the broker and also Ccd the insurer. I'll reproduce just the final part of my email below.

I am asking you to cancel this debt, which has been retrospectively applied to my account. You cannot simply not tell someone about additional charges then later call them out of the blue and say "You've got a debt which we didn't tell you would accrue but now you have to pay it."

I hope that we can resolve this matter amicably by you cancelling this so called debt. If you persist in sending demand letters my next course of action will be to submit a complaint to the Financial Services Ombudsman in Ireland.

It took them less than two hours to reply: they've apologised for the frustration they caused and have waived the 'outstanding balance'.

A great result. Many thanks again to Laura and Sourcrates for replying and for giving me the little push I needed to resolve the problem, rather than just ignore the letters.

engineer_amy

BigTubOfLard wrote: »

UPDATE:
It took them less than two hours to reply: they've apologised for the frustration they caused and have waived the 'outstanding balance'
.

Great result, and its good to deal with it now rather than leaving it. Just make sure you print copies of that email saying that the account is clear and keep them safe for a few years - wouldn't put it past some insurance companies to not update their records properly and to sell the debt on and then you would have debt collectors chasing you! At least you have proof that there is nothing owed