1st Central Insurance

Gentle_Ben

Evening all, I was hoping for some advice.

Earlier this year on 4th August I received a letter from my then car insurer, 1st Central, saying my insurance cover on our car had been cancelled with effect from the 1st August.

Horrified at finding out my other half and 6yo son had been driving around for four days uninsured, I contacted them that evening and was told the cancellation was due to a missed DD payment.

I stated I had had no letters or messages, and they replied saying they e-mailed me several times. Now while I have a basic e-mail address, it rarely gets checked - I'm out to work at 6am, back at 6pm, and after I've put our son to bed and had tea, my last desire at night is to check my e-mails. (I also assumed if such a drastic course of action was being taken I might have received notice in writing, notice in advance that is!)

I offered to make a payment to bring the account up to date, but they were not interested in the slightest, telling me the policy was cancelled and that was that. Thankfully I was able to re-insure the same evening with Swinton and having to declare that I'd had a policy cancelled didn't seem to adversely affect the price or obtaining new cover.

I made a written complaint to 1st Central, who replied stating they had sent several letters to me in advance of cancelling the insurance and they weren't budging from their position. I had a good root through my paperwork and found one unopened letter from them (my other half had 'filed' it away and not told me) but no sign of the other 3/4 letters they said had been sent.

I thought the matter had died a death, until suddenly I was being bombarded with phone calls, texts and e-mails demanding an outstanding amount of £169.95 for the remainder of the policy.

To be fair I have been fairly ignorant of their attempts to contact me, perhaps hoping they would give up on the matter given the sum (which is probably two months of premiums for a new teenage driver?) but they seem determined to harass me to get it, and I've had a letter saying it will be passed to a debt collector.

Not wanting any black marks or suchlike against my name, I phoned them up and thought that I would offer to pay £85 - equivalent to half the outstanding amount, as in my opinion there is fault on both sides for the situation escalating to this stage. I also think it is a fair offer given the amount of resource they have devoted to trying to recover this debt, and the likely sum they would get from selling the debt on to a recovery agent.

I have submitted an e-mail to CARS UK who are handling the debt on behalf of 1st Central outlining my proposal but I am not hopeful that it will be listened to.

They did offer to reduce the amount by 20% however but have rejected this.

My question is, what other routes are open to me if they aren't willing to negotiate?

I don't feel I should have to pay the full outstanding amount for the reasons above but neither do I wish to have a black mark against my name on any databases anywhere.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated... thank you.

paddyandstumpy

See what you're policy book says about them notifying you of a cancellation.
Does it say they will send you letters or emails?

Did they try and represent the missed d/d? I thought under the guarantee any missed payments had to be given a second chance? A Broker or someone who deals with the payment side of things might comment and offer further insight.

Regarding the debt, it should only be the balance of the years premium if you've claimed on the policy.
Otherwise they should only charge you for the cover you've had, and perhaps a cancellation fee and also perhaps clawing back any lost commission by you cancelling.

Ask them for a breakdown of how they got to that number, but I'd say you most likely owe it and need to pay up.

Consider it a very expensive lesson learned!

And read up on this forum about Swinton. As an aside; have they confirmed in writing they've noted your previous cancelled policy? It wouldn't surprise me if they've ignored this, which leaves you in danger if the insurer doesn't know and has accepted this.