Top up miles more than smart wheels. Legal?

Busybee28

Hi,
My son has been driving for 10 months on a more than smart wheels policy which he took out on the day he passed his test.
We had a good guess at the miles he'd be driving but it turns out he'll probably end up running out about 1 month early.
His black box score is a 5 so not bad and he has had no accidents. We thought we contact them today to ask what to do with his miles running low. He hasn't yet used 90% which is the threshold that more than will chase him to get him to buy more miles. They want to charge him £600 for topping up his miles.
I asked if we could leave the car on the drive and for him to not drive the car when his miles run out. They said if we don't buy more miles then they cancel the policy which would leave him with no no claims discount for next year.
Can they do that? Surely insisting that we pay a ridiculous amount of money with no other option is against their rules or something!
Who do I even approach to get advice on something like this?
Thanks for your help

molerat

Read the t&cs. They state that when you are close to your limit they will contact you and offer some options which include paying for a top up, laying the car up or you cancelling the policy. If you do not take one of those options they will cancel the policy when the miles run out.

They probably meant if you continue to drive the car after you have run out of miles they will cancel the insurance which they are perfectly entitled to do as mentioned above.

Quentin

Check the policy wording but it may be you spoke to the wrong person


As long as the miles haven't been exceeded you can normally park up the car till the policy ends rather than buy more miles.


If your policy confirms this then make a complaint to them that they are treating you unfairly and not keeping to the conditions.


Then if you are unhappy with the reply you can escalate to the FOS for their adjudication

rudekid48

If he ran out of data/texts on his mobile would you expect him to be given more for free?

Same principle, he purchased insurance for x amount of miles and will use them up.

£600 for how many extra miles? What was the original premium and for how many miles?

Geoff1963

I asked if we could leave the car on the drive and for him to not drive the car when his miles run out.

If he has 1 mile left when he parks up, I don't see the problem. What if he had 35 miles left with a month to go, and drove just 1 mile / day ? A person who owed a convertible and a 4 x 4 might have a very different miles / month in each of them.

forgotmyname

Park it up now and only use it when essential. It should leave him with some miles left.

Potato999

Hi. I just got top up miles from more than smart wheels. And they sent over their pricing. Even if you have a score of +10, 1000 miles still cost £350 if you have a score of -10, they set you back over £600. I got a lovely man on the phone, their customer service line is excellent. Although I would not reccomend them with their awful top up miles policy to anyone. A friend of mine is with another black box company and said hers cost around £90 with a score of 7. Will be changing insurance company next year.