Are other charges illegal too and worth challenging?

artyharry

I am currently in dispute with More Than insurance company :mad: as they are trying to charge me a £55 administrative fee for cancelling my car insurance with them within the first year of taking it out. (I'm 7 months into the contract). The wording on the contract is that they "may" charge me "up to" £55 if I cancel within the first year.
Does anyone know if this falls into the same category as the bank charges, which have been deemed illegal? More Than :mad: are refusing to give me a breakdown of those charges and to tell me how it costs them £55 to cancel my insurance. They are arguing that I've signed a contract with them saying it may be charged and that this is sufficient legally for them to then go ahead and charge me the full whack.
I think that they are charging me a punitive payment on top of their genuine administrative costs, which I would have thought is now an illegal thing to do, on the back of the bank charges debacle. They have admitted that they make a loss on their customers within the first year, and they only make this levvy if you cancel within the first year, so my point is that they are seeking to claw back money from their customers (like the bank did), under the guise of an administrative charge, that miraculously doesn't appear to exist at all, once the customer has completed their first year's insurance.
Does anyone have any advice on how I should proceed? More Than :mad: are maintaining that the Financial services ombudsman have deemed that this administrative payment is fair, but won't tell me when this was agreed.