Insurer changing amount owed.

jm91

My partner's mother wrote off my partner's brand new car in September. She did not receive a replacement until the start of January, in the mean time the insurance company did not take payment by direct debit and were awful in arranging the new car/delivery.
Come January my partner, naively, thinks that she should arrange herself a new insurer and arranges insurance with Aviva; she then gets a phone call a week later saying she owes the original insurer the balance on the policy so cancels the Aviva policy (with full refund).
Original insurer then tells her she only owes somewhere in the region of £20 because they had 'paid off the policy in their own accounts', and the £20 was the change in policy as she went from a provisional license to a full one while waiting for a new car. She asked for this in an email and received one saying:
I have placed the policy in arrears, as it is trying to charge you the full amount. Once our payment has been accredited into our accounts in roughly 3 weeks time you will need to pay the full amount which will be roughly 20 pounds.
Two months later she receives an email saying:
When you made a change to your policy and [sic] additional amount was generated of £767.56. We will be in contact further on how you can pay this amount.
I ring the company the next day and the bloke on the phone didn't seem to know what was going on, but after an hour on the phone told me that the issue had already been passed to an 'internal team', when I asked for the name of this team he couldn't give me the name of the team as it was 'external'.
All through the whole process of claiming the company has been friendly yet inept, being constantly passed from department to department with no two people really saying the same thing.
Can someone advise whether she needs to pay up seeing as she could have made 3 payments by now (ie half the bill). If so how can she approach this from a making a fuss perspective (for all its worth she is quite heavily pregnant and this is causing her significant distress).

forgotmyname

She purchased a years insurance so she pays for a years insurance.

If she had not claimed she may have had some of the money refunded, but a claim was made so the full premium is due.

Yes she needs to pay it.

The external team maybe the debt collection department, or amn external
debt collection company.

z1a

AS above, she owes for the rest of the year.

"(for all its worth she is quite heavily pregnant and this is causing her significant distress)." - Not worth anything.

sheramber

Is it possible that when the insurance paid out for the write off that included the balance of the amount due for the annual policy. Hence them saying " they had 'paid off the policy in their own accounts'"

When she got the new car a new policy was created which she is due to pay for from January-' when you changed your policy.'

System

sheramber wrote: »

Is it possible that when the insurance paid out for the write off that included the balance of the amount due for the annual policy.

No, never happens. Two completely separate things.

When she got the new car a new policy was created which she is due to pay for from January-' when you changed your policy.'

She did change the policy, she'd got an entirely new vehicle.

jm91

The change in policy was that she had gone from being a provisional license holder to a full license holder.
The main issue is that they have first told her she owed around £20 and then months later change the goalposts and say she owes £767.56, does the fact they have said in writing that she owes only 'around 20 pounds' not change anything?
Surely if she pays the £767.56 whats to stop them writing in 3 months time saying that its now £1000?

cajef

Possibly the £20 was an admin fee for changing the policy, when someone who is insured as a leaner passes their test, there is usually a large increase in the actual insurance premium as they are now a far greater risk, which would account for the £767.56.