Motorbike Insurance, cancelled because of a change of address & EU license?

geodeath

Hi all, i have been reading lots of great advise here over the years but i only needed advise for my own weird case now.

I got a motorbike (400cc scooter) end of November last year and i insured it through a comparison website, holding an EU license, which i am still holding. Unfortunately, i decided to prepay the whole year, rather than pay monthly.

I recently moved to another address, around 3-4 miles away from my previous house and during the change of address process they told me they can not actually do the change because the underwriters do not accept EU licenses any more.

After a couple of weeks on the phone trying to solve this, they now have served me a 7 day cancellation notice and on top of that, they told me that because the cancellation time is so close to the end of the policy, i am not going to get any refund as well.

I know that i am supposed to convert my EU license to a UK one after 12 months of driving but this means legally i am only required to do so in November. The monthly charge for this policy would be about £60-70, so the total owed to me if refunded, would be around £170-180!!

Is there anything i can *really* do, or i am screwed either way? I have no way of converting my license to UK before i leave on holidays in 2 days and once i go, the policy will be cancelled way before the license would ever even arrive.

Their take is that the underwriters changed their terms to not accept EU licenses anymore, so a change of address means recalculating your premium which in turns means... accepting the new terms.

Does this sound airtight from their side or can i actually do something to get any money back?

Thanks!

Quentin

Whenever you are unhappy with your insurance company the route to go down is a complaint in line with their complaints procedure.

Then if you are not happy with the response or they ignore you for 8 weeks you can escalate to the FOS for their adjudication at no cost to you

geodeath

Thanks a lot, i want to do that, but i was just trying to understand if there is a 'generic' rule when it comes to refunds for their side's cancelled policies that they have to adhere to or whether they can make up their own.. like not refunding you the months you pre-paid for example when you are close to the end of the policy, sounds like daylight robbery to me!

lisyloo

The should refund you BUT they can make an admin charge.

Ask them for a breakdown and then come back and post up the figures.

Chickenlips

When does the policy renew? The premium word would be based on the time left on the policy from the date of cancellation as you are technically still insured by them for 7 days and still receiving a service for your money.

The amount owed would be two months ish if the renewal date is 1st November. Have they applied a higher premium for the seven days due to perceived greater risk of claim for EU drivers plus admin fee? What does the policy say about cancellation? The policy booklet is the terms you agreed to and should guide you on this.

They aren't issuing a new policy so it is unclear why the old one is being treated by the terms of new policies they issue. Only your address has changed and you are still the same risk you were before. It would make sense if they did not invite you to renew but no sense to cancel the policy