Car Insurance insiting I pay for the remainder of the year after a no fault crash

zacharypowell

I am in a situation which I could really use some help with.


A couple of months ago I was in a no fault accident that wrote my car off, I contacted my insurance company and told them about the accident. I was assured that as long as it wasn't my fault my no claims or premium wouldn't be affected. I was made to feel like claiming for the damage was the right thing to do.
In the end the car was written off as it was deemed not worth repairing and I was awarded a £200 payout.


When I then attempted to cancel the insurance I was told I couldn't yet as the claim had not been closed by the underwriter. I left it for a month and continued to pay my premium. Today I was in touch with them again to close the policy and was told I would need to pay a full £600 as I have been paying monthly and would need to pay for the remainder of the year.


At no point during the process was I told that this would be the case, the whole time i was made to feel like I was doing the right thing and I now very much feel like I have been conned into giving them more money. I would have been far better off to scrap the car myself, get scrap value and have just canceled the insurance!
What can I do in this situation? I have now canceled my direct debit but clearly the goal would be to get the insurance company to admit that they should have made this clear to me and cancel the demand for payment.

[Deleted User]

You buy insurance by the year, so whether you pay for it up front or monthly, you still need to pay for it.

If you'd scrapped the car yourself, you would still be paying for the insurance, but just have had a little more work to do.

zacharypowell

Well no if i had scrapped the car myself I could have canceled the policy and just paid a £40 admin fee to do so.


This is my point as per their own terms I'm allowed to cancel my insurance for what ever reason. But by making a claim I'm not allowed to cancel. Because I wasn't told this and was told I should cancel it feels very much like they are trying to push me into the route to get the most money out of me.

Quentin

Cancelling your DD won't help you!

Expect them to pursue you for the money you owe them and put a black mark on your credit record

worried_jim

Yep, they are a business, that's their job.

MovingForwards

Buy another car and transfer the insurance?

FutureGirl

They are not saying you can't cancel. You just have to pay the remainder of the policy year. Which is more than normal. An insurance policy is a yearly product, you just take out a loan to pay for it monthly.

If it's a no-fault accident, once your insurers recover the money back from the third party insurers, you can then cancel your policy and won't have to pay the remainder.

kelevraz

FutureGirl wrote: »

If it's a no-fault accident, once your insurers recover the money back from the third party insurers, you can then cancel your policy and won't have to pay the remainder.

Pretty much this OP, from the sounds of it, your claim is still open, so until recovery is made, its classed as a open pending / fault claim.

If you have a fault claim during the policy term, your expected to pay the whole premium

nyermen

Quentin wrote: »

Cancelling your DD won't help you!

And non-payment (which missing a payment would mean) is a reason that insurance can be cancelled, with all the horrors of declaring for life that you have had insurance cancelled...

You should also check what happens with your NCB (if any) as a result of not moving to a new insurance.

[Deleted User]

You should call your insurance company and tell them that you want to add the additional monthly payments you have to make on to the cost of the claim. By not settling it quickly the other insurance company is causing you to have to make those payments, when if they settled you could cancel for the £40 admin fee and that would be it.