Didn't pay insurer last year, renewed insurance and they want payment for last year?

Pennywise

If you didn't have insurance for the last full year, won't this year's "renewal" be on a new-policy basis without a full no claims' bonus history?

You may find that a new policy with no/less NCB costs more than the last years' which you didn't pay for.

Anyway, usually, the insurance is set up to either renew automatically or not - check with your paperwork from last year to see which it was. If it was an automatic renewal, then you have no grounds at all not to pay. If it wasn't, then it should have lapsed if you didn't proactively renew it.

Zorillo

agrinnall wrote: »

It's simple, you can't renew insurance that isn't currently in force, so if they are allowing you to renew for the next year then you are currently covered. Whether you paid or not is irrelevant to the cover being in place.



The other issue is whether renewing is the right thing to do, for car insurance it is rarely the sensible money saving option so if you haven't checked elsewhere you should do so now.

They could cancel this year's insurance for non payment of last year's premium. It could end up being a lot more expensive not to pay the money owed, I wouldn't risk it.

agrinnall

Zorillo wrote: »

They could cancel this year's insurance for non payment of last year's premium. It could end up being a lot more expensive not to pay the money owed, I wouldn't risk it.

You're right, I wasn't clear that I'm not suggesting they don't pay for last year's cover, just that having not paid for it during the time on cover doesn't mean the cover wasn't in place. I absolutely think that it should be paid now.

rudekid48

If no cover had been in force, and your vehicle wasn't SORN, then you would have received a nice fine through the post for not having insurance. Google "continuous insurance enforcement" if you want reassurance that you are not being lied to...

PRAISETHESUN

I tend to hop insurance providers every year or so to get the best deals and I've had it in the past where I've deliberately not paid to renew my current policy and let it lapse whilst I was moving to a different provider. In my experience if you don't have auto-renewal then your insurance WILL end and you won't be covered. If you auto-renew (even if you don't pay) then they will consider you to have an active, but unpaid policy, and may eventually they will try to claim the money. Unfortunately not paying doesn't automatically cancel your policy (I suspect there are laws around this to prevent people people from not being insured because of a cancellation).

It all depends on if you intended to have the cover or not - if you did, then by all means pay up. Otherwise if you had alternate cover in place then you might need to keep fighting it before they try to get debt collectors involved. The only database I know of is https://ownvehicle.askmid.com/, but that only tells you if you currently have active insurance, not whether or not it's been insured in the past

Dimps_123

I assume if you needed to make a claim you would have expected it to be paid though? ..................