Hastings Smartmiles cancelled my son's car insurance

Debz72

My son took out a Smartmiles policy with hastings straight after passing his test at 17. You can imagine the cost of policy due to his age & inexperience so had a black box to try keep costs a ittle lower. He did have an accident within few months (although not due to bad driving, more to inexperience). He was provided with a new black box cause apparently cant just use same one, which he was also charged again for. As far as we/he was aware everything was fine, paying instalments etc no probs. Had letter today saying insurance will be cancelled as of 04/05/20. After a couple of calls have been informed apparently the box has not fed any information back to them for a number of weeks? They said they attempted to call & left a voicemail twice at the end of March but my son has not recieved this voicemail?  No contact via email nor letter until now, as there's been nobody in office to do so due to the lockdown/covid 19, when they basically have cancelled the policy & there's nothing we can do other than pay the remaining balance due (+£45 cancellation fee) Has anybody had similar experience or any advise to offer? Would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

dunstonh

He needs to contact their complaints team.  Most firms have kept the complaints process open.   Basically saying what you have here.   The complaints team can look into it an overrule the service line people where necessary.

jimbo6977

I bet they've still got the previous box logged against his policy.

TELLIT01

It might also be advisible to check that the black box has not been interfered with / disconnected.  Teenagers don't always tell their parents everything, I know I didn't!

csgohan4

Debz72 said:

My son took out a Smartmiles policy with hastings straight after passing his test at 17. You can imagine the cost of policy due to his age & inexperience so had a black box to try keep costs a ittle lower. He did have an accident within few months (although not due to bad driving, more to inexperience). He was provided with a new black box cause apparently cant just use same one, which he was also charged again for. As far as we/he was aware everything was fine, paying instalments etc no probs. Had letter today saying insurance will be cancelled as of 04/05/20. After a couple of calls have been informed apparently the box has not fed any information back to them for a number of weeks? They said they attempted to call & left a voicemail twice at the end of March but my son has not recieved this voicemail?  No contact via email nor letter until now, as there's been nobody in office to do so due to the lockdown/covid 19, when they basically have cancelled the policy & there's nothing we can do other than pay the remaining balance due (+£45 cancellation fee) Has anybody had similar experience or any advise to offer? Would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

inexperience in the insurers eyes is still an at fault accident sadly., so he is higher risk than someone without an accident

In regards to the black box data, I assume no data as in not been driving it, or has it been disconnected and not sending anything? If the primary then I hope they are aware it is due to the lockdown

Archie2021

My son has received a letter today saying Hastings have cancelled his insurance. They contacted him several weeks ago to say the black box wasn't collecting data. He has made numerous calls to them since then and followed all their instructions on how to reset/fix but the problem has not been resolved. His last contact with them last week was to say that a member of the IT team would be in touch . No one has contacted him since and now he has received the cancellation letter. I DONT KNOW WHERE TO TURN FOR HELP

dunstonh

Archie2021 said:

My son has received a letter today saying Hastings have cancelled his insurance. They contacted him several weeks ago to say the black box wasn't collecting data. He has made numerous calls to them since then and followed all their instructions on how to reset/fix but the problem has not been resolved. His last contact with them last week was to say that a member of the IT team would be in touch . No one has contacted him since and now he has received the cancellation letter. I DONT KNOW WHERE TO TURN FOR HELP

Hastings would be where he needs to turn for help.   

mgfvvc

I guess he needs to make a formal complaint.