Recurring Payments

fedwards2888

Hi, 
New to the forum but felt needed to let others know. We had an insurance policy with Esure and when it came to renewal, decided to shop around and found a cheaper one. Esure's policy was if you didn't have a direct debit set up, you didn't need to do anything. However, they took almost £300 from our account yesterday for the renewal, leaving us extremely short for the month. When we called our bank to ask how they took it and who gave them the authorisation, the bank told us Esure had set up a 'recurring payment' which allowed them to take it straight from our account without our approval. These type of agreements are normally set up for a subscription or where a payment will be 'recurring' however should not be used for insurance or other one off big payments. Sure enough when we called Esure they agreed to refund it to us, they were just chancers. Luckily with the current situation we are not going to be charged an overdraft fee. I just wanted to let others know to be careful and make sure you check your account and don't just rely on insurance companies terms for automatic renewal - turns out they don't stick to it!