Insurance company taking me to court after raising credit card dispute

Jumblebumble

ZeroOne said:

Well, it looks like the guy from the insurer who threatened to take me to court for £800 was just a loose cannon.

The annual premium was £450. I sent them a cheque for £150 based on my holding the policy for 4 months (well it happened to be exactly 122 days out of 366).

The insurance agent who was meant to be dealing with my case (and who failed to respond to any of my emails or call me back for 6 months - apparently it was his responsibility to do so, hence why anyone else I spoke to wasn't able to help) finally did call me. He admitted that he "may have been at fault" and that the guy who threatened court for £800 was being "silly".

He worked that I should only have paid £120 for my policy. Then he wanted to charge me the £60 chargeback fees they incurred. He also wanted to charge me a £70 cancellation fee but agreed to waive this as it was not clear from my policy documents. As I had paid £150 by cheque he wanted £30 more, which I have decided to pay given the low amount and the next paragraph:

I also made a complaint to American Express who said that they should have given me a partial refund rather than doing a full chargeback, and that they shouldn't have ignored the insurer's defence against the chargeback. And the agent thought Section 75 did apply - as under the contract I believed I had agreed to, I was entitled to a pro-rata refund, and Amex was liable to fulfill the contract if the merchant didn't. But as I'd effectively received a refund now, Amex wouldn't need to pay me after all. After updating Amex with the insurer's response they decided to compensate me £60 so I could reimburse on to the insurer for their chargeback fees.

Since the policy was somehow cheaper than I expected, I have ended up paying £30 less than I thought I would.

Thats great news and as I suggested  a far better course of action and  result than handing over money to such a flakey company and then waiting months for the ombudsman to rule, and months more for them to return your money if ordered to do so.