Car insurance demanding more money

Deep_Geezer

Hi, I’m hoping someone can help me with some information. My 22 year old son insured his car about three months ago. He gave all honest information and declared his convictions. He paid the insurance in one lump sum and has been driving for three months with no problems. He had a call today saying that he had to pay another £500! Can they legally do this, bearing in mind that nothing has changed since the original quote? He’s very worried, i told him not to pay it, but he’s worried that if he doesn’t it will affect his future insurance. Any help would be really appreciated 

[Deleted User]

What is the reason for the extra cost?

Deep_Geezer

I’m not entirely sure. Apparently they asked him to confirm his yearly mileage which he did, and it was the same as he told them originally. He’s done nothing wrong, so if they made a mistake in their original quote, surely that’s down to them? 

rudekid48

You're not giving enough info for anyone to be able to really help.  You say that you think that it is to do with yearly mileage, so has he had a black box fitted by the insurer or any other form of tracking?  It could be that he has said that he will do x miles in the year but based on his actual driving for the first 3 months it is looking like he is going to do more?  Just guessing as there's not enough info...

Sandtree

You need clarification from the insurer/broker what the extra premium is for and what the split is between fees and premium. Similarly would be useful to know if its a black box insurance etc.

An insurer can only change the price if something changes... that can be something truly changes (eg you move home) or if there was a false declaration when the quote was made and that has to be changed to the truth. 

Traditionally these were most commonly convictions or claims that werent declared or proof of NCD wasnt provided when requested. There are more people coming on here recently talking of more minor details where the period the license has been held was declared incorrectly by a few months etc so some brokers/MGAs may be looking more closely. All of these can attract an admin fee ontop of the pure premium.

Deep_Geezer

I’ve just spoken to him, he’s been on the phone to them again and it appears that he accidentally put his mileage down as 1200 instead of 12000. I’ve told him to check back on his original information he sent them in case it was their mistake and not his. Sadly it looks as though its his mistake though  !!!!!!. Thanks for the replys though

chrisw

He needs to either pay it or cancel the policy and take out a new one elsewhere.

Never refuse to pay without some form of agreement. The insurers will simply cancel his policy and this will have to be declared for ever more, making future insurance much more difficult and expensive.

Aretnap

The insurer cannot actually force him to pay the extra premium in this scenario. Assuming the mistake was his then legally their options are to cancel the policy, or to tell your son that they will only pay a percentage of any claims going forwards, equal to the percentage of the correct premium that he actually paid. (If the mistake was theirs then I think they are probably stuck with giving him cheap insurance, but this seems unlikely TBH). 

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/decisions-case-studies/case-studies/insurer-said-pay-extra-car-insurance-didnt-tell-points-licence-took-policy

I'm practice though he doesn't want a cancelled policy on his record (that would make getting insurance difficult and expensive, potentially for the rest of his life) and he certainly doesn't want a policy that would only pay half the cost of a Ferrari that he drives into. So it's in his interests to come to an agreement with his insurer which doesn't end up with either scenario. Which means that he needs to pay, or that he needs to cancel the policy himself before the insurer cancels it for him.