What is the point of a packaged bank account during COVID-19 lockdowns?

darkh0rse

eskbanker said:

 I don't recall any providers offering pro rata refunds, do you have examples?

They may not have been that much busier - after all, travel insurance doesn't pay out in cases where the buyer has/will receive a refund. Most airlines, providers, etc have refunded their customers.

Ah yes, found the info about pro rata refunds here.
Got travel insurance you're sure you won't use? Many insurers will now pay out a refund if you cancel (moneysavingexpert.com)

Well it would seem it's just me that think we should be offered a token of some sort on these accounts, thanks for your inputs

born_again

darkh0rse said:

Hi all

As the title suggests, I realised I'm paying Nationwide £13/month for FlexPlus, for nothing. Can't use the travel insurance, breakdown cover is pointless too as I'm not going anywhere, and same for mobile phone, in that I don't go anywhere to make and it'd be covered under house insurance anyway as out-of-home cover.

I asked Nationwide on the chat if they would refund me, they said no. I asked instead for another 12 months fee-free. They said no. I said I would like to open a complaint and we shall see what they say.

Any thoughts? Why aren't we being offered anything? The banks must be raking it in from these packaged accounts over the last 12 months.

Thanks

So why has it taken you 12 months to realise this?
Yet you expect the bank to refund you.

Have you never left the house in the last 12 months? So no going shopping in the car, where you could have broken down & then dropped your phone making the call for them to come out to you?
There were at least 8 months out of the last 12 where travel was allowed both in the UK & overseas for holidays.

As ever someone trying to get something for nothing.

eskbanker

darkh0rse said:

eskbanker said:

 I don't recall any providers offering pro rata refunds, do you have examples?

They may not have been that much busier - after all, travel insurance doesn't pay out in cases where the buyer has/will receive a refund. Most airlines, providers, etc have refunded their customers.

Ah yes, found the info about pro rata refunds here.
Got travel insurance you're sure you won't use? Many insurers will now pay out a refund if you cancel (moneysavingexpert.com)

I think we're perhaps talking at cross purposes - the article you cite refers to obtaining refunds for the unused portion of an annual policy if you choose to cancel it in advance part way through, not retrospectively.

darkh0rse said:

Well it would seem it's just me that think we should be offered a token of some sort on these accounts, thanks for your inputs

I'm not saying I'd refuse one if I got one, and welcomed the £25 from my car insurer, but I wouldn't have been chasing them claiming the right to receive a rebate if they hadn't done that, and I do still contend that the Covid-related situation is different between car and travel insurers - there have been countless threads on the Covid travel board on here about travellers needing to claim on their insurance, as there are many scenarios where recovery from travel providers wasn't available.

Thrugelmir

darkh0rse said:

 The banks must be raking it in from these packaged accounts over the last 12 months.

People only have themselves to blame. You would have thought that the one lesson learnt from Covid is personal responsibility. 

2021BJ

Thrugelmir said:

darkh0rse said:

 The banks must be raking it in from these packaged accounts over the last 12 months.

People only have themselves to blame. You would have thought that the one lesson learnt from Covid is personal responsibility. 

Quite the opposite. People have been falling over themselves to find someone else to blame.  Unfortunately, the Government has really only reinforced the "someone else must be to blame" attitude with its actions.

cricidmuslibale

2021BJ said:

Thrugelmir said:

darkh0rse said:

 The banks must be raking it in from these packaged accounts over the last 12 months.

People only have themselves to blame. You would have thought that the one lesson learnt from Covid is personal responsibility. 

Quite the opposite. People have been falling over themselves to find someone else to blame.  Unfortunately, the Government has really only reinforced the "someone else must be to blame" attitude with its actions.

Imho, the Government is massively culpable for much of what has gone so badly wrong in the last 12 months or so, certainly compared to the relatively successful handling of this dreadful pandemic by other island nations, notably Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Iceland, even the Isle of Man, to name but a few! We had that inbuilt geographical advantage (of being an island) from the start compared to the vast majority of other European countries which we totally squandered by not closing our borders to all but the most essential travel at the realistically earliest possible opportunity, i.e. early February 2020 when things started to go so badly wrong in northern Italy, and not locking down hard and early as soon as the very first case of COVID was detected in the UK!

Zanderman

darkh0rse said:

Zanderman said:

So I'd say count your blessings that you can downgrade and aren't stuck in an annual contract for travel, breakdown and mobile cover.  You can cancel immediately by downgrading the account.  

All fair points, Zanderman. 

Could I just state at this point I'm thinking slightly bigger picture here, on behalf of all of us, not only for my individual case. Might there be other readers who have suddenly realised the same thing and noticed their bank hasn't tried to offer them anything? Could we see Bank Charges Reclaiming v2.0?

Also I'm thinking along the lines of when some car insurance companies provided automatic refunds to account for less mileage usage as a sweetener and presumably to stop an influx of refund requests.

And if I remember rightly, a lot of annual travel insurance providers did offer pro-rata refunds for policies bought pre-COVID.

 Just food for thought.

You're missing the points that I made - which were that you have had the benefits of the cover - you could have travelled, you almost certainly have driven your car and will have had risk - dropping etc - to your mobile (though actually you admit that was covered anyway). 

So there's nothing to claim for - and no reason for the bank to offer you anything.  You chose to keep the cover (for a full 12 months now!!), the cover was still valid, and you would, I assume, not hesitate to claim if you had travelled, broken down or dropped your phone.

'Other readers' with the same cover will be in the same situation.  

Keeping the cover was, and still is, your (and 'other readers') choice.  Not the bank's choice. You are responsible for your choice of bank account.  If it doesn't suit you change it.

And, as I said above, and you appear to agree, the cover you have is instantly cancellable, unlike conventional insurance.  So you are at an advantage over normal insurance schemes, you're in charge, with no obstacle to instant cancellation. 

(The car insurance companies that offered a token (and that's all it was) rebate were annual contracts, and highly likely to be not cancellable.  And that was car insurance, not breakdown cover)

darkh0rse

Yes good point @eskbanker on the retrospective cancellation.

Fair enough!

I guess I took my eye off the ball with this particular bit of money-saving, or lack thereof. I suppose kudos to Nationwide for offering a good product - in my head it wasn't on my radar for culling because it's been useful to me all these years.

FYI everyone with the harsher comments - you're speaking to someone who never paid PPI, never was missold a packaged account, switches utilities annually, haggles with TV/broadband providers, SIM swaps away to another networks and back again at the end of mobile tariffs etc, paid all rent on time every time throughout the pandemic, no payment holidays from any providers etc... I take responsibility for my finances but I can't recall an instance where I've paid for a product that is no longer relevant to me personally. Global travel insurance seems irrelevant right now and I thought more folk might agree - as they don't then fair enough. That's what a forum is - a space for discussion.


Thanks for comments, particularly @eskbanker and @Zanderman

colsten

darkh0rse said:

I take responsibility for my finances but I can't recall an instance where I've paid for a product that is no longer relevant to me personally. 

You have just told us that you paid for the FlexPlus that you said is no longer relevant to you personally, so presumably you have taken action now and downgraded / switched to an account that is more suitable for your needs?

ratechaser

Mrs RC still maintains a Flexplus account because the cover for 4 peoples mobiles is very useful and worth more than the monthly cost on its own. People are still going out - I'm out working all weekend right now. Kids are going back to school.

So still very much a worthwhile product to me, but thank you for your big picture concern...