Contents insurance dispute

MrFrugalFever

Hello. I am currently in dispute with Hastings Direct over my Home Contents Insurance cancellation.

i have been vacant from my previous property for just over 2 months now as landlord was selling house and have still left direct debit active in situ as refused to pay £35 cancellation fee.

they haven’t reported the insurance to any credit reference agency, if I cancelled the direct debit I am assuming they could take legal proceedings against me?

kind regards,

dunstonh

they haven’t reported the insurance to any credit reference agency, if I cancelled the direct debit I am assuming they could take legal proceedings against me?

Legally, cancelling a direct debit does not cancel the contract and leaves you on the hook for any bill outstanding.   Some providers home insurance is pay as you go each month with a once a year renewal but others use a loan to pay the annual premium.

I don't know what Hastings do but you are putting yourself at risk by cancelling the direct debit without telling them you are cancelling the policy.

MalMonroe

I have my car insurance with Hastings and they make us pay £45 if we cancel. But obviously I can see that your case is different.

Your dispute should really be with your landlord, since you wouldn't be moving if they were not selling your home, which would in turn mean that you would not be having to cancel your insurance. It all comes back to the landlord. I hope they gave you the correct notice btw?

I do agree with you that you shouldn't have to pay a cancellation fee when you are having to move through no fault of your own.

I'm not sure whether the information in the following link will be of any help but if you scroll down to "how to complain about your insurance provider" there is some advice there. It's from this site and was updated on 12 April 2022.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/renters-contents-insurance/#howtofind

Before you raise a complaint, though, why not try explaining to Hastings that your move has been forced on you and that you don't feel you should be charged £35 to cancel in those circumstances. If they don't want to help you then you could try either asking your landlord to help with the cost of the insurance cancellation (it's their fault after all) or you could consider making a complaint, as explained in the link above. But don't just cancel the direct debit without any explanation, as dunstonh says above. 

[Deleted User]

Landlord won't pay squat about this and is not liable, it's their house to do as they wish with. OP should simply have exercised their right to stay in the home until landlord evicts via court and/or agree a leaving date that ties in with their insurance ending and/or transfer the policy to their new home, thus avoiding needing to cancel.

brettcta

How long have you spent on this already? Would it not have been worth just biting the bullet, paying the £35 cancellation fee and moving on with your life?

MrFrugalFever

Hi all,

The amounts are really quite trivial in the grand scheme of things, I am just being arbitrary and see this is a matter of principle over amount as much as anything. I am not a fan of Hastings Direct and will avoid doing business with them in the future wherever possible.

@Farfetch, if we were talking thousands of pounds then i'd absolutely be doing exactly that, but we're not we're talking £35.

@MalMonroe, thank you for your useful input, I hadn't really even considered it to be my landlords 'fault' as such as I just focused on my legally binding contract between me and Hastings Direct. I have indeed explained, both over the phone and via email, my circumstances and as such no waiver was offered nor any kind of sympathy. I have transferred to the Financial Ombudsman but their case dealing time is from 4 months so by the time they deal with it, I would have paid 80% of the year via direct debit anyway. I suspected cancelling was going to be a no-go.

Out of everything I have changed (referring to addresses) it is the only service/product that I have encountered an issue with, not even my car insurance charged me a fee for changing address.

penners324

What's the dispute?
The fees for cancelling are shown in the paperwork you signed up to.

MrFrugalFever

penners324 said:

What's the dispute?
The fees for cancelling are shown in the paperwork you signed up to.

Absolutely, it was the best of a bad bunch. I did not sign up to my landlord selling the house mid-way through my policy term.

penners324

MrFrugalFever said:

penners324 said:

What's the dispute?
The fees for cancelling are shown in the paperwork you signed up to.

Absolutely, it was the best of a bad bunch. I did not sign up to my landlord selling the house mid-way through my policy term.

And you didn't have to move out at the end of the S21 notice. Legally you don't have to move out until bailiffs are at the door serving an eviction order.

MrFrugalFever

penners324 said:

MrFrugalFever said:

penners324 said:

What's the dispute?
The fees for cancelling are shown in the paperwork you signed up to.

Absolutely, it was the best of a bad bunch. I did not sign up to my landlord selling the house mid-way through my policy term.

And you didn't have to move out at the end of the S21 notice. Legally you don't have to move out until bailiffs are at the door serving an eviction order.

Whether that is legally the case or not, I wasn’t going to put it to the test for many reasons, not least it was stressful enough having to suddenly find somewhere in a market where there isn’t anything.

Brie

Why do you need to cancel the policy?  Won't you need to have insurance elsewhere??  A change of address would cost as well but it might be less.

As for the cancellation fee....are you saying that you have paid £XX for 12 months cover and cancelling after 6 months doesn't give you a partial refund?  Or have you claimed on it this year??