car insurance renewed despite telling them NO.

marjoria

Hi all, 

My insurance policy was up for ending and so I ran the car insurance company to discuss options and they gave me a quote. I did not accept the quote and informed the operator that I will look elsewhere. A few days later I saw an email from them saying thank you for renewing and the rate was higer than the one they offered me. I also checked my account and it turns out that they took money out too - at the higher rate. I emailed them back to say stating everything and they said to me essentially thank you for the customer feedback. 

please advise me on what to do. I am planning on writing a letter of complaint. 

thanks. 

[Deleted User]

Did you have auto renewal on your policy?

Norman_Castle

Try phoning them. I'd suspect your policy was set to auto renew unless you told them not to. Contacting them for a quote then stating you would look elsewhere is not the same as stating you did not want to renew. Should be easy to resolve if done without delay.

dunstonh

I did not accept the quote and informed the operator that I will look elsewhere. 

That wording is wishy washy and doesn't actually tell them not to renew it.  Did you actually tell them that you did not wish to renew the policy?

please advise me on what to do. I am planning on writing a letter of complaint. 

Contact them by phone and tell them what you have said here.  They may ask for evidence you have bough insurance elsewhere.

400ixl

Unfortunately doesn't sound like to actually told them to cancel any auto renewal in explicit enough terms. Usually you would then get a confirmation email this had been done, which if it doesn't appear is a good indicator you need to get back in touch and confirm.

I believe you can still instruct them to cancel the renewed policy within 14 days for a full refund provided you have not made any claims on it. There may be an administration fee in some cases.

JGB1955

I'm having the same problem with Direct Line.  Phoned and told them on 10 April that I didn't want to renew.  Agent said she would cancel auto-renew.  Purely by chance, checked my 'dashboard' today and auto-renew is still in place.  Cross?  Definitely.  Phoned again (only 15 minute wait...) and I've been assured again, by Charlotte, that everything is 'ticketty-boo', and I don't need to worry... time will tell!

chrisw

Direct Line did the same to me.

The guy on the phone was adamant that it was my fault. Eventually he went and spoke to a supervisor and after keeping me waiting for 10 minutes or so, came back, agreed it was their fault and refunded me the premium. No real apology though.

MalMonroe

I agree about phoning again. In fact my insurance company advised me to phone if I didn't want to auto-renew. They emailed a ridiculously expensive quote and so I phoned and told them I did not want it. Then of course they said well let's see what they can do for me. They did actually come up with a much more acceptable figure which I accepted. But if I had not accepted I would have said that I did not want to do further business with them. It's just really annoying when they take no notice.

I would definitely phone and pester them until they gave me my money back. Hopefully they record calls and can check what you said in your original call? But in any case, don't be afraid to phone and make a nuisance of yourself. They deserve it!

marjoria

Hi all, thanks for all of your comments. 

I will clarify that I pretty much said explicitly, I will not renew given the quote and that I will look elsewhere. This is well before the policy renewal date. My issue is that after that phone call they pretty much went and renewed the policy and not just that but at a even higher rate, then billed me for it. When I emailed to raise this, they treated this as an customer service issue and thanked me for the feedback. This all happened before the end of the policy. Does that make sense? 

user1977

Ask them for a recording of the call.

marjoria

Perfect. I will ring them up unless there is some form on their website. Hopefully they actually were recording.