Car insurance debt collection

chenyu

Hello me again, so I really need so help with regards to a car insurance company trying to get me to pay a full year's insurance for a car that I no longer own due to fire damage and the insurance company saying the car was a right off and they took the car away and all the paper work. I was told to cancel my insurance and tax, I did this and now the insurance company have passed the debt to a debt company and dvla want me to pay them £80 for the tax on a car I don't own. Please help .thank you .

dwsjarcmcd

Car insurance is an annual contract, even if you pay monthly and if you look at T & C's, you'll likely see that they do not refund any 'unused' insurance in the event of a claim.

So the insurance company is enforcing these T & C's.  If it was the Insurance Company who told you to cancel the policy, they should have told you that there would have been no refund.

From what you have said, you appear to be liable for the remaining cost of the Insurance as per your contract.

Bigphil1474

One thing at a time. Did you have the car insured with that insurance company when it was damaged? If so, they would normally cancel the insurance when the car is written off, unless you buy a new car and get them to transfer the policy to the new car. Were they notified of everything? Sounds a bit odd.
In relation to road tax, you should normally go online when you stop owning the car and tell DVLA that the vehicle has been sold (or scrapped). That should have sorted the road tax out - when you say you cancelled it, did you just cancel the direct debit, or did you do the notifications in line with the registered keeper form?

400ixl

Typically if a claim is made against a policy then the full payment is due, sometimes they allow this to continue as instalments if a new car is covered, and sometimes it is demanded as a one off payment.

If you cancel mid term without a claim then you have to pay whatever cancellation fees are due as per the contract. 

As for the car tax, did you complete the V5 to say that you were no longer the owner, sending that part off to the DVLA and passing the rest to the insurer? It sounds like the car has not yet been registered as scrapped. You need to speak to the insurer to find its status to start with and why they have not registered it correctly with the DVLA.

DullGreyGuy

chenyu said:

Hello me again, so I really need so help with regards to a car insurance company trying to get me to pay a full year's insurance for a car that I no longer own due to fire damage and the insurance company saying the car was a right off and they took the car away and all the paper work. I was told to cancel my insurance and tax, I did this and now the insurance company have passed the debt to a debt company and dvla want me to pay them £80 for the tax on a car I don't own. Please help .thank you .

If you are truly dealing with an insurance company then they'd normally remove the remainder of the annual premiums from the settlement to avoid this issue. If you are dealing with a broker where the insurer deals with the claim then this issue will occur but still its not a "full year" but the remainder of the year.

As others have said, car insurance is an annual contract, they give you the option to take a loan to pay the monies in instalments but that's the loan repayment and doesn't make it an monthly contract. If you sell the car etc and haven't made a claim the insurer will allow you to cancel the policy mid term and stop the rest of the premiums (other than fees for early cancellation) but if a claim has been made the insurance effectively becomes uncancellable. 

Most insurers allow you to transfer the remainder of your policy onto your replacement vehicle however if you are using a broker then it gets more complex. 

chenyu

Ok so what happened is I had a car it broke down in lock down took me till January to get ot all fixed and mot 
 Once mot I insured the car and taxed it with in that first month the car caught on fire so I contacted the insurance company who sent someone out to assess the car and said it was a write off. He said the car would be collected and to put all paper work in the car so I did  . I was also told that I could cancel my direct debit for insurance as I no longer had the car. I cancledmy tax direct debt and wrote to dvla as ad iced when I called them to tell them I  no longer had the car.  After the settlement money was given to me I was told the excess would come out if the settlement not anything about having to pay a full year's cover for a car that I don't have. I disputed this with the insurer but they said I have to pay and now it has gone to a debt re cover company. Also so has the tax but I have written to the dvla and I am waiting for them to make a decision on that one .so am I going to have to pay a whole year's insurance for a car that I don't have ?

DullGreyGuy

chenyu said:
so am I going to have to pay a whole year's insurance for a car that I don't have ?

Yes, your insurers kept their end of the bargain by paying out what the car was worth less the excess and so you keep your end by paying for the full policy (or more accurately, finish repaying the loan for the policy)

Did you get a replacement vehicle? Didn't you talk about transferring the insurance over?

DanDare999

chenyu said:

Ok so what happened is I had a car it broke down in lock down took me till January to get ot all fixed and mot 
 Once mot I insured the car and taxed it with in that first month the car caught on fire so I contacted the insurance company who sent someone out to assess the car and said it was a write off. He said the car would be collected and to put all paper work in the car so I did  . I was also told that I could cancel my direct debit for insurance as I no longer had the car. I cancledmy tax direct debt and wrote to dvla as ad iced when I called them to tell them I  no longer had the car.  After the settlement money was given to me I was told the excess would come out if the settlement not anything about having to pay a full year's cover for a car that I don't have. I disputed this with the insurer but they said I have to pay and now it has gone to a debt re cover company. Also so has the tax but I have written to the dvla and I am waiting for them to make a decision on that one .so am I going to have to pay a whole year's insurance for a car that I don't have ?

But you have your letter from the DVLA telling you that you are no longer responsible for the vehicle?

Grey_Critic

As others have said you are liable for the insurance - the company kept their end of the bargain.

If you browse through some of the topics on the forum you will find complaints about cancellation fees when people have cancelled a policy - in some cases they can be quite high sometimes more than the outstanding instalments if you pay that way.

It is all in the Terms and Conditions you agreed to when taking out the policy (all 50plus pages of very tiny print) if you read them

chenyu

No letter from dvla the insurance company has not to them and they said they didn't get me letter so I am appiling this

DanDare999

chenyu said:

No letter from dvla the insurance company has not to them and they said they didn't get me letter so I am appiling this

So as the registered keeper your still responsible for taxing the car.