Claiming back car insurance Two years

pogofish

DullGreyGuy said:

cymruchris said:

On my car insurance this year - I was automaticlly opted in to auto renewal - but was given the option to opt-out through the app as soon as it was set up (this is what I did). The difficulty you might have, is that although you did sell the car, and didn't need the insurance, and although you forgot to cancel it, in a sense they've still had costs to bear, and have provided cover (although you didn't need it or use it). I'm not sure you'll get a full refund - but there's no harm in trying by complying with their requests. I don't think there's any case for chargeback or anything similar here though if that's what you were hoping. 

Technically they were also potentially on risk as the RTA insurer of the vehicle had the new owner failed to insure the vehicle... there was a post on here not long ago about someone who sold their car and thought it cheaper to let the insurance run out than cancel it. As a breach of contract the insurer can recover their outlay from the policyholder, think the post here was about £30k, have seen more than double that.

There was a similar case in Scotland a while back when someone didn't cancel their insurance after selling a motorbike and its new owner killed themselves in a serious collision, uninsured shortly after. His insurer was compelled to pay-out and then went after him to recover their costs and won.  A significant six-figure sum was involved IIRC.

DullGreyGuy

pogofish said:

DullGreyGuy said:

cymruchris said:

On my car insurance this year - I was automaticlly opted in to auto renewal - but was given the option to opt-out through the app as soon as it was set up (this is what I did). The difficulty you might have, is that although you did sell the car, and didn't need the insurance, and although you forgot to cancel it, in a sense they've still had costs to bear, and have provided cover (although you didn't need it or use it). I'm not sure you'll get a full refund - but there's no harm in trying by complying with their requests. I don't think there's any case for chargeback or anything similar here though if that's what you were hoping. 

Technically they were also potentially on risk as the RTA insurer of the vehicle had the new owner failed to insure the vehicle... there was a post on here not long ago about someone who sold their car and thought it cheaper to let the insurance run out than cancel it. As a breach of contract the insurer can recover their outlay from the policyholder, think the post here was about £30k, have seen more than double that.

There was a similar case in Scotland a while back when someone didn't cancel their insurance after selling a motorbike and its new owner killed themselves in a serious collision, uninsured shortly after. His insurer was compelled to pay-out and then went after him to recover their costs and won.  A significant six-figure sum was involved IIRC.

It happens all the time, people sell their car near the end of the policy, cancelling it is more expensive than letting the policy run so they dont. Most cases are obviously >£5k and so dont make big news but you do get more significant cases like these... did once deal with a case just under £100k which ended up with a charge order on their home etc.