Admiral Saying I Owe Them £85 to Cancel Car Insurance Renewal

Danger_Mouse

I was with Admiral for my car insurance last year and paid for the year in full. I have a better deal with another insurer and Admiral didnt have my current card so I just left my policy with them to expire

Admiral sent a couple of letters saying it would be canceled because they couldn't take the renewal from my card (but no mention of a cost). Received another letter saying its cancelled and I owe them around £85 for admin costs

Will they actually do anything or are they just trying it on? I wouldn't want it to affect my credit file if they persist to ask for the money

SaverRate

Is the £85 to cancel renewal or your existing policy? Admiral dont charge anything to cancel a renewal so this seems very strange 

daveyjp

If they tried to draw funds from a closed card this is not the same as you instructing them not to renew.

The policy could well have been made live and they have chased you for payment from another card.  As you failed to respond they may well be cancelling a live policy and cancellation fees could be due.

Did you receive confirmation of a new policy and certficiate of insurance?

dunstonh

 I have a better deal with another insurer and Admiral didnt have my current card so I just left my policy with them to expire

Did you follow the instructions on the renewal letter?  i.e. did it say that if you didn't contact them, they would automatically renew it?

Will they actually do anything or are they just trying it on? I wouldn't want it to affect my credit file if they persist to ask for the money

Depends on whether you followed the instructions on the renewal letter or not.

You will likely need to tell them that you didn't renew and that you have a policy elsewhere.  They will probably ask for evidence of this.     They will then likely remove the policy cost and leave you to pay the admin charge.  If you are really lucky, they may waive that.

Admiral Saying I Owe Them £85 to Cancel Car Insurance Renewal

I suspect that your title is not an accurate statement of what has happened.  It is more likely that the policy renewed and you are now cancelling a policy that is in force and not asking them not to renew.

 Received another letter saying its cancelled and I owe them around £85 for admin costs

Admiral don't charge around £85 for admin.   That will almost certainly be a premium for time on cover plus an admin charge.

sharpe106

A lot of them have automatic renewal unless you contact them which a complete con but that is a different discussion. So you not contacting them they can take from that, you wanted to renew which is what they have done. All these things are a complete con but unfortunately quite legally and common. 

If you contact them they might waiver it just to get rid of you, as let be honest it has cost them nothing really a few pence to try and take the amount. 

DullGreyGuy

SaverRate said:

Is the £85 to cancel renewal or your existing policy? Admiral dont charge anything to cancel a renewal so this seems very strange 

As the OP states, they didnt respond to the renewal notice and so Admiral have renewed it but have been unable to take payment and so now are looking to charge the OP to cancel this new policy that has already incepted.

Danger_Mouse said:

Will they actually do anything or are they just trying it on? I wouldn't want it to affect my credit file if they persist to ask for the money

They can void the policy for non-payment which you will have to declare for life. In principle they could also apply a CIFAS marker for "no intent to pay" - a form of first party fraud. 

The former is highly likely and others who've had this have found premiums increase by at least 50% and in some cases triple. The later is very unlikely but have seen it done. 

By the sounds of it you may have already left it too late and so they've already cancelled your policy, If that is the case you need to phone your car, home etc insurers and inform them that you have now had insurance cancelled by an insurer... you can manage it slightly better by being proactive than wait for them to find it on CUE or other counter fraud databases. 

crusader62

Admiral are trying to get £ 88 out of me for renewing my policy without my permission, I never even signed up for an automatic renewal. New insurance was in place before the end of their term with Swinton, they are operating on the assumption and you know what assumptions are! They sent me a ridiculous quote so I ignored it, it was over double the price so why would I waste time bartering on the phone! 

DullGreyGuy

crusader62 said:

Admiral are trying to get £ 88 out of me for renewing my policy without my permission, I never even signed up for an automatic renewal. New insurance was in place before the end of their term with Swinton, they are operating on the assumption and you know what assumptions are! They sent me a ridiculous quote so I ignored it, it was over double the price so why would I waste time bartering on the phone! 

Because said quote stated that they'd renew it unless they heard otherwise... you didn't tell them otherwise.

400ixl

crusader62 said:

Admiral are trying to get £ 88 out of me for renewing my policy without my permission, I never even signed up for an automatic renewal. New insurance was in place before the end of their term with Swinton, they are operating on the assumption and you know what assumptions are! They sent me a ridiculous quote so I ignored it, it was over double the price so why would I waste time bartering on the phone! 

Unfortunately you were automatically opted in to automatic renewal as part of the continuous insurance regulations brought it. It was for you to tell them you wanted to opt-out or to inform them not to renew the policy.

The policy would have had this in it when you signed up to it and when they sent you the renewal it would have also said that it would auto-renew unless you told them otherwise.

The assumption you had not authorised an auto renewal was on your side, not theirs unfortunately. You have two policies running now, one with Swinton and one with Admiral. Admiral are within their rights to apply any early termination costs which are on the contract that was established as part of the renewal.

dunstonh

Admiral are trying to get £ 88 out of me for renewing my policy without my permission, I never even signed up for an automatic renewal.

Unless you told them that you were not renewing then they renewed it with your permission.  Yes, you did sign up for that.

New insurance was in place before the end of their term with Swinton, they are operating on the assumption and you know what assumptions are! 

Just like you have assumed it wouldn't renew rather than reading the renewal letter that tells you what to do if you do not intend to renew.

They sent me a ridiculous quote so I ignored it, it was over double the price so why would I waste time bartering on the phone! 

Because you were operating on an assumption and you know what assumptions are!

dannylaaa

Glad I found this thread, I too didn't renew because of dismal service on the part of Admiral in handling a claim in which I had provided admission of fault and the other parties insurers details and yet when collecting the courtesy car I was informed that the costs against the rental were against my insurance which could reflect in my NCB.

I then spent 40 minutes on the phone with a different team from the car rental, gave them the same details of the other parties insurance so they could verify with Zurich and amend their records and release the car.

2 months later my multicar insurance was due for renewal, no thanks I'll shop around ... managed to almost half my premiums so switched, didn't notify Admiral as their lack of due diligence when I did need them showed me the premiums I have been paying for the past 5 years have been OTT.

Seeing what a scandalous rinse most UK insurance actually is now, perhaps Martin or one of his senior moderators can 'have a word' with whatever car insurance ombudsman the U.K. 'employs' see if there is a way to assist rather than rip off consumers.

How about a 'switching' service so that customers are not exploited by car insurers who literally don't give a toss, money collected ... if have an accident we cash in, if you don't have an accident we cash in and don't reduce your premiums because we have a licence to print money. Throw out arbitrary numbers for renewal fees based on a post code lottery and coin it in regardless of individuals driving ability.

If the insurers databases and record keeping is as accurate as they'd like us to believe they are then Admiral could easily have found that I had insured my vehicles with other providers, same as I can check the last MOT date for a vehicle I do not own, very basic check but incredibly easy. Not so easy to contact an insurer for any purpose by the way.

Why collaborate with customers when you can obfuscate and collude with your competitors to keep prices high and then tie people in legal knots and threaten this action or another (debt recovery services) so you can make a mint finding ways to tax/thieve having provided literally no service whatsoever.

What a poxy litigious society we all subscribe to like sheep.

Based on the above advice I will unfortunately have to pay the insurance for a service I didn't require (already insured) to ensure some 'friendly' debt recovery bloke or blokette don't pay me a visit.

Cathartic release over!