Long standing home appliance insurance

Jane173

I am trying to help an elderly relation with her finances in the light of the current financial crisis. She has a number of live home appliance policies, where she pays by direct debit monthly to cover these appliances.  Presumably encouraged to do so at the time of purchase.  A number of these policies date back many years, some over 15 years, meaning that she has paid way more in insurance that the item is worth. Plus I am not sure she still has all of the items insured - I am doing this from a distance

Before I cancel these policies, is there anything I could do to try to recover some of this money paid? I suspect that if she tried to claim on one of these policies, say for a washing machine that is 15 years old - they would say that due to its age it is beyond repair.  

Any help or suggestions would be gratefully appreciated

 

DullGreyGuy

The problem is that 1) these arent insurance in most cases but service plans and as such fall outside of insurance regulations and 2) even if they are in the minority of cases where it is insurance its absolutely certainly a non-advised sale and so they can only provide you the details of what they do and dont cover and you as the buyer has to decide if its appropriate for your needs.

Call centre agents are at the end of the day human and can on occasion make gestures of goodwill but unless you've medical evidence that she wasnt of fit mind when she entered into the contracts etc there'd be no right for an automatic refund. 

HillStreetBlues

You would need to find out what the insurances cover.(the T&Cs)

sheramber

If she no longer has the an appliance they may be prepared to refund payments made since disposal.

Jane173

Thank you all for your replies, not sure how to respond individually

baser999

This matter was covered on Rip Off Britain this morning, many elderly being ‘scammed’ by a company called Homecover? Seemed they set up policies for one appliance then an associated company used the bank details to set up direct debits for other appliances.
Woman on there been trawling through her dads bank account and has found he’s paid in excess of £4000 over the years.
Think the general advice was to contact the bank, explain what’s been going on and cancel DD air you can’t determine who the payments are going to and if they’re related payees.
Sorry if this is a bit vague but it was only on in the background so didn’t really get a lot of the detail.

DullGreyGuy

baser999 said:

This matter was covered on Rip Off Britain this morning, many elderly being ‘scammed’ by a company called Homecover? Seemed they set up policies for one appliance then an associated company used the bank details to set up direct debits for other appliances.

That is a very different story to what the OP has presented... they aren't accusing the company of fraudulently setting up DDs for policies that dont exist or sharing bank details with other companies

Alderbank

baser999 said:

Think the general advice was to contact the bank, explain what’s been going on and cancel DD air you can’t determine who the payments are going to and if they’re related payees.
Sorry if this is a bit vague but it was only on in the background so didn’t really get a lot of the detail.

I think you misheard it.
Just cancelling a DD without informing the payee is not a good idea and is never recommended.
You can easily determine who a DD payment is going to. Every DD payment is itemised on your statement or online banking app with the full name of the payee plus a unique reference number.

baser999

Alderbank said:

baser999 said:

Think the general advice was to contact the bank, explain what’s been going on and cancel DD air you can’t determine who the payments are going to and if they’re related payees.
Sorry if this is a bit vague but it was only on in the background so didn’t really get a lot of the detail.

I think you misheard it.
Just cancelling a DD without informing the payee is not a good idea and is never recommended.
You can easily determine who a DD payment is going to. Every DD payment is itemised on your statement or online banking app with the full name of the payee plus a unique reference number.

I did say my understanding may be vague as I wasn’t paying it a great deal of attention. But thank you for pointing that out

macman

And merely cancelling the DD does not cancel the policy either.

LeRedoute

Insurance policies are going to take in more (on aggregate) than the cost of whatever it is they're insuring, otherwise the companies would go out of business. It's not particularly helpful to view these as a "rip-off" merely because the policyholder has lost their "gamble" with the provider nor is it going to help your cause when speaking to them.

Cancelling them and moving on is going to be the best course of action without clear evidence that she's been hoodwinked in some way.