Cancellation of insurance after total loss

bigbars

Just had what Ive been since told is an automated email from Axa, my now former car was written off, paid out a month ago. the mail claims that my insurance policy which I bought in April will be cancelled next week as I have received claim funds and it hasn’t been transferred to a new vehicle with no refund.

Spoke to their customer service and “someone” forgot to communicate the fact I have 30 days to transfer policies. turns out they expect you to just go and get another car like it is a super simple process.. is this normal insurance behaviour?

had a long convo with regard to lack of update’s information etc. they claim everything is on their portal which it isn’t, they claim that if you speak to claims they can help, they just fob you off to someone else and they claim everything will be taken care of and smooth, which it isn’t.

elsien

Is there a question? 

Mildly_Miffed

bigbars said:

Spoke to their customer service and “someone” forgot to communicate the fact I have 30 days to transfer policies. turns out they expect you to just go and get another car like it is a super simple process..

It is.

You could be driving home by lunchtime today in your new car, if you wanted to. Lots of pre-registered new cars in stock with dealers all around the country, as well as the massive range of used cars.

The delays come when you start to get picky about what the replacement car is.

Flugelhorn

Mildly_Miffed said:

bigbars said:

Spoke to their customer service and “someone” forgot to communicate the fact I have 30 days to transfer policies. turns out they expect you to just go and get another car like it is a super simple process..

It is.

You could be driving home by lunchtime today in your new car, if you wanted to. Lots of pre-registered new cars in stock with dealers all around the country, as well as the massive range of used cars.

The delays come when you start to get picky about what the replacement car is.

agree only time we had a right off, getting a new car was essential owing to jobs with on call and commuting in different directions - sorted within a few days

bigbars

True, you could. But in amongst work and life, it’s not so easy to search, visit , test etc. weekdays for searching, where possible location and life dependent, weekends for viewing.

 my delay is I’m specific about what I want. I want the same as I had before. Yes I could get any one in 5 minutes but your car and house are your two biggest purchase in life, so don’t want to be rushed into it.

I was just curious as to whether it  is normal practice to cancel a policy. I paid my premium in full, so just expected it to continue, as when you test drive cars, in particular private ones, you must have car insurance in place. Surely if it’s cancelled I can’t test drive or even drive  a hire car?

ontheroad1970

bigbars said:

True, you could. But in amongst work and life, it’s not so easy to search, visit , test etc. weekdays for searching, where possible location and life dependent, weekends for viewing.

 my delay is I’m specific about what I want. I want the same as I had before. Yes I could get any one in 5 minutes but your car and house are your two biggest purchase in life, so don’t want to be rushed into it.

I was just curious as to whether it  is normal practice to cancel a policy. I paid my premium in full, so just expected it to continue, as when you test drive cars, in particular private ones, you must have car insurance in place. Surely if it’s cancelled I can’t test drive or even drive  a hire car?

When you test drive a car from a dealer, you are using their trader's insurance.  When you hire a car, it already has third party cover in place.

DullGreyGuy

Historically policies would simply end on a total loss as they had fulfilled their ultimate purpose. Some insurers would allow you to transfer the remainder of the policy to another vehicle others wouldnt. The Ombudsman now says insurers should allow the transfer within a reasonable timeframe. 

Accounting and reserving for insurance policies is highly complex, having policies paused for 30 days before either restarting or ending means the volume of these policies remains broadly immaterial and so doesn't need special treatment. If the timescales were materially longer or unlimited then you'd have a lot of actuaries having to change their models to adjust for the difference in earning patterns, duration of liability etc. 

Ultimately if they failed to inform you, log a complaint and ask that the resolution be that the timeframe for getting a replacement vehicle to put under the cover be extended and then get a wiggle on finding a replacement vehicle.

Flugelhorn

bigbars said:

True, you could. But in amongst work and life, it’s not so easy to search, visit , test etc. weekdays for searching, where possible location and life dependent, weekends for viewing.

 my delay is I’m specific about what I want. I want the same as I had before. Yes I could get any one in 5 minutes but your car and house are your two biggest purchase in life, so don’t want to be rushed into it.

I was just curious as to whether it  is normal practice to cancel a policy. I paid my premium in full, so just expected it to continue, as when you test drive cars, in particular private ones, you must have car insurance in place. Surely if it’s cancelled I can’t test drive or even drive  a hire car?

Depends how important getting around actually is - we were just happy to have a car of same make which was in one piece. It took one trip to the main dealer to see what they had in the second hand line. 

Suppose we look differently at cars, we have 4 in the family at present - all bought as "fitting a purpose & drove fine" - the rest of the finer points (colour, spec, widgets etc) were all irrelevant to us. 

Re Hire cars - you can get insurance through the hire company - in fact they try to sell you this anyway. 

 car insurance is based on a specific car (which no longer exists) not on the individual and anyway if you drive someone else's car it is only third party cover 

bigbars

ontheroad1970 said:

bigbars said:

True, you could. But in amongst work and life, it’s not so easy to search, visit , test etc. weekdays for searching, where possible location and life dependent, weekends for viewing.

 my delay is I’m specific about what I want. I want the same as I had before. Yes I could get any one in 5 minutes but your car and house are your two biggest purchase in life, so don’t want to be rushed into it.

I was just curious as to whether it  is normal practice to cancel a policy. I paid my premium in full, so just expected it to continue, as when you test drive cars, in particular private ones, you must have car insurance in place. Surely if it’s cancelled I can’t test drive or even drive  a hire car?

When you test drive a car from a dealer, you are using their trader's insurance.  When you hire a car, it already has third party cover in place.

So test driving a private car or even driving someone else’s car?

bigbars

Called and complained about the lack of transparency and updates, and they have agreed to give me 30 days to transfer to another vehicle. 

My backup plan to not lose my policy and premium if I don’t find one I like will be to insure a friends old unused wreck. It seems insurers work by different rules, shock horror I know! For my friend as she pays monthly, hers was stopped and the remaining premium was taken out of the claim, another person got their premium back On a pro rata basis.

DullGreyGuy

bigbars said:
For my friend as she pays monthly, hers was stopped and the remaining premium was taken out of the claim, another person got their premium back On a pro rata basis.

She doesn't pay for her insurance monthly, she is repaying the loan she took to pay her insurance. Insurers/premium credit houses have good leverage over customers to ensure they keep repaying their loan in that they can rapidly cancel the policy for non-payment which creates a lifetime of problems. If that leverage goes because the policy has ended suddenly people are less keen on repaying their loans hence the loan ends with the policy and the remaining debt taken from the premiums. 

I suspect your other friend was in a non-fault accident and therefore the third party insurer paid out for the total loss. They then are just cancelling their policy claim free hence would get a pro-rata refund.