Auto Renewal Feed-UP

impuzzled

I am totally feed-up with auto renewals, even if you tell the company no auto renewal, they still try to auto renewal. What way can I pay for my insurances without the insurance company being able to automatically take the money. Is there a credit card where every transaction has to be authorised by me before they can get the money I have reverted taking a screenshot of the page showing I opted out. 

400ixl

Never had a single auto renewal happen that I didn't want to, so something is going wrong. I have had one occasion where I didn't get a confirmation that it had been cancelled so had to get in touch again and it was confirmed at the second attempt, but every time I request it stopped I get notification.

If however yo are doing it very close to the renewal date (less than 10 days) then even cancelling it may not stop the direct debit being taken as that will already be in the system. Is this a possible cause for you?

Pretty much all of the payment methods (short of cash which is very hard to do) has no option to make the renewal require explicit permission.

Maybe cancel the auto renewal when you take out the policy and confirm it is stopped. Your risk then to make sure you do renew the policy with someone.

DullGreyGuy

impuzzled said:

I am totally feed-up with auto renewals, even if you tell the company no auto renewal, they still try to auto renewal. What way can I pay for my insurances without the insurance company being able to automatically take the money. Is there a credit card where every transaction has to be authorised by me before they can get the money I have reverted taking a screenshot of the page showing I opted out. 

Non-payment doesn't result in non-renewal. Instead the policy still renews, its then incepted so you have cancellation fees to pay to stop it and if you dont stop it then they will cancel it for non-payment which you then have to declare for life (with most insurers).

In theory any payment method could be used for auto-renewal, in practice most insurers wouldnt allow it for a payment time that doesn't support a "pull" mechanism. So cheques and most Maestro cards but the later has been withdrawn from the UK and the former you are going to be limited to so few companies you'll probably double your premiums to avoid a 5 minute call. 

We all make mistakes and no one is perfect. Personally, even though I never actually auto-renewed my Car insurance, I always left it there as the safety net incase I did forget. My home insurance I'm more lax on as my choices are so limited and for years one insurer is consistently the cheapest but I've been saved by auto-renewal when I forgot to shop around and had it in my head that it was due the following week. 

PS. I have also had to deal with the angry customer who's just had an RTC and found out his policy ran out the month before which wasnt on auto-renewal and him telling us we'd cut his policy short as it renewed every September not August for the last 20 years. Could only tell him the time/date he bought it, when it incepted and given our cap on future dating policies there is no way it could have been September and by the way, we now need you to sign an indemnity form to say you'll cover us for any losses if someone looks to us as the RTA insurer of the vehicle.