Bank has declined car insurance payment (typo in card number) but insurer says all fine their end

Ddrago

Hi all 

I'm very stressed with this. Today I took out car insurance with a new provider, I left it last minute and the policy starts on Thursday morning. The payment seemed to go through ok but I got a ping from my bank saying payment was declined. Turns out I had a typo in the expiry date however it all seems to have went through ok at the insurer end.

It's an online only thing but I eventually spoke to someone, they've basically said that as it shows ok they can't do anything and that it may change to declined in the coming days.

I'm incredibly stressed that this could lead to any of the following 

Me effectively driving without insurance 

My insurance being cancelled and forever more I have problems getting any insurance/credit 

Am I overthinking thinking this? Anybody have any advice?

Is best thing to cancel this policy and take out a new one? Any advice is much appreciated 

user1977

What did the insurers say would happen if it changed to declined?

born_again

Policy does not expire till Thursday. So you have time to check if payment is going to go through.

Best bet call bank today & ask them. They are the definitive source if payment will go through or not & if you need to make it again.

DullGreyGuy

Ddrago said:

Hi all 

I'm very stressed with this. Today I took out car insurance with a new provider, I left it last minute and the policy starts on Thursday morning. The payment seemed to go through ok but I got a ping from my bank saying payment was declined. Turns out I had a typo in the expiry date however it all seems to have went through ok at the insurer end.

It's an online only thing but I eventually spoke to someone, they've basically said that as it shows ok they can't do anything and that it may change to declined in the coming days.

I'm incredibly stressed that this could lead to any of the following 

Me effectively driving without insurance 

My insurance being cancelled and forever more I have problems getting any insurance/credit 

Am I overthinking thinking this? Anybody have any advice?

Is best thing to cancel this policy and take out a new one? Any advice is much appreciated 

In the UK, unlike say China, there is no legal requirement for payment before cover. If you buy from a broker it can often be 2 months (or more) after inception that your insurer actually gets paid. Its good practice for sellers to get payment up front but most renewals the payments aren't taken until after the policy has actually renewed and plenty of people forget they've changed card/bank etc and not updated their insurer. 

Your insurer ultimately will contact you once the payment fails giving you X days to contact them to make payment else the policy will be cancelled for non-payment. Just keep on top of it and make sure things aren't going into your junk/spam folder etc

Ddrago

user1977 said:

What did the insurers say would happen if it changed to declined?

They weren't clear on this. There was a bit of "we'd likely contact you to say the payment has been declined" it's an online only account and the call centre I ended up getting through to didn't really seem particularly experienced to be honest 

Ddrago

DullGreyGuy said:

Ddrago said:

Hi all 

I'm very stressed with this. Today I took out car insurance with a new provider, I left it last minute and the policy starts on Thursday morning. The payment seemed to go through ok but I got a ping from my bank saying payment was declined. Turns out I had a typo in the expiry date however it all seems to have went through ok at the insurer end.

It's an online only thing but I eventually spoke to someone, they've basically said that as it shows ok they can't do anything and that it may change to declined in the coming days.

I'm incredibly stressed that this could lead to any of the following 

Me effectively driving without insurance 

My insurance being cancelled and forever more I have problems getting any insurance/credit 

Am I overthinking thinking this? Anybody have any advice?

Is best thing to cancel this policy and take out a new one? Any advice is much appreciated 

In the UK, unlike say China, there is no legal requirement for payment before cover. If you buy from a broker it can often be 2 months (or more) after inception that your insurer actually gets paid. Its good practice for sellers to get payment up front but most renewals the payments aren't taken until after the policy has actually renewed and plenty of people forget they've changed card/bank etc and not updated their insurer. 

Your insurer ultimately will contact you once the payment fails giving you X days to contact them to make payment else the policy will be cancelled for non-payment. Just keep on top of it and make sure things aren't going into your junk/spam folder etc

That's my guess as most likely scenario. I guess if something was to go wrong though and they do just cancel then I'm stuck with "having insurance cancelled/declined" forever? Seems such a harsh rule when it can be due to essentially an admin error like this 

chrisw

Ddrago said:

DullGreyGuy said:

DDdrago said:

Hi all 

I'm very stressed with this. Today I took out car insurance with a new provider, I left it last minute and the policy starts on Thursday morning. The payment seemed to go through ok but I got a ping from my bank saying payment was declined. Turns out I had a typo in the expiry date however it all seems to have went through ok at the insurer end.

It's an online only thing but I eventually spoke to someone, they've basically said that as it shows ok they can't do anything and that it may change to declined in the coming days.

I'm incredibly stressed that this could lead to any of the following 

Me effectively driving without insurance 

My insurance being cancelled and forever more I have problems getting any insurance/credit 

Am I overthinking thinking this? Anybody have any advice?

Is best thing to cancel this policy and take out a new one? Any advice is much appreciated 

In the UK, unlike say China, there is no legal requirement for payment before cover. If you buy from a broker it can often be 2 months (or more) after inception that your insurer actually gets paid. Its good practice for sellers to get payment up front but most renewals the payments aren't taken until after the policy has actually renewed and plenty of people forget they've changed card/bank etc and not updated their insurer. 

Your insurer ultimately will contact you once the payment fails giving you X days to contact them to make payment else the policy will be cancelled for non-payment. Just keep on top of it and make sure things aren't going into your junk/spam folder etc

That's my guess as most likely scenario. I guess if something was to go wrong though and they do just cancel then I'm stuck with "having insurance cancelled/declined" forever? Seems such a harsh rule when it can be due to essentially an admin error like this 

It won't go wrong any more than it would otherwise. Just give them your correct bank details. They will give you warnings before cancelling.

DullGreyGuy

Ddrago said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Ddrago said:

Hi all 

I'm very stressed with this. Today I took out car insurance with a new provider, I left it last minute and the policy starts on Thursday morning. The payment seemed to go through ok but I got a ping from my bank saying payment was declined. Turns out I had a typo in the expiry date however it all seems to have went through ok at the insurer end.

It's an online only thing but I eventually spoke to someone, they've basically said that as it shows ok they can't do anything and that it may change to declined in the coming days.

I'm incredibly stressed that this could lead to any of the following 

Me effectively driving without insurance 

My insurance being cancelled and forever more I have problems getting any insurance/credit 

Am I overthinking thinking this? Anybody have any advice?

Is best thing to cancel this policy and take out a new one? Any advice is much appreciated 

In the UK, unlike say China, there is no legal requirement for payment before cover. If you buy from a broker it can often be 2 months (or more) after inception that your insurer actually gets paid. Its good practice for sellers to get payment up front but most renewals the payments aren't taken until after the policy has actually renewed and plenty of people forget they've changed card/bank etc and not updated their insurer. 

Your insurer ultimately will contact you once the payment fails giving you X days to contact them to make payment else the policy will be cancelled for non-payment. Just keep on top of it and make sure things aren't going into your junk/spam folder etc

That's my guess as most likely scenario. I guess if something was to go wrong though and they do just cancel then I'm stuck with "having insurance cancelled/declined" forever? Seems such a harsh rule when it can be due to essentially an admin error like this 

They won't just cancel it, payments bounce for all sorts of legitimate reasons and most just make the payment using a different/correct card and life goes on. The biggest risk is people missing/ignoring the warning emails/letters that the payment has had a problem 

Ddrago

Still no resolution to this today. Transaction sitting as pending, bank unsure if it's went through or not and insurer not really bothered either way as nothing is specifically showing as an issue on my account.

Still worried that this will flag up tomorrow (when policy starts) and the policy will be cancelled. No idea what else I can do here 

DullGreyGuy

Ddrago said:

Still no resolution to this today. Transaction sitting as pending, bank unsure if it's went through or not and insurer not really bothered either way as nothing is specifically showing as an issue on my account.

Still worried that this will flag up tomorrow (when policy starts) and the policy will be cancelled. No idea what else I can do here 

It won't be cancelled on day 1, they'd give you 7-14 days to contact them. 

Payments are a multistep process between multiple parties, technically many of the steps are optional but merchants pay much higher fees without doing them. For small companies it's not an option, you have an off the shelf solution and have to go through all the steps. For massive corporates it can be different and at least 99.995% of cases must go through the process but it's accepted that 0.005% may skip steps etc. As a consequence its always a bit more unclear when something goes wrong if they'll try pushing the payment through anyway or revert to contacting you.

Ectophile

Ddrago said:

Still no resolution to this today. Transaction sitting as pending, bank unsure if it's went through or not and insurer not really bothered either way as nothing is specifically showing as an issue on my account.

Still worried that this will flag up tomorrow (when policy starts) and the policy will be cancelled. No idea what else I can do here 

The insurance company are required to give you advance notice before cancelling a policy.  It can't happen instantly.  In any case, if there's a problem with the payment, they will give you a chance to pay before they cancel it.  I've been there before, when a card payment failed.  I only had to phone them up and give them the new card details.