Sheilas Wheels Policy Auto Renewal

Gunnie47

Heads for policy holders at  Sheila's Wheels(aka Esure), I have been struggling to stop my policy auto renewing. 

They are a internet only setup with a chat bot to take the basic request anything more complex and at request a person will join the Chat session.

The outsourcing model used i assume for security reasons limits the scope of the people on the chat sessions.

So more of the sensitive activities are noted and transferred via an internal web form to the UK for processing the follow day so all request take 24h.

After 7 chat session on different evenings I had been able to cancel the auto renewal of my policy and be reasonable confident it wouldn't.

But i was sent a strange email from the support team saying the Bot had advised incorrectly and my policy would still auto renew unless I called them once again. Phone number given.

At this point I was unsure what the situation actually was and questioned... do i really trust what i am being told!

After another few attempts to get a satisfactory confirmation that the policy wouldn't renew had failed I requested my payment card to be removed from the portal to prevent them from taking funds from the account. I use my debit card for these things and pay annually. I budget and manage the funds in my account very accurately. If Esure removed the whole premium from my account at the end of the month it would empty my account. Something that has happened to me before at other insurers.

I was given an email saying the policy would not renew but still wanted my card details removing as the refund process would take a further call/chat and 15 working day to return the funds to my current account.

This is were the difficulties started.

I have still not been able to get the card removed, there is a button the portal but its does nothing and will not delete the card just says contact the call center. The calll center doesnt have the ablity ot remove the card as far as i can tell.

Maybe someone could help when the policy is canceled and will no longer renew do Esure need the card details?

Should they be delete at that point?

Its my personal data if I request the data be deleted they need to do that I guess at the point they policy no longer needed.

Anyone with experience with these matters out there, what are the rules for data protection?

400ixl

There is no need to have card details removed. If you have the auto renewal stopped then that is all you need to do.

DullGreyGuy

Gunnie47 said:

Heads for policy holders at  Sheila's Wheels(aka Esure), I have been struggling to stop my policy auto renewing. 

They are a internet only setup with a chat bot to take the basic request anything more complex and at request a person will join the Chat session.

The outsourcing model used i assume for security reasons limits the scope of the people on the chat sessions.

So more of the sensitive activities are noted and transferred via an internal web form to the UK for processing the follow day so all request take 24h.

After 7 chat session on different evenings I had been able to cancel the auto renewal of my policy and be reasonable confident it wouldn't.

But i was sent a strange email from the support team saying the Bot had advised incorrectly and my policy would still auto renew unless I called them once again. Phone number given.

At this point I was unsure what the situation actually was and questioned... do i really trust what i am being told!

After another few attempts to get a satisfactory confirmation that the policy wouldn't renew had failed I requested my payment card to be removed from the portal to prevent them from taking funds from the account. I use my debit card for these things and pay annually. I budget and manage the funds in my account very accurately. If Esure removed the whole premium from my account at the end of the month it would empty my account. Something that has happened to me before at other insurers.

I was given an email saying the policy would not renew but still wanted my card details removing as the refund process would take a further call/chat and 15 working day to return the funds to my current account.

This is were the difficulties started.

I have still not been able to get the card removed, there is a button the portal but its does nothing and will not delete the card just says contact the call center. The calll center doesnt have the ablity ot remove the card as far as i can tell.

Maybe someone could help when the policy is canceled and will no longer renew do Esure need the card details?

Should they be delete at that point?

Its my personal data if I request the data be deleted they need to do that I guess at the point they policy no longer needed.

Anyone with experience with these matters out there, what are the rules for data protection?

Outsourcing doesn't create a security issue, there are outsourcers that handle multi-million pound claims on their own without reference so making a small change on a insurance policy isn't an issue; there are plenty of other reasons why you may want certain things dealt with by a higher team than the front the line. When you phone up your insurer to advice you've caused a major car accident it isn't that agent that negotiates with the deceased family's lawyers over what compensation they are due.

It's likely their system is set such that you cannot reduce the total number of methods of payment to zero, PayPal etc are similar if you've a monies due.  Removing the card wouldn't achieve anything positive anyway, the policy renewing and their ability to collect payment are independent things. It would still renew but the payment would then fail and so it would go into the non-payment process which ultimately would at best result in the policy being cancelled for non-payment which you will have to declare for life and at worst get a loading to CIFAS for 1st party fraud - no intent to pay. 

GDPR requires them to minimise personal data and gives a right to be forgotten however these can be overridden by regulatory requirements, laws and legitimate business need. They certainly couldn't delete the fact you've ever had insurance with them as claims can come in years later (an injured child has until their 21st birthday to lodge a claim) and they must retain the detail of the policy, you etc to enable them to defend the claim.