Car insurance payment taken on written off vehicle

TDMB_MK

Saga declared my mum’s car a total loss in early Feb, settled the claim, and we did the DVLA transfer to their recovery firm. 

Two weeks later on the policy renewal date they took a payment of £700+ out of her account for the next year’s policy (first quarter of their overly-inflated next years’s policy quote) - even though the car is written off, no longer owned by her, no new vehicle details were provided, and we had never indicated that we wanted to re-insure with them. How can this be legal?! 

After much argument they have refunded the full amount (though it will take 10 days) but I want to try to understand how they can take a payment for insurance against a vehicle that was written off and we no longer own? It never occurred to me for a moment that we would need to cancel the DD ourselves to stop this happening. My mum is a pensioner and this unexpected payment made her overdrawn, so she is very stressed by the whole thing! Any insight into how this can happen legally would be much appreciated. Thank you. 

PS - their quote for the following year was £2,900! We reinsured with Admiral for £1,100 . . . 

DullGreyGuy

You insured with Admiral, reinsurance is something insurers buy to transfer part of their risk to another insurer. 

Claims and Service are two different functions often using different systems. At some point in the process the Claims should inform Service of the total loss which would often suspend the policy. There is often much more going on behind the scenes that you arent aware of and delays in those processes (eg receiving payment for the salvage) may result in the delay in informing service. 

You wouldn't have needed to cancel the DD you would have needed to respond to the letter/email that was received before the accident informing her that the policy would automatically renew unless you told them otherwise. Cancelling the DD simply stops the payment from being taken, it doesn't stop the contract from renewing not the debt being created. Many have a lifetime of high premiums because they cancelled their DD not their renewal so the insurer voided the policy for non-payment which them must forever more declare when trying to get any new insurance.

cw8825

auto renewal - likely already set up
IF you didn't tell them not to renew the policy why wouldn't they?
They wrote your moms car off but that doesn't always means the end of the policy some people will add a new car

nothing illegal