Hastings Direct Advice needed please!

gazzastears

My wife recently took out car insurance with Hastings Direct you drive for a black box policy. Shortly after and within a week she changed her mind and decided to renew with her existing provider instead and cancel the Hastings direct policy. They cancelled the policy but told her she had to pay a £20 non refundable arrangement fee and also £20 for the tab in the car. We hadn’t even received it by then but said we would return it when it came for a refund, but they have said we can’t. They have advised these charges are in their terms and conditions, but are they even allowed to make these charges within the 14 day cooling off period?? Surely that is the whole point of such a period in that you can change your mind without penalty? Any help and advice greatly received?

Mildly_Miffed

Yes, those up-front fees are allowed to be charged.

They would have been specified in the quote she accepted.

You are getting a full refund on the annual cover, minus a small pro-rata deduction.

Ayr_Rage

The contract would only be unfair if those charges were not specified.

Your wife needs to read what she agreed when taking out the policy.

chrisw

Those costs seem pretty reasonable to me, I've seen far worse. It costs them money to set up and cancel the policy as well as the black box.

Bigwheels1111

This is just like Bymiles, their fee is £50. Or £100 if you do not return the tracker.
I did not see the fee etc, etc, etc.
You have to tick around 6 boxes accepting this before you buy the policy.
But everyone must be blind or unable to read.

MyRealNameToo

gazzastears said:

My wife recently took out car insurance with Hastings Direct you drive for a black box policy. Shortly after and within a week she changed her mind and decided to renew with her existing provider instead and cancel the Hastings direct policy. They cancelled the policy but told her she had to pay a £20 non refundable arrangement fee and also £20 for the tab in the car. We hadn’t even received it by then but said we would return it when it came for a refund, but they have said we can’t. They have advised these charges are in their terms and conditions, but are they even allowed to make these charges within the 14 day cooling off period?? Surely that is the whole point of such a period in that you can change your mind without penalty? Any help and advice greatly received?

Yes, for financial services the statutory cooling off period means you have a right to cancel, it doesnt require it to be fee free. 

In principle after the cooling off period has ended you have no automatic right to be able to cancel the policy though in practice for most mass market consumer policies you can cancel at any time despite not having a statutory right to.  There are some exceptions though, Bupa doesnt allow a PMI policy to ve cancelled once the cooling off period has ended. 

The fees you mention are fairly modest, many years ago the FSA (forerunner to the FCA) deemed that up to a £50 fee is most likely acceptable as a reasonable reflection of the average cost of a cancelled policy; in principle there should be many years of inflation added to that now.