House Insurance Scam

Just_landed

The last insurance I took out on my property I was scammed by the insurance company at the end of the first year they took a second years premium from my credit card without my permission or knowing anything about it or agreeing to it, I contacted my credit card and got the money back but then the insurance company contacted me saying I had defaulted and put a charge on my for about £50 which I told them I cannot wait to fight them in court, not heard a thing since.

I am concerned if I take out house insurance over money supermarket again will this happen again ?

If you take out out car insurance you are given the option to not have a second years cover but no such option is given on money supermarket website for house insurance that I can see. Has anybody got any advise ?

TroubledTarts

Which company was this with that did this to you

Just_landed

A well known Insurance company which amazes me but not prepared to say at this time, would just like advise of what to do so I do not get scammed again.

_Penny_Dreadful

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6665222/house-insurance-scam

£10 to a housing charity of your choice says that when you took out the initial policy you ticked a box somewhere agreeing to auto-renewal of the policy or didn’t tick a box to opt out of auto-renewal. Then instead of contacting the insurance company to resolve the issue you went straight to a credit card charge back. I doubt your day in court is going to go the way you expect.

kaMelo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6665222/house-insurance-scam

Why is everything a scam these days?

It may not be a choice on moneysupermarket but you would have had a choice to opt out of auto renewal on insurance companies website when you confirmed your details with them. Coming up to renewal time you would also have received notification of auto renewal, how much it was going to cost and how to prevent auto renewal if you didn't want that to happen, usually by giving them a call and saying I don't want to renew my insurance.

You've therefore had two opportunities to prevent this happening and you took neither, whatever you may think this is it's definitely not a scam.

What you can do going forward, engage with you're previous insurance company and your current one explaining what happened. You're scenario is not unique, what would normally happen is a shared cover and cost arrangement between you're old and new insurance provider for the period you were covered by both insurance policies. The £50 you've been charged sounds like the old insurance companies share for the period you were covered by them before cancellation..

What can you do going forward to avoid this happening again? Read fully what you're agreeing to when taking out an insurance policy and read fully you're renewal documents when you get them.

marcia_

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6665222/house-insurance-scam

that's not a scam it's standard practice to automatically put you on auto renewal. I received my yearly quote with the option to reject it should I not want to renew

eddddy

What you have done can be extremely dangerous.

As above, most home insurance policies are set to auto renew. It will be in the terms and conditions that you agreed to.

If you don't want your policy to auto renew, typically you can do either of these 2 things:

• 1) Contact the insurance company just after buying the policy (or at any time during the policy year), to tell them to 'switch-off' auto renewal

Or

• 2) When the company send you a renewal notice the end of the year, you can compare their renewal price with other insurers, and cancel the renewal, if you wish

Contacting your card company for a chargeback, without first contacting the insurer was a very, very bad idea.

It's dangerous because the insurer is likely to treat that as a "cancellation due to non-payment", and record that on a central database called CUE, which all insurance companies access.

If that happens, you will have to declare to every insurer in future (home insurance, car insurance, etc) that you have had an insurance policy cancelled due to non-payment. As a result, many insurers will refuse to insure you, others will charge you sky-high premiums.

Also, if you were paying monthly, this may be treated as a credit agreement which is recorded on your credit reports. So for the next 6 years, your credit report will show missed insurance payments. So other companies might be less likely to offer you credit.

So… you need to contact the insurance company to get this resolved, and do everything you can to persuade them not to record this as a "cancellation due to non-payment".

If you genuinely did not receive any renewal notices, you should tell them this as mitigation. (Maybe check your spam folder.)

oldernonethewiser

"The last insurance I took out on my property I was scammed by the insurance company". - I doubt that very much.

No harm in identifying the company involved.

Ayr_Rage

It will only happen again is you fail to deselect the automatic renewal option with the insurer and miss or ignore the renewal emails.

You need to do that directly with the insurer on their website once your policy is in place and not on the comparison site when buying.

What you have done could well result in a policy cancellation marker and be recorded by the CRAs.

It's not a scam, it's a problem of your own making.

RelievedSheff

Not a scam.

You have just not turned off auto-renewal.

noitsnotme

”Scam”… the most misused word in this forum!

Definitely not in this case, just a misunderstanding of the process.