Cut Your Car Insurance In 4 Steps Discussion Area

John_Pierpoint

top_dog_boomer wrote:

My son told Norwich he did not require there insurance for another year, that was last March, so he got another insurance else where,BUT Norwich kept taking his direct debit out of his account without aurtharisation,My lad as just today found out about this and rang one of there call centres and they refused point blank to refund his cash,I have his new rac cover from last March to prove he took it out with them, is there anything I can do,

I had exactly this problem, when insurance company A sold my account to Insurance company B, I did not trust company B and wrote to say I was cancelling. I promptly took out new insurance but company B kept on direct debitting my account.
Went to the bank (TSB), had a bit of a row, and got the manager to recall the two incorrect payments.
Company B went bust about 4 months later.
Direct debits always used to be repayable on demand HOWEVER I think there are now two sorts of direct debit, either way it sounds like you are in the right, so don't let them get away with it. Start at your bank, say you want to speak to someone senior, and start the conversation with something like "I'd like you to explain to me the security available to your customers who enter into a direct debit agreement" rather than wade right in immediately with your problem.

I hate direct debits, they tend to go wrong as things change BUT a lot of people won't deal with you without a DD or offer a big discount for DD, so one has to agree to them.

Good luck, let us know how you get on.

John.

tachoman_2

Hiya Everyone..

My FIRST post EVER on here...But I had to write it....to show up these mad things that happen....I had my car insurance quote come through just this week from Norwich Union Direct...for our Smart car.... I had a quote of £156.88 which did not seem to bad I thought..:eek: ..I then done some shopping on confused.com and come up with a best price of £147.00 from Budget...then I thought of an ad I saw recently for Moneysupermarket.co.uk....I tried this site, and I have a quote with who I am with at the moment (NUD) at a slightly higher premium via POST OFFICE at £159.00 But they are giving you £50,00 cash back (In a Postal Order) so my premium worked out at £109.00..:j :j .quite a result for a short time of trying eh ???

I REALLY want to say to Martin THANKYOU...for opening OUR eyes to what we have to suffer with in this country RIP OFFS.....now at least WE ALL have a chance eh ??

Best Wishes and good luck to you all .............Dave Weston in Cornwall

khanom_2

Last October I renewed my car insurance with a new broker, thinking I got a good deal, I paid for the full year. In January this year my sister just passed her test and I wanted to add her on to my insurance as a second driver. They said I couldn’t add her on with the insurance company I was currently with, but I could cancel it and they would get me another quote. If I stayed with them they would return £100 off my initial insurance and add it onto new insurance otherwise I would get nothing back. I paid an additional £260.

This was on 29th January. A couple of days later I received the cancellation letter for my initial policy, but no new policy documents. I waited till the 14th February to call them back, they apologised for not sending them out and that they would send them out that very day. On the 16th February, I received another cancellation letter in effect at the end of the week.

On 22nd February I spoke to the supervisor, He told me the price I was quoted was wrong, it was human error and I had to pay an additional £495 for the new insurance. He told me he had tried to contact me on the landline over 350 times. I asked him why he did not try contacting me on my mobile as I did specifically ask to be contacted via mobile as I do not have a landline but as they had initially insisted I gave a landline I gave them my fathers landline number. He said he tried my mobile but one of the numbers must be wrong and it didn’t work, so they deleted it off their files. I asked why he didn’t write to me, after all it was now a month since I took out the new policy. He replied yes he could have but didn’t think. So I asked what about when I phoned them on 14th February enquiring about documents, nobody mentioned the error then and said the documents would be posted out that day. Again he dismissed this point and said error was made nothing could be done. He said I could pay the additional £495 or go elsewhere. This is on top off the £100 from my initial insurance.

I would be happy to name the brokers but not sure if I’m allowed. They are supposed to be one of the biggest brokers and are the British Awards winner of 2004. I have since searched around and have found a cheaper quote of £261

Can anyone give me some advice on this? Are they right to do what they did? It also means my sister and myself have been driving without insurance since 29th January. Thanks

msramsden

I have recently cancelled my Motor insurance with Norwich Union mid term and moved to another insurer, NU have said that I need to pay a cancellation fee of £52 to cover admin costs!! This seems excessive and in light of the recent bank charges refunds I am wondering if I should pay it or if there is a way to fight it???

Also a quick tip I switched by using the 4 step process I found the cheapest was Swinton, when I declined to accept there Legal cover they provided it free a few steps down the line, so I saved a further £20+

Crouching_Hippo

Well, it works and from my renewal fee of £460 which was an increase of £40 on last year’s premium, I followed the steps and I have now ended up with a premium of £371.56 with £50 cash back from the Post Office (Norwich Union).

One thing to watch out for, was after getting the quote from the Post Office, I went online to retrieve my quote and noticed they hadn’t filled in a few of the fields, such as the car registration, my title, my full address, the type of class I was going to be insuring on (Business Class 1 & SDP), date of car registration even though I had already given them all this information on the quote. After saving it, the quote went up slightly, so I called them up and they said there was nothing they could do about it and the figure would have to remain as it was. After a ‘heated’ discussion, they went through the details with me and confirmed them, so as it stands, the final figure was £371.56 with the £50 cash back on top.

My concern is that had I not checked the details, then I could have potentially been ‘mis-insured’, although when the documents would have arrived I would have checked them through and noted the errors, but even so… Either way, the premium would have still gone up and I wouldn’t have been buying the correct product.

I tried to finesse my current insurers and they were prepared to drop their original quote from £460.00 to £360.00, but without the cash back. The excess levels and all the other bits and pieces would have been the same, so I dropped the annual mileage and increased the excess and they still weren’t prepared to go any lower which I found to be a bit odd.

Anyway, I’ve gone with the Post Office as this was the best deal. Hope this is some use to you all and thanks for the tips which was worth the effort to save £139.00!! :beer: :T

Graham_Cox

Big thanks for helping me cut my premium by over half - I've saved £470 for the year thanks to the confused.com link :T I hadn't realised that you don't have to wait until the renewal is up (mine wasn't due until August)

anewman

msramsden wrote: »

I have recently cancelled my Motor insurance with Norwich Union mid term and moved to another insurer, NU have said that I need to pay a cancellation fee of £52 to cover admin costs!! This seems excessive and in light of the recent bank charges refunds I am wondering if I should pay it or if there is a way to fight it???

Also a quick tip I switched by using the 4 step process I found the cheapest was Swinton, when I declined to accept there Legal cover they provided it free a few steps down the line, so I saved a further £20+

This will have been detailed in your agreement between you and Norwich Union. You agreed when you took up the policy and you did have 14 days in which to cancel the policy from its inception. There is the argument that you can't get insured without agreeing to these charges, but nearly all insurers make them as it's their way of upping profits.

4_Pete's_Sake

My wife had P.O. car insurance last year and after the £50 cashback paid just £117 fully comp on her Corsa.:j

This year on 25/2/07 I took out our buildings and contents cover with P.O. Ins and after the £50 cashback paid just £178.:D

On 1/3/07 I switched her car insurance to Swiftcover and with the £50 cashback paid just £110.:rotfl:

I then went online to try and get cover on my car to get the £50 cashback again and it would not quote me and adivsed me to ring them. I did and was told that they do not cover our postcode area. :mad: However I am certain it is just because I had cancelled my wife's policy for which we got cashback last year.

I then phoned the P.O quoteline and spoke to someone else and said I had just taken out their Home Insurance and had been told to call them when my Car Insurance was due for renewal. The guy did me a quote on my Rover 620 SDI. He quoted me £182.63 but then said I would get £50 cashback a month later making it £132.63. There was no mention of our postcode area being blacklisted. Needless to say I will be taking this out, unless my current insurers match the price like they did last year after I told them about my quote form P.O. Insurance.:j :rotfl:

Raymondo111

Last year I did an online search through Confused.com and received a very good quote from the Post Office which after the £50.00 cashback meant that I paid £112.00 for fully comp cover on a 1.6 Fusion. This year I did a search with Moneysupermarket and received a quote from the Post Office again for around £117.00 after the cash back of £50.00 which again is a great quote. However, when I received my renewal quote from the Post Office they want £182.46 which is a big increase Does anybody know if I accept the quote from Moneysupermarket will I still get the £50.00 cashback deal? Alternative is SAGA who quoted around £130 but with a £350.00 excess, the Post Office was only £100.00 excess.

Thanks

4_Pete's_Sake

Raymondo111 wrote: »

Last year I did an online search through Confused.com and received a very good quote from the Post Office which after the £50.00 cashback meant that I paid £112.00 for fully comp cover on a 1.6 Fusion. This year I did a search with Moneysupermarket and received a quote from the Post Office again for around £117.00 after the cash back of £50.00 which again is a great quote. However, when I received my renewal quote from the Post Office they want £182.46 which is a big increase Does anybody know if I accept the quote from Moneysupermarket will I still get the £50.00 cashback deal? Alternative is SAGA who quoted around £130 but with a £350.00 excess, the Post Office was only £100.00 excess.

Thanks

I did the same thing with on the Insuresupermarket Website and got a quote of about £164 Less cashback of £50 = £114 on my wifes car. I then followed the link to the Post Office's site to get the exact figure and to put in the additional details. On reaching the last page it would not let me accept the quote and told me to phone the Post Office quoting a number which just happened to be her Policy Number. It appears that the £50 Cashback is an incentive to join them and will not be given to existing customers.:mad: