Insurance company wont credit refund-Please help

polkadot

My fiance's bike insurance was up for renewal at the end of last month. He paid £400 last year and the bike is only worth £900 and we are buying a new one in the next few months. Based on this we approached the company and asked for a third party only quote.They quoted a ridiculous amount and we asked that it be cancelled, and found a new insurer at £100. A few days later, my fiance noticed that £400 had been debitted from his account!:eek: When the bank could tell us that it was the original insurance company, we called them. The person we had spoken to had instated a renewal, rather than a cancellation.:rolleyes: They have told us that the policy documents were posted to us, and in order for them to refund the £400 we need to send the documents back to them. Its been two weeks now and we still have not received said documents.:mad:
The money was not budgeted so we are in the red again and the insurance company is earning interest from it.
Please help,Im almost desperate.:mad:

lisyloo

Have you rang them and told them that the documents have not been received and must have been lost in the post?
What did they say?

Do they accept your version of events i.e. that you cancelled? or are they challenging that?

If they agree that they made a mistake then get onto your bank and tell them that the payment was unauthorised and ask them what they can do.

It's a good idea to be more cautious when cancelling.
Put it in writing, keep a copy and send it by recorded delivery.
This means you can PROVE you cancelled if the company tries to pull a fast one.
At the moment you can't prove anything because you did it over the phone.

polkadot

They are not challenging us at all,but insist that it had been sent.We called again today and discovered that they had sent it to his old address which he moved from in May 2007.At that point he notified them of the change of address in writting and email.(both of these have been sent to insurer).They are now saying we have to wait for it to be returned them, in the meantime they are sending us a "lost claim" form and saying they will process when they receive this back from him with his signature.

PBA

Forget what the insurance company are telling you, go straight to your bank and dispute the transaction. The company charged money you didn't authorise, just tell the bank that you'd asked to cancel but they'd kept billing you anyway, the bank will get the money back. No need to deal with the ins co.

polkadot

We've done this also, but we will apparently be charged a fee for this? Ive only recently moved to england so dont know much about these things.OH seems to think the banks fee is an unreasonable amount,or is he just being stubborn?

siren13577

Assuming your OH had set up a direct debit with the insurance company you can claim the money back under the Direct Debit guarantee, I have done this and as I far as I am aware there should be no fee attached to this. Return to the bank if this is case and insist on a refund of the money based on this, have a look here to clarify it:
http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/27/27-directdebit-guarantee.htm

Most banks have a leaflet with a copy of this in the branches, it did take me a week to 10 days to get a refund.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

polkadot

I know its taken forever but we've had a bad run the last while. In addition to trying to move house, the bike was stolen two weeks ago!!!We finally got the refund last week (with interest) and are waiting for the cancellation of the new policy so we can think about getting a new bike as soon as possible.

dunstonh

It may be a debit card transaction rather than direct debit and banks have limited control (if any really) over debit card transactions.