Cancelling Halifax Home Insurance

gavinthegreat

Hi,

My parents have been with Halifax for contents insurance for around 20 years and upon my recent checking I found that the Post Office with their cashback deal + Quidco could get contents cover for around £4! - much better than the £300ish that they currently pay Halifax. Their renewal is not until October so it would be good to get them switched now.

I expected some sort of penalty, but having now checked Halifax's insurance policy I fear it is impossible to cancel it early:
http://www.halifax.co.uk/insurance/pdfdocuments/HalifaxHomeInsuranceMORPolicyWording_1_337329-2.pdf

"Your right to cancel

Your policy is an annual contract of insurance, unless you have an extended contract.

If you cancel within 30 days of the start of your policy and you have not made a claim during that period, we will give you a full premium refund less any charge that we may make to cover our administration costs.

You can cancel after 30 days of the start of your policy only if:

• you take out another home or buildings

insurance policy with us; or

• you no longer own the property; or

• you suffer a total loss;

in which case we will refund any premium you have paid for the rest of the insurance period and no further premium will be payable under this policy. You cannot cancel after 14 days of the start of your policy in any other circumstances and so your policy will remain in force for the whole of the insurance period and:

• if you chose to pay your premium in full, you will not be entitled to any refund; or
• if you chose to pay your premium in monthly instalments, you must continue to pay the
instalments until the end of the insurance period."

They pay monthly installments, and I assume from the terms that they would have to continue paying them until October even if they cancel it. The only thing I am unsure of is:

"Your policy is an annual contract of insurance, unless you have an extended contract."

Given that they have renewed for so many years is this what is meant by "extended contract", i.e. that they could cancel? Thanks for any help .

raskazz

I'm sure that is not what is meant by 'extended contract'.

The cancellation terms do seem to be very onerous, especially in the case of policies which have been renewed for over three or four years. Personally, I would call to cancel, then raise a complaint if they try to maintain those terms.

See this link for the Ombudsman's approach (especially the first case study):

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/54/insurance.htm

I do not believe that they would uphold this insurer's cancellation terms.

FlameCloud

There is no problem with cancelling mid term.

Call 0845 600 600 1 and I think its option 4. Policy holders cancel policies all the time for a variety of reasons and as I've said most handlers wouldnt even be aware of the terms.

gavinthegreat

Thanks to both of you - I did think the terms were surprisingly harsh! Guess I'll tell them to give them a phone then, as it is definitely worth cancelling if possible.