Hastings Direct car insurance - no renewal notice

Kathymel · 7 November 2018 at 10:18PM

Hello.

I didn't get a renewal notice from Hastings for my car insurance, but, when I raised this with them, they insisted they sent both an email and a letter, last month.

The car has been off the road since it failed its MOT and has just sold (today), so I had no intention of renewing and would have noticed if a renewal notice had arrived.

The first I knew about it was an email on the day of renewal telling me they had renewed.

Have they done this to anyone else?

On a side note, I have read that customers are kept waiting on the phone for a looooong time by Hastings. I have a disability that makes it uncomfortable to use the phone, but Hastings have told me they are unable to cancel the policy over email. I have told them they are in breach of discrimination law and insisted I be able to cancel it by email. I'll let you know how that goes.

Kathy

Quentin · 7 November 2018 at 11:41PM

Whenever you are unhappy with your insurer the route to take is a formal complaint in line with their complaints procedure

Then if the reply is unsatisfactory or they ignore you for 8 weeks you can escalate to the FOS for their adjudication at no cost to you

Kathymel · 8 November 2018 at 12:14AM

Thanks Quentin,

I have told them I will be reporting them to both the FOS and the EHRC if they don't start being reasonable, but yes, I shall have to labour through their process first.

Mrs_Ryan · 8 November 2018 at 1:59AM

I’ve sent you a PM.

Kathymel · 14 November 2018 at 3:44AM

Well, this wrapped up nice and quickly.

I received an email from Hastings the next day:

Thank you for your email.

I'm sorry that you haven't received your renewal invitation. I have looked into the reason for this, I can see it was added to your My Account online on 29th September 2018 but you haven't logged in since 15th February 2018.

I'm sorry if you feel we are being insensitive and do not mean for this to come across. We are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and as per our company process and procedures we do require Policyholders to call us to cancel their insurance. However, we do understand that sometimes there are exceptions. We just need to be made aware of these exceptions so that we can take the right actions.

As you have now made us aware that you are unable to call I have cancelled your policy. I have issued a refund of £346.01 to the card that was used on the policy, please allow 3-5 working days to receive this.

I have also sent a document to the My Account to confirm that it has been cancelled from today.

Please let us know if there is anything else we can look into for you.

Yours ...

Result!

Hastings Direct car insurance - no renewal notice

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