An insurance cancellation fee question......

[exrm193]

My Mrs took out a policy in April. £60 for the year paid at the time. She's now got a different bike and her present company won't cover her on it.....so cancel please.
"Sure, that will be £50 please."


Is that right?? Can they charge £50??? Seems like madness!

[AndyB]

Wait until you ask if there's any cash due back on the policy she's getting rid of :pinch:

Sometimes it's not worth cancelling because there's nothing to come back as a refund and they expect you to pay them so you can't use a policy you've paid for in full.

[exrm193]

It just seems like a rip off that there seems to be no refund.

[Nigel]

Trouble is if you don`t cancel it and sell the bike on and the buyer doesn`t insure it the bike will be insured on your policy, you can`t win insurers a butch of robbin barstewards

[Godspeed]

Yeh, I heard of someone where the new owner didn't insure it and had an accident, so the other party insurers came seaking the money from the original owner as that was the only valid insurance on the bike and then the insurance company said they would claim it back of the original owner as they hadn't cancelled the policy...costs = thousands...
Though this may be one of those wives tails you hear about.... :unsure:

[simonw]

Nope, there was a similar letter to Ride's legal advisor published a few months back along the same lines. The bottom line was not cancelling the insurance could be a very expensive mistake.

[AndyB]

I'm not denying that failure to cancel could potentially be an expensive error but I still wouldn't pay £50 to cancel a policy that in any other scenario would have some amount to be refunded. I might tell them over the phone that I was cancelling it happy in the knowledge that they record all calls but no way would they get money off me.

If you were paying by instalments and cancelled they'd set the bailiffs on you for the remainder of the money but if you've paid in full there's no refund and you have to give them more? Not a hope in hell. I'd ask the name of the person I told over the phone and keep it to use as evidence that they knew I was cancelling the policy and if the shit hit the fan I'd let a jury decide (thumbs)

[Elle]

£50 is a cheeky number considering it was only £60 in the first place!

Name and Shame

[bowber]

Write a letter to them saying you have sold the bike and the insurance is no longer needed on it and send it recorded delivery.

When you get a letter back asking for the £50 depute it.

I'm not sure it'll do much but at least you'll have a record that you told the insurance company about the sale.

Surely you've already told them it's been sold or whatever anyway since they tried to charge you £50

Steve

[daytona-supersport]

OK. Now play the bastards at their own game.
Send them a letter by recorded delivery stating that you no longer own the machine and informing them that they should therefore cancel you policy.
They will most likely write back asking for a cancellation fee. Tell them to get stuffed. You have fulfilled the legal requirement to inform them of the situation and have proof of this. Let them come and try to get a cancellation fee for effectively doing sod all. Inform them in the strongest terms that you were not made aware of this at the time of purchasing the policy. They won't have any justification to try to get money from you.

Insurance companies are typically thieving bastards. Years ago I was keen to get out of engineering and took a job with one of the biggest insurance, pension, etc companies in the country. You know the friendly one that has reps visit you at home. I refused to pay them the price asked for the 'BOOK' of clients as most of the previous business had been done in the pub. This dodgy business earns commission for the agent.
I was crap at the job. After one visit with an area rep to a prospective pension swap client. I went back the following evening and told him not to go ahead with the change as there was no benefit for him, only a big fat commission for the rep.
As for conning people into endowment mortgages, all I wanted to do was punch the smug bastard area rep in the chops for being such a smart arse devious piece of shit.
Got called into the bosses office for a spanking for not agreeing to take of the dodgy book. Told him to go F&%&£ himself as I had never work with such a bunch of nasty dishonest people before and thought they were all thieving shits. Needless to say, I went back into engineering and dealing with people with a lot more integrity.
Taught me a lot about financial services industry. If they can take money from you on any pretext they will try. Stand up to them and usually they go away. They don't want the world to know how they treat their customers. Shout it from the roof tops.
There is no law against making honest statement of events. However be sure to keep strictly to the facts and be accurate, do not elaborate, exaggerate or provide conjecture. (thumbs)