Strong armed insurance co.
Discussion
The following letter arrived yesterday....
nastyb
ds said:
ds said: Policy Cancelled - you have arrears.
Outstanding Balance £46.65
Dear Mr MikeVeal
As per our previous correspondence, your policy has been cancelled due to non-payment. We are unable to reinstate your policy now that it has been cancelled.
You must contact our credit control team within 7 days of the date of this letter to make payment of the above balance by debit or credit card. Failure to pay the outstanding balance within this time may result in the debt being referred to our external debt recovery agency who would take full charge of your account.
Please note that should professional debt recovery services be required, we reserve the right to charge an additional admin fee of up to £25 to cover any costs incurred.
Yours Sincerely,
Notveryinterestedincustomerservices Insurance co.
My (potential)reply should explain the situation.Outstanding Balance £46.65
Dear Mr MikeVeal
As per our previous correspondence, your policy has been cancelled due to non-payment. We are unable to reinstate your policy now that it has been cancelled.
You must contact our credit control team within 7 days of the date of this letter to make payment of the above balance by debit or credit card. Failure to pay the outstanding balance within this time may result in the debt being referred to our external debt recovery agency who would take full charge of your account.
Please note that should professional debt recovery services be required, we reserve the right to charge an additional admin fee of up to £25 to cover any costs incurred.
Yours Sincerely,
Notveryinterestedincustomerservices Insurance co.
MikeVeal said:
Dear Sirs,
I am in receipt of a letter from you dated May 10th, detailing that you have failed to collect my policy renewal premium and warning that if payment was not made you will be attempting to collect a fee of £46.65 for non payment.
A second letter from you arrived on 20th May (dated May 19th) stating that you have cancelled the policy and that you consider us in arrears for £46.65.
I dispute these arrears on the following grounds:
1/ You failed to contact us advising us of the renewal premium prior to your letter of 10th May.
2/ Having received your letter of 10th May, I telephoned you and established the following:
That you had attempted to contact us by email, but not by post. My email address has recently changed & I am not obliged to tell you this.
That you had failed to register my request of 2013 not to automatically renew this policy when it expired.
That, given the above circumstances, your telephone operator agreed to remove the non payment charge from our account.
I hope that your letter of May 19th was sent in error. Please confirm in writing that this is the case and that these arrears have been cancelled. You may use this email address, but please send a copy to my home address by post.
Yours Sincerely,
Mr MikeVeal.
Am I missing anything obvious from this potential reply?I am in receipt of a letter from you dated May 10th, detailing that you have failed to collect my policy renewal premium and warning that if payment was not made you will be attempting to collect a fee of £46.65 for non payment.
A second letter from you arrived on 20th May (dated May 19th) stating that you have cancelled the policy and that you consider us in arrears for £46.65.
I dispute these arrears on the following grounds:
1/ You failed to contact us advising us of the renewal premium prior to your letter of 10th May.
2/ Having received your letter of 10th May, I telephoned you and established the following:
That you had attempted to contact us by email, but not by post. My email address has recently changed & I am not obliged to tell you this.
That you had failed to register my request of 2013 not to automatically renew this policy when it expired.
That, given the above circumstances, your telephone operator agreed to remove the non payment charge from our account.
I hope that your letter of May 19th was sent in error. Please confirm in writing that this is the case and that these arrears have been cancelled. You may use this email address, but please send a copy to my home address by post.
Yours Sincerely,
Mr MikeVeal.
SK425 said:
Did you happen to note down the date and time when you called them after their letter of 10 May? They might have recorded the conversation and if you can tell them where to look in their massive pile of recordings it might help resolve things quicker.
Yes, I have date, approximate time, name and extension number.Reserving that for if and when they take me to court.
Similar thing happened to me last year. Insurance company rolled over my annual policy for a new 12 months, whilst I was working out of the country for a few months. Obviously I didn't get their notifications or renewal notices. When I didn't pay (because I was away), they cancelled the policy and wanted over £90 for the privilege.
I wrote a polite but firm note pointing out that as I was out of the country, I had not received the notice of intended renewal or, requests for payment. I further pointed out to them that when I bought an annual policy, my agreement with them was to pay for 12 months insurance. I had given no indication that I wanted the policy rolled over and, that despite their terms and conditions, I did not believe that the company could take my lack of acknowledgement of their renewal notice as a tacit agreement to it. Result was they dropped it.
Only problem with this is that once you've had a policy officially cancelled, regardless of situation, it gives every insurance company the excuse to charge you a massively inflated premium as you often have to declare that you have had a policy cancelled previously.
I wrote a polite but firm note pointing out that as I was out of the country, I had not received the notice of intended renewal or, requests for payment. I further pointed out to them that when I bought an annual policy, my agreement with them was to pay for 12 months insurance. I had given no indication that I wanted the policy rolled over and, that despite their terms and conditions, I did not believe that the company could take my lack of acknowledgement of their renewal notice as a tacit agreement to it. Result was they dropped it.
Only problem with this is that once you've had a policy officially cancelled, regardless of situation, it gives every insurance company the excuse to charge you a massively inflated premium as you often have to declare that you have had a policy cancelled previously.
ging84 said:
you are now going to come up against the issue that all insurers ask you if you have ever had insurance cancelled in the past and the true answer to this will be yes. This will mean you could well be paying more for all types of insurance for the rest of your life
No he won't, not if the insurer declares that the policy should never have existed. LoonR1 knows the right phrase, but there are ways this can be dealt with, I recall it came up previously.
It is not restricted to Insco's though - all manner of companies are renewing contracts automatically when they have been told to discontinue, then get heavy handed over alleged indebtedness.
I discontinued my fax telephone line as we never use it nowadays, and despite it being disconnected, the company continued to bill me and threaten action over non payment!
I had a similar situation with SUEZ over skip hire!
There should be some way of recovering money for the time you have to spend dealing with these clowns - it might make them more careful!
I discontinued my fax telephone line as we never use it nowadays, and despite it being disconnected, the company continued to bill me and threaten action over non payment!
I had a similar situation with SUEZ over skip hire!
There should be some way of recovering money for the time you have to spend dealing with these clowns - it might make them more careful!
Tribal Chestnut said:
I know. But an opportunity to have a little dig at Mr Insurance is never to be missed!
No, it's just childish. SP&L used to be full of knowledgable actual experts, it's not a great surprise that most have left given the constant digs and attacks on their knowledge.Want to be childish? Go to The Lounge.
Edman10 said:
Similar thing happened to me last year. Insurance company rolled over my annual policy for a new 12 months, whilst I was working out of the country for a few months. Obviously I didn't get their notifications or renewal notices. When I didn't pay (because I was away), they cancelled the policy and wanted over £90 for the privilege.
I wrote a polite but firm note pointing out that as I was out of the country, I had not received the notice of intended renewal or, requests for payment. I further pointed out to them that when I bought an annual policy, my agreement with them was to pay for 12 months insurance. I had given no indication that I wanted the policy rolled over and, that despite their terms and conditions, I did not believe that the company could take my lack of acknowledgement of their renewal notice as a tacit agreement to it. Result was they dropped it.
Only problem with this is that once you've had a policy officially cancelled, regardless of situation, it gives every insurance company the excuse to charge you a massively inflated premium as you often have to declare that you have had a policy cancelled previously.
I would expect motor insurance to be a difficult business to effectively manage. Sadly some insurance companies attempt sharp practice in renewing policies without authorisation. No doubt many drivers attempt all sorts of daft things whilst insured. I never accept automatic renewals and test the market each time. I hope the practice will cease to be attempted. However I am not holding my breath on this.I wrote a polite but firm note pointing out that as I was out of the country, I had not received the notice of intended renewal or, requests for payment. I further pointed out to them that when I bought an annual policy, my agreement with them was to pay for 12 months insurance. I had given no indication that I wanted the policy rolled over and, that despite their terms and conditions, I did not believe that the company could take my lack of acknowledgement of their renewal notice as a tacit agreement to it. Result was they dropped it.
Only problem with this is that once you've had a policy officially cancelled, regardless of situation, it gives every insurance company the excuse to charge you a massively inflated premium as you often have to declare that you have had a policy cancelled previously.
This is house insurance, not motor insurance.
No, they have not cancelled my policy. They did not have the authority to re-instate it, their clerical error.
Thanks guys, seems I have the letter about right.
I've already tried the call to sort it out. Now they're threatening to pursue a debt, I want something in writing.
No, they have not cancelled my policy. They did not have the authority to re-instate it, their clerical error.
Thanks guys, seems I have the letter about right.
I've already tried the call to sort it out. Now they're threatening to pursue a debt, I want something in writing.
Vaud said:
ging84 said:
you are now going to come up against the issue that all insurers ask you if you have ever had insurance cancelled in the past and the true answer to this will be yes. This will mean you could well be paying more for all types of insurance for the rest of your life
No he won't, not if the insurer declares that the policy should never have existed. LoonR1 knows the right phrase, but there are ways this can be dealt with, I recall it came up previously.
I'm not getting into the ins and outs as I don't deal with home insurance directly anymore but suffice to say that a call to Customer Relations there should solve it. Court is a long, long way off and should be avoided by both sides. Don't hold onto simple info either, it's not productive and courts don't like smart arsed defences, we're not the US.
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