Insurance issue.. again
Discussion
When I worked for a big broker (I left ten years ago) we had these 7 day cancellation letters as a standard form letter. You just typed in the name, address, policy number and cancellation date and it was printed and sent automatically.
Still, it's entirely possible than in some Dickensian alternate dimension an insurer is engaging the august services of Fuddleduddle, Quonset and Threep, Solicitors at Law to issue proceedings on minor administration matters.
Still, it's entirely possible than in some Dickensian alternate dimension an insurer is engaging the august services of Fuddleduddle, Quonset and Threep, Solicitors at Law to issue proceedings on minor administration matters.
LoonR1 said:
There is not a cat in bells chance that any insurer would write via a solicitor for such a simple matter. Equally, they are unlikely to write using anything other than their own branded paperwork. I'd love to know which insurer this was. There is no "name and shame" issue by saying who it was. So feel free to name them.
The insurer was privilege.Mound Dawg said:
When I worked for a big broker (I left ten years ago) we had these 7 day cancellation letters as a standard form letter. You just typed in the name, address, policy number and cancellation date and it was printed and sent automatically.
It wasn't the 7 day cancellation letter that was from the solicitors. I never received it, but I know it was sent, because in the reply to my complaint, the insurer state the date on which it was sent. They also listed a letter they sent requesting return of the certificate, with the same date as the date on the solicitor's letter.This was a letter 8 to 12 weeks later stating that I had failed to return the insurance certificate as required.
Edited by WatchfulEye on Sunday 25th January 21:26
Mound Dawg said:
This happened to me, my insurer mistyped the reg. number when I gave it to them, there was no certificate to check as I was on a motor trade policy so I only found out a couple of months later when I tried to tax the car on line.
Are you sure it happened to you or one of your imaginary friends?(This is not a trick question)
LoonR1 said:
The you absolutely did not receive a letter from a firm of solicitors requesting the return of your policy docs.
So are you saying that the letter was a fake, designed to intimidate? It certainly did intimidate me, and I was certainly left quite shocked.I have wondered whether it was a fake, based on the fact that other firms have been caught writing fake solicitors' letters. However, I have no real proof.
Edited by WatchfulEye on Sunday 25th January 21:51
WatchfulEye said:
So are you saying that the letter was a fake, designed to intimidate? It certainly did intimidate me, and I was certainly left quite shocked.
I have wondered whether it was a fake, based on the fact that other firms have been caught writing fake solicitors' letters. However, I have no real proof.
No. I'm sayimg you made this story up. Privilege are a huge insurer and operate off the same base systems as both Direct Line and Churchill amd several other white labelled insurance schemes. At no point in the existence of Privilege have they ever sent letters via solicitors for the return of a Motor Insuramce certificate. I know this for a fact. Not have they ever written letters (which are all standard) demanding "return of their clients property". They have sent letters referencing the RTA and your responsibility to return the certificate when cancelling insurance, but that's all. I have wondered whether it was a fake, based on the fact that other firms have been caught writing fake solicitors' letters. However, I have no real proof.
Edited by WatchfulEye on Sunday 25th January 21:51
Feel free to post a copy of the letter to disprove me, or better still leave it, as you've made this story up.
LoonR1 said:
Wow, amazing. If your insurance has been cancelled, here's yet another example of no letters arriving at all, which is totally believable. It does seem that insurers have it in for PHers, as they cancel insurance randomly, without justification and fail to send any letters at all 
Hi, me again 
Bit of a coincidence that Im posting on 2 insurance threads on the same day but just in case you didnt believe me the first time round I will repeat my experience for you to disbelieve again
I was insured with one of the biggies for absolutely ages
My first car was bought when I started work and consequently all of my motoring expenses come out of my account at the same time as all of my professional fees plus some other random domestics
The policy was on auto renew but this time I had to speak to them regarding a minor issue just before the renewal date
On the phone I agreed the change and was told it would go through on auto renewal as planned
Except it didnt
They had all manner of contact details for me:
address
phone
mobile phone
All of the above had been previously used for "marketing" purposes
But they didnt try any of them, just binned me off leading to an IN10 and 6 points
Bitter, me?
Well at the time incandescent, but after cancelling all of our policies with them I got a bit of satisfaction
The only one I kept was a cheap life policy - a mixed bag dying young but if it costs Direct Line a quarter of a mill then job done
Cheers pal
numtumfutunch said:
Hi, me again
Bit of a coincidence that Im posting on 2 insurance threads on the same day but just in case you didnt believe me the first time round I will repeat my experience for you to disbelieve again
I was insured with one of the biggies for absolutely ages
My first car was bought when I started work and consequently all of my motoring expenses come out of my account at the same time as all of my professional fees plus some other random domestics
The policy was on auto renew but this time I had to speak to them regarding a minor issue just before the renewal date
On the phone I agreed the change and was told it would go through on auto renewal as planned
Except it didnt
They had all manner of contact details for me:
address
phone
mobile phone
email
All of the above had been previously used for "marketing" purposes
But they didnt try any of them, just binned me off leading to an IN10 and 6 points
Bitter, me?
Well at the time incandescent, but after cancelling all of our policies with them I got a bit of satisfaction
The only one I kept was a cheap life policy - a mixed bag dying young but if it costs Direct Line a quarter of a mill then job done
Cheers pal
Great story and it just goes to show that nobody on PH ever gets any letters from their insurer until it's too late. Not sure what your point is other than that. Bit of a coincidence that Im posting on 2 insurance threads on the same day but just in case you didnt believe me the first time round I will repeat my experience for you to disbelieve again
I was insured with one of the biggies for absolutely ages
My first car was bought when I started work and consequently all of my motoring expenses come out of my account at the same time as all of my professional fees plus some other random domestics
The policy was on auto renew but this time I had to speak to them regarding a minor issue just before the renewal date
On the phone I agreed the change and was told it would go through on auto renewal as planned
Except it didnt
They had all manner of contact details for me:
address
phone
mobile phone
All of the above had been previously used for "marketing" purposes
But they didnt try any of them, just binned me off leading to an IN10 and 6 points
Bitter, me?
Well at the time incandescent, but after cancelling all of our policies with them I got a bit of satisfaction
The only one I kept was a cheap life policy - a mixed bag dying young but if it costs Direct Line a quarter of a mill then job done
Cheers pal
I have to say that I'm amazed how nobody gets any letters, apart from parking tickets from private parking companies, PHers seem to get loads of those.
LoonR1 said:
Great story and it just goes to show that nobody on PH ever gets any letters from their insurer until it's too late. Not sure what your point is other than that.
Sorry, I seem to have overcomplicated itMy point is that I agreed my insurance renewal over the phone
It had been on auto renewal for 14 years or so and I was told it would auto renew again a day or so after my phone call
It didnt and then they didnt tell me by any of the modalities by which I have been contacted previously for marketing purposes that i was uninsured
The first I knew was the police stopping me
The only humour was that in desperation whilst at the roadside with my family in the car with me 100 miles from home and the threat of having the car impounded the very reasonable cops allowed me to phone for cover so I could drive home, figuring my 'old' insurer would be the easiest in the circumstances due to having my details already on file I took out a policy with them on the phone
Not only did I get a 25% discount as I didnt have cover with them already aaaargh but after explaining I was speaking to them from the back seat of a police Volvo the idiot on the phone asked if I would like to transfer any of our other policies to them too - perhaps it was you I spoke to?
LoonR1 said:
I have to say that I'm amazed how nobody gets any letters, apart from parking tickets from private parking companies, PHers seem to get loads of those.
I think it's more a fact that people who didn't get the letters, or feel they were badly treated are more likely to write about it.If you had had a phone call, and were told "there's a problem with your payment. We will need to cancel your insurance, unless we settle today", then you'd settle up and forget about it.
If instead, you don't get the letter, or don't read it, and find out that you don't have insurance in some other way - then you are likely to feel aggrieved and make your frustration known.
You may, or you may not, believe my story. I can no longer prove it. It's too long ago, I'd exhausted all reasonable options to me, so there was no point me keeping the correspondence for posterity. However, it has changed my behaviour in regards to buying insurance and renewing it. In that I double check online bank statements to be sure that the payment has gone through, and I ring the insurer 2 or 3 times a week for the first couple of weeks of a new (or renewed) policy to be sure that there are no surprises.
I'm just grateful that I found out by letter, rather by criminal proceedings. An IN10 would have lost me my job.
However, my more recent experience is that insurers are much keener to communicate by e-mail or text message - and will send a message telling you that there is an issue with your account, as well as sending a letter.
The thing is that the RTA specifically requires written letters amd for them to be sent via the post. Added problems are people choosing not to answer phone to their insurer, ignoring texts, texts have to be vague as no DPA has been done so no info can be shared as to why calling, ditto on voicemails amd emails, you can refuse to sign for recorded delivery. What does that prove anyway? It doesn't prove the content of the letter. Anyway the letter wouldn't arrive like all the others didn't.
I wish I was in the position to not have to check my bank account regularly or notice that money for some form of insurance (home or car) did or didn't go out or had been returned to my account and I had £xxx more / less than I should have for that time of the month....
If you don't notice that then your either too rich to care or to silly to be in charge of your finances but either way you deserve whatever comes your way :P
If you don't notice that then your either too rich to care or to silly to be in charge of your finances but either way you deserve whatever comes your way :P
Indeed, the issue is that the RTA requires a letter sent by post. However, it doesn't preclude using an additional method to alert customers that there is something wrong and to contact customer services urgently, especially if it is something that is easily solved, like a payment problem.
Of course, this will do nothing for customers who deliberately refuse to open mail, or answer telephone calls.
However, there are a number of genuine customers who, for one reason or another, do not get urgent notifications. They may be on holiday and not get the correspondence from the insurer until they get back by which point the policy has been cancelled (the ombudsman has had a few cases like that - all dismissed as the insurer had complied with the RTA); they may mistakenly overlook the mail or discard it; the mail may be misdelivered or lost (something that happened a lot where I lived at the time, as it was a new block of flats, with similar name, postcode and address to a different block half-a-mile down the road).
My only gripe with the insurer was that they didn't use a 2nd method for such an important message - if only to tell me to contact them. It's not as thought they didn't have my number - I continued to get marketing calls from them for several months after this debacle.
My bank does this with important messages; they'll write and follow-up with a telephone call, or a message telling me to call my account manager. My stock broker does the same, I'll get a letter and an e-mail to tell me about corporate actions or other account management requirements.
Of course, this will do nothing for customers who deliberately refuse to open mail, or answer telephone calls.
However, there are a number of genuine customers who, for one reason or another, do not get urgent notifications. They may be on holiday and not get the correspondence from the insurer until they get back by which point the policy has been cancelled (the ombudsman has had a few cases like that - all dismissed as the insurer had complied with the RTA); they may mistakenly overlook the mail or discard it; the mail may be misdelivered or lost (something that happened a lot where I lived at the time, as it was a new block of flats, with similar name, postcode and address to a different block half-a-mile down the road).
My only gripe with the insurer was that they didn't use a 2nd method for such an important message - if only to tell me to contact them. It's not as thought they didn't have my number - I continued to get marketing calls from them for several months after this debacle.
My bank does this with important messages; they'll write and follow-up with a telephone call, or a message telling me to call my account manager. My stock broker does the same, I'll get a letter and an e-mail to tell me about corporate actions or other account management requirements.
LoonR1 said:
The thing is that the RTA specifically requires written letters amd for them to be sent via the post. Added problems are people choosing not to answer phone to their insurer, ignoring texts, texts have to be vague as no DPA has been done so no info can be shared as to why calling, ditto on voicemails amd emails, you can refuse to sign for recorded delivery. What does that prove anyway? It doesn't prove the content of the letter. Anyway the letter wouldn't arrive like all the others didn't.
Why can't a letter be sent, then additional methods as a courtesy? In these cases the insurers admitted they don't even *bother* to try, they just fire off a letter and if it doesn't arrive (I believe the loss rate for post is something like 0.1%) the customer is left high and dry. I can't imagine there are so many cancelled policies that making the calls is unfeasible, especially given the serious implications for their customers.I work in insurance (back end stuff though) and am amazed that some companies put so little effort in.
Edited by Gareth79 on Monday 26th January 00:41
Gareth79 said:
LoonR1 said:
The thing is that the RTA specifically requires written letters amd for them to be sent via the post. Added problems are people choosing not to answer phone to their insurer, ignoring texts, texts have to be vague as no DPA has been done so no info can be shared as to why calling, ditto on voicemails amd emails, you can refuse to sign for recorded delivery. What does that prove anyway? It doesn't prove the content of the letter. Anyway the letter wouldn't arrive like all the others didn't.
Why can't a letter be sent, then additional methods as a courtesy? In these cases the insurers admitted they don't even *bother* to try, they just fire off a letter and if it doesn't arrive (I believe the loss rate for post is something like 0.1%) the customer is left high and dry. I can't imagine there are so many cancelled policies that making the calls is unfeasible, especially given the serious implications for their customers.I work in insurance (back end stuff though) and am amazed that some companies put so little effort in.
They don't answer.
They answer but "can't talk about this now so can you call me in an hour" (all future attempts at contact fail).
They "can talk about it now" and treat you to half an hour of increasingly desperate flim-flamming about how they'll pay it all off if you can just see your way to extending the 7 days to a month. You can't because once the 7 day letter is issued its either pay up or p*ss off. So it's a stand off.
Must say I'm amazed that anyone is still taking the loon even half seriously with his history.
Don't you know that regardless of the facts, truth or genuine experience Loon is always right if he says different. When he is incontrovertibly proved wrong he just vanishes for a while then comes back even more objectionably.
Why do you bother?
Don't you know that regardless of the facts, truth or genuine experience Loon is always right if he says different. When he is incontrovertibly proved wrong he just vanishes for a while then comes back even more objectionably.
Why do you bother?
Must admit AXA were pretty poor of informing me that my insurance was due for renewal. I received no email or letter through the post. I knew renewal was due "around January 21st" so I'd already started looking for alternative quotes ready for when theirs arrived - I'd then call them and give them one chance to match my best.
Eventually I realised they had sent me a text message a fortnight before renewal and then again a week before it was due - all rather cryptic and no renewal quote on the text message, just telling me to go to their site and check I was happy as the policy would automatically renew.
Unless of course my letters of renewal were shredded and never delivered - you know, flagged as PH user.
Eventually I realised they had sent me a text message a fortnight before renewal and then again a week before it was due - all rather cryptic and no renewal quote on the text message, just telling me to go to their site and check I was happy as the policy would automatically renew.
Unless of course my letters of renewal were shredded and never delivered - you know, flagged as PH user.
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