Insurance question - re cancellation charges.

[MMT]

I've just sold my car and cancelled the policy which had auto renewed about 18 days ago.
The insurance was £405.
Anyway today they've come up with this list of charges.
Cancellation fee. £25.00
Direct debit fee. £25.00
Renewal fee. £30.00
Excess cover £39.99
Commission £42.00
Insurance cover £46.00
Total £207.99
Does this seem right?
I was hoping some of the guys in the trade such as Loon could give me their experienced opinion please.

[alpha channel]

Not in the trade but I'd say that little lot is more than a tad excessive. I'd take a good look at their cooling off period as well, even though the insurance is auto renewed I can only (from my point of view) look at it as a new contract and as such any cooling off period should be in effect.

[Denis O]

Isn't cooling off 14 days?

This looks like a set of spurious charges (all in T&C's sir) that even Flux would be proud of!!!

[MMT]

Do Flux have a bad reputation then?

[Denis O]

MMT said:

Do Flux have a bad reputation then?

When it comes to charges after early cancellation...........yes.

[alpha channel]

By law it is a minimum of 14 days, depending on the company this can be longer (according to citizens advice anyway).

[bad company]

MMT said:

I've just sold my car and cancelled the policy which had auto renewed about 18 days ago.
The insurance was £405.
Anyway today they've come up with this list of charges.
Cancellation fee. £25.00
Direct debit fee. £25.00
Renewal fee. £30.00
Excess cover £39.99
Commission £42.00
Insurance cover £46.00
Total £207.99
Does this seem right?
I was hoping some of the guys in the trade such as Loon could give me their experienced opinion please.

I would ask them to justify all this. For example what is the direct debit fee for? You can and should cancel that yourself at the bank.

Renewal fee - wtf is that all about?
Commission - to who? for what?
Insurance cover - is that for the 18 days?
Excess cover again - wtf is that all about?

[numtumfutunch]

You've been done

My missus recently cancelled with a notoriously bad company who:

a) charged a lot less than you have been

b) rolled over and called it quits when challenged

Curious who you used :scratchin:

[MMT]

bad company said:

I would ask them to justify all this. For example what is the direct debit fee for? You can and should cancel that yourself at the bank.

Renewal fee - wtf is that all about?
Commission - to who? for what?
Insurance cover - is that for the 18 days?
Excess cover again - wtf is that all about?

Well they're exactly my thoughts. I told them on the phone that I wasn't happy and I got told, your bill is being sent out to you, if it's not paid within seven days it goes to our debt collection agency. Nice.

[MMT]

numtumfutunch said:

You've been done

My missus recently cancelled with a notoriously bad company who:

a) charged a lot less than you have been

b) rolled over and called it quits when challenged

Curious who you used :scratchin:

Well strangely enough they may have been mentioned already.

[bad company]

MMT said:

bad company said:

I would ask them to justify all this. For example what is the direct debit fee for? You can and should cancel that yourself at the bank.

Renewal fee - wtf is that all about?
Commission - to who? for what?
Insurance cover - is that for the 18 days?
Excess cover again - wtf is that all about?

Well they're exactly my thoughts. I told them on the phone that I wasn't happy and I got told, your bill is being sent out to you, if it's not paid within seven days it goes to our debt collection agency. Nice.

The debt collection agency can do nothing without a court order. I very much doubt they would want to try to justify that lot in the County Court.

[XslaneyX]

Surely if they sell the "debt" onto a collection agency (third party) then that would mean it's paid off? You have no contract with anyone other then the insurance co so would tell the third party to not bother as no agreement exists between you and them.

happy to be corrected though

[TwigtheWonderkid]

bad company said:

Renewal fee - wtf is that all about?
Commission - to who? for what?
Insurance cover - is that for the 18 days?
Excess cover again - wtf is that all about?

Renewal fee would have been part of the renewal quote that you agreed to renew. Normally a one off charge and non refundable
Commission- brokers earn a commission, a percentage of the annual premium. This is earned on the new business and renewal premiums and is usually non refundable.
Insurance cover, that's the cost of the 18 days cover you've actually had. If you'd written the car off last week you would have claimed.
Excess cover - a separate policy to refund your excess if you have a fault claim. Eg, you get a £50 discount to take £250 excess, and they sell you a policy for £35 to insure your excess. So you save £15 for no risk. But the excess policy is usually a one off cost and non refundable.

You need to check the Tc & Cs of the contract before you can say if it's wrong or not. But sounds like they've done their homework and you're in for the costs.

[MMT]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Renewal fee would have been part of the renewal quote that you agreed to renew. Normally a one off charge and non refundable
Commission- brokers earn a commission, a percentage of the annual premium. This is earned on the new business and renewal premiums and is usually non refundable.
Insurance cover, that's the cost of the 18 days cover you've actually had. If you'd written the car off last week you would have claimed.
Excess cover - a separate policy to refund your excess if you have a fault claim. Eg, you get a £50 discount to take £250 excess, and they sell you a policy for £35 to insure your excess. So you save £15 for no risk. But the excess policy is usually a one off cost and non refundable.

You need to check the Tc & Cs of the contract before you can say if it's wrong or not. But sounds like they've done their homework and you're in for the costs.

You're probably correct in all you say, it's probably all in the small print. Direct Line don't have all this hidden small print, you cancel, you pay for what you've used plus a reasonable admin charge. If you listen to the bks while you're waiting for Flux to answer the phone...we are here to get you the best possible deals and puff like that.

[Denis O]

Good Lord. Ash strikes again.

Where are you when you're needed you muppet.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

MMT said:

You're probably correct in all you say, it's probably all in the small print. Direct Line don't have all this hidden small print,

There's no such thing as small print. It's a myth. People say small print but they mean normal sized print they were too sodding lazy to read.

[bad company]

The charges still have to be reasonable. I would be inclined to invite them to sue you. Even if they win they would effectively lose as they cannot recover their costs.

[anonymous-user]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

There's no such thing as small print. It's a myth. People say small print but they mean normal sized print they were too sodding lazy to read.

True, but as someone who used to run a pretty large insurance broker that wasn't shy of putting charges on I am pretty impressed by this effort.

I can hear the internal meetings now.

We used to give up after a couple letters (apart from the strict premium due to insurer) but they may choose not to release NCD proof and such like.

I would imagine they wouldn't want too much scrutiny of that Excess protection policy though.

ETA: the annual commission looks low - I wonder why they do it that way?

Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 16th May 23:16

[caziques]

In any case the actual amounts charged should reflect the actual cost of doing it, not some random penalty.

Hence as the charges appear to be penalties they can't (or shouldn't) be enforced.

Good news if it goes to a debt collector, they have no powers. One letter could be written, denying any debt, refer back to insurance co, further communications are harassment.

[MMT]

No you're right I was perhaps too lazy to read the 14 pages of normal size print. I have had to cancel insurance before when swapping for cars that the insurer couldn't quote competitively. This is the first time I have ever been stung for for this much. I don't recall ever asking for insurance against my excess so I will ask them about that and like I have quoted a couple of times, Direct Line charged my daughter the exact proportional cost used plus £30 admin. There wasn't that much difference between AF and Direct Line so maybe it was a false economy.
Anyway, be warned.