Black box insurance cancelled - help
Discussion
My daughter's car insurance was recently cancelled because she was at uni and did not drive her car. As the black box was not recording information they contacted her to make an appointment with an engineer. She phoned them to explain that she would return home on 12 December and could arrange it then but not before - ultimately they cancelled the insurance on the 9th December. She now can not get affordable insurance anywhere. She is 18 and a good driver with excellent data from her black box thus far (except for not driving it). I phoned the company and they said they were within their rights to cancel. And claimed that she needed to drive 40 miles every 10 days...nowhere in the policy can I find that detail, and because she did not get an engineer out to check it that was that. Do I have any chance of reversing this cancellation? If not how long is she going to be tarnished with this unfortunate brush? Thank you for your help.
- moderators if this would be better in speed plod and the law please move. Regards.
stephen300o said:
Is this the future? Jesus, what a messed up world where we pay a fortune to be tracked by who knows who.
That's not quite true though, is it? One assumes the OP's daughter had a black box policy because it saved money, not cost more. She was paying a fortune for insurance, not for the black box. Having the black box reduced the cost of the insurance. Klewis30 said:
My daughter's car insurance was recently cancelled because she was at uni and did not drive her car. As the black box was not recording information they contacted her to make an appointment with an engineer. She phoned them to explain that she would return home on 12 December and could arrange it then but not before - ultimately they cancelled the insurance on the 9th December. She now can not get affordable insurance anywhere. She is 18 and a good driver with excellent data from her black box thus far (except for not driving it). I phoned the company and they said they were within their rights to cancel. And claimed that she needed to drive 40 miles every 10 days...nowhere in the policy can I find that detail, and because she did not get an engineer out to check it that was that. Do I have any chance of reversing this cancellation? If not how long is she going to be tarnished with this unfortunate brush? Thank you for your help.
- moderators if this would be better in speed plod and the law please move. Regards.
This happened to a mate of mine.
His little KA has blown a whole in the block. 9 months to go on black box policy. He went off to uni a week later so now doesn't need a car.
He calls the insurer and tells them what has happened, the car has died and they want to charge him a 4 figure sum to remove the black box and cancel the policy.
Same scenario as your daughter they want him to travel 'X' miles in a defined period as a minimum. He told the insurer he wanted to scrap the car and they said if it didn't have a signal at all then they would assume it was ring jammed. They gave him 3 months grace to fix the problem or they would cancel his insurance.
So, he's had to have the car on trickle since to keep the battery topped up so the box can call home periodically, how true that is with respect to wiring i don't know, it may well be wired to ignition only but ins company told him it was perm live.
Anyway, the genius solution? His poor father drags the stranded KA onto a car trailer and parks it up. They once a week he switches the ignition on and tows it to work and back.
What a faff. He's only got 6 months to go till he can rip it out and dump it at the scrapper.
His little KA has blown a whole in the block. 9 months to go on black box policy. He went off to uni a week later so now doesn't need a car.
He calls the insurer and tells them what has happened, the car has died and they want to charge him a 4 figure sum to remove the black box and cancel the policy.
Same scenario as your daughter they want him to travel 'X' miles in a defined period as a minimum. He told the insurer he wanted to scrap the car and they said if it didn't have a signal at all then they would assume it was ring jammed. They gave him 3 months grace to fix the problem or they would cancel his insurance.
So, he's had to have the car on trickle since to keep the battery topped up so the box can call home periodically, how true that is with respect to wiring i don't know, it may well be wired to ignition only but ins company told him it was perm live.
Anyway, the genius solution? His poor father drags the stranded KA onto a car trailer and parks it up. They once a week he switches the ignition on and tows it to work and back.
What a faff. He's only got 6 months to go till he can rip it out and dump it at the scrapper.
Klewis30 said:
My daughter's car insurance was recently cancelled because she was at uni and did not drive her car. As the black box was not recording information they contacted her to make an appointment with an engineer. She phoned them to explain that she would return home on 12 December and could arrange it then but not before - ultimately they cancelled the insurance on the 9th December. She now can not get affordable insurance anywhere. She is 18 and a good driver with excellent data from her black box thus far (except for not driving it). I phoned the company and they said they were within their rights to cancel. And claimed that she needed to drive 40 miles every 10 days...nowhere in the policy can I find that detail, and because she did not get an engineer out to check it that was that. Do I have any chance of reversing this cancellation? If not how long is she going to be tarnished with this unfortunate brush? Thank you for your help.
I would suggest your daughter puts this all in writing to the insurance company. - moderators if this would be better in speed plod and the law please move. Regards.
If she is the main insured on her car unless you have been nominated by her to them I'm surprised they'll even give you the time of day much less discuss the matter with you.(That's from experience with my own children's insurers - even though I was a named driver and the one paying for it!)
If there is nothing in their T&Cs about a minimum mileage requirement and if the car is at her home address & she is away at Uni the request for an engineer examination during term time and the subsequent cancellation may be unreasonable.
If she is dissatisfied with their response then a call to the Financial Ombudsman for their advice could be the next avenue.
http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications...
eltax91 said:
This happened to a mate of mine.
His little KA has blown a whole in the block. 9 months to go on black box policy. He went off to uni a week later so now doesn't need a car.
He calls the insurer and tells them what has happened, the car has died and they want to charge him a 4 figure sum to remove the black box and cancel the policy.
Same scenario as your daughter they want him to travel 'X' miles in a defined period as a minimum. He told the insurer he wanted to scrap the car and they said if it didn't have a signal at all then they would assume it was ring jammed. They gave him 3 months grace to fix the problem or they would cancel his insurance.
So, he's had to have the car on trickle since to keep the battery topped up so the box can call home periodically, how true that is with respect to wiring i don't know, it may well be wired to ignition only but ins company told him it was perm live.
Anyway, the genius solution? His poor father drags the stranded KA onto a car trailer and parks it up. They once a week he switches the ignition on and tows it to work and back.
What a faff. He's only got 6 months to go till he can rip it out and dump it at the scrapper.
I shouldn't be that's got me in stitches! What an absolute ball ache! His little KA has blown a whole in the block. 9 months to go on black box policy. He went off to uni a week later so now doesn't need a car.
He calls the insurer and tells them what has happened, the car has died and they want to charge him a 4 figure sum to remove the black box and cancel the policy.
Same scenario as your daughter they want him to travel 'X' miles in a defined period as a minimum. He told the insurer he wanted to scrap the car and they said if it didn't have a signal at all then they would assume it was ring jammed. They gave him 3 months grace to fix the problem or they would cancel his insurance.
So, he's had to have the car on trickle since to keep the battery topped up so the box can call home periodically, how true that is with respect to wiring i don't know, it may well be wired to ignition only but ins company told him it was perm live.
Anyway, the genius solution? His poor father drags the stranded KA onto a car trailer and parks it up. They once a week he switches the ignition on and tows it to work and back.
What a faff. He's only got 6 months to go till he can rip it out and dump it at the scrapper.
paintman said:
I would suggest your daughter puts this all in writing to the insurance company.
If she is the main insured on her car unless you have been nominated by her to them I'm surprised they'll even give you the time of day much less discuss the matter with you.(That's from experience with my own children's insurers - even though I was a named driver and the one paying for it!)
If there is nothing in their T&Cs about a minimum mileage requirement and if the car is at her home address & she is away at Uni the request for an engineer examination during term time and the subsequent cancellation may be unreasonable.
If she is dissatisfied with their response then a call to the Financial Ombudsman for their advice could be the next avenue.
http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications...
This, easily the best advice on here. Particularly the ombudsman part, something I've found very helpful in the past with various organisations. If none of these work then get a friendly solicitor to write a formal letter asking them to show in the T&Cs where it covers the minimum mileage, I suspect they would just give in at that point.If she is the main insured on her car unless you have been nominated by her to them I'm surprised they'll even give you the time of day much less discuss the matter with you.(That's from experience with my own children's insurers - even though I was a named driver and the one paying for it!)
If there is nothing in their T&Cs about a minimum mileage requirement and if the car is at her home address & she is away at Uni the request for an engineer examination during term time and the subsequent cancellation may be unreasonable.
If she is dissatisfied with their response then a call to the Financial Ombudsman for their advice could be the next avenue.
http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications...
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