Inurance rip off! can anyone help???

[paulandsam98]

Hi I wonder if anyone might be able to help me with this. I recently cancelled my insurance with a major company and now they are charging me a £60 cancellation fee. The reason I cancelled the policy is that one night being a bit short of things to do I went on line and went to an insurance website that provides lots of quotes. I thought ok I will see what comes up when I put my details in.
So after putting all info in and clicking search the results appeared. Within seconds my face was turning my current provider had quoted me not 10-15% cheaper (on-line discount maybe) but a whopping 50% cheaper!
As you can imagine I phoned up my provider to question this but unfortunatly i dont speak whatever it is that they do so found it very hard to understand but one thing was for certain, they had no answer for this price increase. I have told them I am not willing to pay the charge as I was paying 50% for exactly the same policy, now starting to recieve sh**y letters from insurance co. In the meantime have switched to different provider and paying less.
So any ideas how to sort this out?????

Did you read the terms and conditions before cancelling. I suspect most of us would not, but it might be in there somewhere.

I recall being refunded for the unused portion of the policy in years gone by..whatever happened to that????

AlfaLincs

[Monty]

I think your best approach would be to get them to put in writing exactly why they are offering the same insurance significantly cheaper then what they originally offered to you. Assuming they don't give you a satisfactory response write a letter addressed to the Managing Director and see what you get. If all else fails refer the case to the insurance ombundsman.

It is highly likely that such a course of action will be more expensive in administration costs tp them then the £60 cancellation fee and your ex-insurer will realise this and offer to waive the charge.

All this pre-supposes that they can't offer a reasonable explantion of course.

[VHJDD]

Originally Posted by paulandsam98

I phoned up my provider to question this but unfortunatly i dont speak whatever it is that they do so found it very hard to understand

If you are struggling to understand your insurer, perhaps if you find your local Citizens Advice Bureaux they may be able to help you.

http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/ind....htm#searchbox

[alfaowner]

All sounds like great advice, but all of them need time, I suppose its the principals but its going to be grief to get the money back. Ask for a written explanation and see what happens.

AO

[Kevin Slegg]

You could try and argue that the cancellation fee in no way represents their true loss and was not a genuine pre-estimate of any cost incurred by them and is therefore a penalty - which is unenforceable under English law.

The thing is its all hassle.

[Dibby]

It's just the way it is, companies slap cancellation fees on to stop us looking about. It's the same with internet providers, phone providers.