A Little Bit Cross

[cris r]

Last year I took out a Uk annual car insurance for driving hire cars as we own a place in Spain. I took out this insurance as I was fed up paying the high price car insurance in the rental places. We go over about six times a year. Since then we have found a company in Spain that is good value. So I thought I would not bother to renew my UK insurance policy.
This morning I have received an email thanking me for renewing my policy can they just renew without my permission. I have just moved house and have had no internet for four weeks. And if they did send out a reminder it would have most likely gone into my junk box and I would not see.
Thanks for any reply's Christine

[Old_Geezer]

I received the warning that my existing insurer would steal my money to renew unless I jumped through the hoop of contacting them to tell them what I thought. I'm sure they'd claim they were looking after your own interest as you'd not want it to lapse, but I agree it's totally unacceptable unless explicitly agreed in the past. Especially via e-mail ! You must be able to claim it back though.

[boxtops]

If you pay by direct debit, then yes they can - some direct debit instructions are continuous. If you don't cancel the DD at your bank, and tell whoever's involved that you want to stop, the arrangement just goes on.

Sounds like one good reason for always checking your junk box, too - I must admit I never delete junk without checking through it first. If it doesn't recognise it as a legit email, it's not your computer's fault....

[Old_Geezer]

You do not drive in the UK now then ? Or does the Spanish policy cover UK driving ?

[Old_Geezer]

Why would you pay a one off payment by DD ?

[hc4361]

It is very common for the terms of the policy to continue the insurance unless you tell them otherwise. This prevents drivers caught without insurance using the excuse that they forgot to renew.

You have 14 days to cancel the policy without penalty, by law. You do not need to jump through hoops, just email them or better still, telephone them.

[hc4361]

OG, why wouldn't you make a one off payment by DD?

[Peter Pedant]

It will/may/could turn out that you checked the box
dja wanna automatically renew ? when you took it out.
Bit in the Sunday Papers on this recently

do as HJ suggests

[Old_Geezer]

Because DD is bad enough in itself so why go through the problem of setting it up when a cheque or card payment is simpler, easier, and more suitable ?

[Old_Geezer]

It may be common since wrongdoing will continue if someone is allowed to get away with it, but it for sure it ensures no renewal next time and probably never again. One is either dealing with a decent company or have made the mistake of dealing with a dodgy one who grabs your money without permission and thinks that is ok.

[Old_Geezer]

E-mailing them or telephoning them IS jumping through hoops. They have no right to be dipping their hands into your money without permission or even threatening to do so. Scum the lot of them.

[cris r]

Yes peter just spoke to a very nice person who informed me that this is what has happed. Apparently it happens a lot. I went onto their web page to have a look and there it was in the tiniest print tucked away in the corner ( can not see how I missed it ha ha . Fortunately you get a cooling off period so it was no problem to cancel it. Thanks for the reply's tho appreciated Christine x

[hc4361]

OG, you would have given permission in the original terms and conditions. Any way, the OP has got it easily sorted out.

I will never understand why you are so much against DD, OG.

[Old_Geezer]

Unless it is clear then no such agreement is made. Hiding stuff in the small print, assuming it is even there at all, is no excuse. They need their collected arses kicked from John O'Groats to Land's End and back again. And then twice more for good measure. Ought to be illegal.

[Hypognosis]

I would like to believe that Auto-renewal was a process that you had to actively opt-in to benefit from.

The tricky part is that it might all stem from a single tickbox on the website where you set up the policy and the form-filling page is not one which can be bookmarked or revisited. You might have no recollection of ticking the box and they will, very conveniently, have a printout of your application which shows that you did.

Proving that they 'ticked it for you' could be tricky. Not impossible but you'd effectively be accusing them of something akin to mis-selling and won't get far without solid evidence to back up your case.

If there is a way to follow the application procedure again, via their website, reach the stage where you can find an auto-renewal consent tickbox (if it exists), take a video showing it was pre-ticked and still cancel out of the page without parting with any money, then that is a start.

(Just don't stick it on YouTube until after you've got your refund!)

[hc4361]

It really isn't a problem. Even with auto-renew ticked you still get a renewal notice about a month before it is due for renewal and it always says something like - If you wish to continue your insurance with us, you need do nothing. If you wish to cancel telephone us on .......'
And it really is very easy to cancel - I do it most years.