I had my car insurance with Elephant which I paid annually, when the renewal came in I said that I would not be renewing as I could get the same insurance for £100 less, they said fine just put it in writing and that will be okay. This I did, now I have had a nasty letter saying that I owe them £50 (the yearly price was £197) and if I don't pay they will send round a debt collector.

What can I do, I wrote and cancelled and returned the policy document just as they asked me to.

Lorn250

why did they say that you owed them £50?

Elephant are owned by Admiral.

I swapped from one to the other + back again, over a couple of successive years with my car insurance.

Surprisingly, each year, the 'other' one was cheapest for me??...

I always paid up front, in total, online.

Have never had a problem with them re: Returning Policy Doc etc., even this year when I 'forgot' for 4 months.... :oops:

Am NOT sure whether they would be so understanding if I had gone elsewhere though?!...

I don't know why I owe them £50 they just say that I do. Iam going to write and ask for an explanation.

You have 14 days (some 21 days) to cancel any insurance policy that isnt wanted for whatever reason.... if you have returned the docs within this period with a covering note stating there cancel the policy then no payment is payable, there might be just trying it on to get a cancellation fee from you, don't pay it.... if there presist that you do, ask for a breakdown of what the money/charge is for in writing....

Don't be put off by them saying there will send debt collectors round to ur home, the process takes longer than that to do, these are just idle threats from them to make you pay....

I bet I can guess what might have happened here. I imagine that when you sent the letter requesting the policy be cancelled, it got held up amongst the Christmas post, and arrived after the renewal date. So you would have ended up using part of the renewal policy, without realising it. So Elephant would charge you for the days you used and they would probably charge a cancellation fee as well (the only time you're allowed to cancel a policy without incurring a cancellation charge is on the renewal date).

They will only cancel the policy on the date they receive the cancellation request - car insurance cancellation can't usually be backdated as it might cause someone to have a gap in their cover. Presumably you would have arranged a policy with an alternative insurer to start from the renewal date of your old policy. If so, this would have resulted in dual cover (the two policies would have overlapped for a few days). So what you need to do is send Elephant a copy of the certificate of motor insurance from your new insurer, to prove to them that you had other cover in place. Then they should be able to backdate the cancellation to the renewal date and you shouldn't owe them anything.