I have had both business and home insurance through Swinton brokers and wa advised that my home insurance was being cancelled for non payment of DD. I didnt receive any letter to pre warn me and as I had just submitted a claim for a leak they agreed to honour the claim if i paid the annual balance, I agreed to this but they immediately put my DD up to £125 per month so I therefore cancelled the DD.

My bank cancelled both policies (commercial and home) and I had a letter asking me to resubmit my bank details to keep the policy- it had to be done within a week and it was, in between this I had another cancellation letter but when I rang they told me not to worry about it, the DD mandate had returned in time and my account was up to date - this was approx 3 weeks ago.

last week I had a cancellation letter for the commercial policy because £17 hadnt been paid! im totally confused as how this could be as the DD was in place and the bank havent declined any payments from them. I need to phone to try and sort it out tomorrow but for now does anyone have any idea what rights I have under the above circumstances and also who will insure me for public liability (preferably online) after having a cancelled policy

Find out their head office contact details and put in a complaint. Swinton can be a very difficult company to deal with this, so you need to go straight to their head office to get anywhere.

Most companies send atleast 2 letters advising of DD problems before they cancel. I thought this was a FSA requirement. When you phone them, advise that you will pursue this with the FSA if necessary.

In regard to obtaining alternative cover, best advice is to phone Insurers or brokers. They won't treat the cancellation due to payment issues as being the same as non disclosure for example.

Find another broker using http://www.biba.org.uk/ConsumerHome.aspx