I signed up to AA home insurance February 2017. I paid circa £120 up front for the year.

I moved house in November 2017. It was cheaper to go with someone else, so I called aa to cancel my existing policy and also cancelled my dd.

It seems that they tried to auto renew me in february and failed to take an annual payment. I have post redirection but didnt receive any notification of this.

I have now received a default notice and a request for monies.

After speaking to their customer service manager they have promised to review their records to see if I did call or not. I cannot prove that I did as my phone doesnt go that far back.

I am sure they have very clever t&c's but do I have a leg to stand on?

Nope it's not like car ins

They should not auto renew without authorisation

Make sure they've not trashed your credit file

Then ignore them

You owe nowt

I think they have marked my file or are at least threatening to do so if I dont pay some charges.

I could understand it it I tried to cancel within the 12 months and hadn't paid all of the monthly instalments, but this is different.

They are looking at their records, its not really in their commercial interests to help me.

Is there any action I can take?

Why did the auto renewal in Feb 2018 fail? "...they tried to auto renew me in february and failed to take an annual payment..."

To put it another way, they auto renewed another years house insurance for a property I no longer live at in February but were unable to take a payment as the DD was cancelled.

Presumably thy sent out a letter a few weeks in advance, but this didnt get redirected and so the first I knew of the problem was a threatogram.

As far as I knew, it was cancelled. As far as they concerned I have failed to keep up payments.

Don't call them again, write and set out your position clearly.

I'd say something like:

-- I called you on/about November xth and told you I was moving and the policy was to be cancelled. You said to me that.... [give a brief summary of the conversation]

-- I did not receive an auto-renewal letter from you in February 2018 (my post is redirected so I would have got it if one had been sent). I did not query this because I was not expecting to receive any such letter as the policy was no longer in force

-- I have had no insurable interest in Property A since November 2017 so I could not have insured it even if I had wanted to.

-- There was no policy in force for you to auto renew in February 2018, I have not renewed any policy with you, and therefore I do not owe you any money.

Someone else may be able to suggest some improvements to that, but keep it short and factual. Send it Tracked mail (recorded delivery).

Also check with your bank about when you cancelled the DD. When you cancelled it did they tell the AA it had been cancelled? I have a feeling banks do tell the company named in the DD. If so add that to the letter. "After my phone call I cancelled the DD, My bank confirms they told you direct that I had cancelled the DD. As you did mnot ask me why I had cancelled the DD it is reasonable to assume that you knew why I had cancelled the DD, because the policy had been cancelled". Or some such.

Many thanks Ethel and dx.

I will use this to drafted a letter to them. There are a few similar but older threads on here with no conclusion. I will keep this up to date.

What is amusing is that they called me at 7pm on Friday 29th from the number 01614958179 and tried to sell me a load of services. Clearly a broken organisation who would take action against someone for supposed bad debt and try to sell more to them at the same time!

When did you move?

For how long did you arrange with PO for all Mail to be re-directed to your new address?

When did you move?

November 2017 according to OP's post #1.

I got that but I was also seeking OPs response to my 2nd related question.

hi mariner.

I moved in november and I paid for 12 months of redirection (iirc it was £40 for 6 months or £60 for 12).

Received a standard email in response to my letter. Not good enough really as they are threatening to trash my credit file and there is no mention of any action being put on hold.

Thank you for taking the time to contact us about your concerns from which we are sorry to learn of your dissatisfaction.

 

 

 

We are required to investigate these concerns within a period of eight weeks from the date your complaint was received. Of course, we do not anticipate that it will take eight weeks to complete our investigation but we are required to inform you of the expectations of our regulator in dealing with complaints of this nature.

 

 

 

It is possible that you will not hear from us for a couple of weeks while we complete our review, however we will advise you of our findings as soon as possible. In the meanwhile, a copy of our internal complaints procedure can be found here http://www.theaa.com/aboutaa/complaints.

where is there any mention of trashing your credit file? they tried to take an unsolicited payment for a product you no longer have or want so to threaten you would be foolhardy. No-one has to ahve household insurance and the worst they can do is lose themselves business by gaining a bad reputation

Correct me if I am wrong but a default sum showing on your account doesnt look good?

The story continues.

They took 3 months worth of payments £76 from my credit card on Monday (assume this is a card that I first used to setup the account).

An absolute shambles of a company.

Go get it back then from your card provider then

did you pay the premium by instalments as it appears to be the case. If so then they will have set up a continuous payment authority so yes, they can default you for not paying but only you will know whether you agreed to autorenew.

You may have to get a copy of the original conversation transcript if you did it by phone but in the meanwhile start instructing them rather than complaining.

likewise your bank, tell them that there was no authority and they should reverse the payments collected.

The bank will ask AA about this so be adamant and make sure the bank knows exactly what happened and when so they arent led by the Aa's claim that they have the right to do anything they want.

essentially it is a credit agreement we are looking at now, not an insurance contract so dates of when it started and finished ordinarily and exactly what you told them when you moved

Thanks for your help. Yes, I am actually paying by 12 monthly instalments, the first one jan 17.

It was cheaper to go with someone else, so I called aa to cancel my existing policy. I was advised that I could pay up front now or let the last 2 payments run. In hindsight, I dont think it was cancelled. I have asked for transcripts in my complaint but this can take weeks.

What do you mean by "start instructing"?

I have received 2 threats today from AA.

They want £600 from me are continuing to force me to pay.

This seems highly unfair as they told me it would be 8 weeks before they could investigate.

How can I put this on hold until they can at least sort out their own investigation?

just let it run

they cant harm you