BongoBaz, re above comment, can you check online to see if it has hit you account ?

Hi there, I sent the LBA on 4th Feb and received the usual put off reply saying it would take a while to respond. Since receiving that they've applied another charge of £12 when I was literally only £7.36 over limit. I pay monthly bill by DD & next one due 28/2 which will take under limit anyway. Basically, what would anyone suggest the best response to their reply - obviously I will include this additional charge. Many thanks in anticipation.

RedDeath, As you work for NU, can you not just report this via HR & the person concerned would be disciplined. If you went for damages etc for defamation do you not think life at NU would become a little unbearable for you ? Just a thought !

Following on from comments made above, if an insurer is advising that they intend to cancel a motor policy, they MUST give written notice of this by Recorded Delivery to the last known address on file giving a minimum of 7 days. The letter giving 14 days to pay is fine however thay are not allowed to cancel unless they also send this by Recorded Delivery and MUST also state the Road Traffic Act - along the lines " Please note that it is illegal to use and/or keep a motor vehicle on the public highway without the minimum Third Party Insurance." Contact them again and advise them the above. Ask how much is outstanding and offer to be over a reasonable time period. Should they not agree to this, ask how much the pro-rata charge is (without additional admin charges etc) and offer to pay the balance. Even if you owe them money, they cannot withold your proof of NCB, they might say different and try to but are obliged to issue it. If they do not see reason then ask for the name of the Motor Underwriter - who'll probably be based in Guildford - and write/speak to him. Failing that though, write to the Insurance ombudsman, details will be in your policy booklet. Finally, please be aware that if they have cancelled the policy, even if you still hold the certificate, they will have deleted your details from the MID so if stopped by police, they may prosecute for having no insurance. Unless you have arranged a new policy, please do not use your vehicle as you may be committing an offence. Keep at them.

Not many Short period policies around these days however you could try a company called Tradex, they tend to do anything thats "unusual" but may be on the pricey side for a standard "personal lines" policy or Co-Op (CIS) Insurance services, they used to do so in the past Motor Trade, Taxi, Courier & Chauffeur Insurance from Tradex

Agreed, these are 2 separate agreements & you should have a certificate of insurance for the PPI. I've just redone loan with Barclays as to me the PPI is not worth the paper it's written as so many exclusions etc. Check your paper work which may be on NR headed documentation as I suspect that they will arrange the PPI through a captive insurer. There is absolutely no reason why you can't cancel this. In addition, the PPI premium should not be part of the "loan" amount and should not attract interest. It is a monthly paid premium.

Exactly the same as I've received. Have sent a reply referring to my initial letter giving 14 days & will file after 14th day.

Hi Conar, If the damage was 2 separate incidents then I'm afraid that the insurers are correct. The excess will apply to each "event" unless the second loss was a direct result of the first appliance failing. The excess is not an admin charge but a proportion of the risk met by the policyholder i.e. you. The cost of administering the claim is built into the annual premium. Some policies may not have an excess however will cost a lot more than where there is an excess.

Reply received from Mike Brophy, Head of Customer relations based in London, E14 5HP. I refer to your recent letter regarding the charges you have incurred. All correspondence has now been passed to me in accordance with oyr internal complaints process. I am committed to resolving your complaint as quickly as possible and I will investigate the matter thouroughly with due regards to your comments. I expect to contact you again by 13 September. ( I think not ! they know the timescale ). Copy of complaints procedure enclosed - how kind ! And to telephone should I wish to discuss. Well I think a letter back advising they have 14 days to respond and return MY money otherwise it will be time to file.

Sent my request off last Monday & have just received a nice reply from Mike Brophy ( head of Customer relations ) @ Head Office in E14, I quote ;- I refer to your recent letter regarding the charges you have incurred. All correspondence has now been passed to me in accordance with oyr internal complaints process. I am committed to resolving your complaint as quickly as possible and I will investigate the mayyer thouroughly with due regards to your comments. I expect to contact you again by 13 September. ( I think not ! they know the timescale ). Copy of complaints procedure enclosed - how kind ! And to telephone should I wish to discuss. Well I think a letter back advising they have 14 days to respond and return MY money otherwise it will be time to file.

Just done the 14 day letter requesting full RF & will send in morning. I'll keep you all updated with developments in due course

I'm afraid it is as these charges are set out in their wordings. It is an admin fee for alteration to the policy irrespective as to whether the change results in an adjustment to the premium. Dick Turpin wouldn't have got away with this !!!

thare appears to be nothing in the policy that states they will offset any value against the instalment agreement. Albeit, if a claim is made against the policy you must pay it in full by the agreed method. If you had your £600+ from them you may get another vehicle and add it to the policy. I would write & complain as the do appear to have withheld your money to offset an agreement. It's worth a try.

If they do call, they should ask whether it is convenient to talk. Just say no & put the phone down. If you do have the opportunity though, tell them that you are writing a letter of complaint & await their response in writing only. Your letter looks fine to me.

To be honest I really don't know as this was March 1999 & prices have gone through the roof since then. I've checked on a website & currently prices are circa £110k but then, £32k was probably just short of market value - suspect would have been £40k (ish) with the right buyer.

Thanks Zooman, Arrears to date of repossesion - £1342.70 Balance at Redemption - £47 705.79 Sale Proceeds - £32 000.00 Estate GAent Costs - £910.62 Solicitor Costs - £194.37 VAT Recovered £185.83 Total o/s - £16 624.95. They have however ofered to accept £6 700.00 as a full and final settlement. There was a Mortgage Indemnity policy in place however I no longer have any copies. Thanks

Agreed Zooman re 12 years on secured debt however Council of Mortgage Lenders agree not to persue after 6 years I believe. One of my main gripes though is lack of detailed information from DCA or lender as I cannot see how so much can be owed in view of a relatively small mortgage initially & an alledged arrears amount of circa £1600. They say amount owed is over £16k. Thanks for responses so far though.

Unfortunately many of the personal lines providers now make adjustment charges which should be set out in the policy documentation, their excuse being that it costs money to make adjustments & issue revised documentation. In the case of direct Underwriters, in order to compete with the open market with premiums, their margins ( operating costs / profit etc ) are kept to a bare minimum so increase profit by charging for "additional services " Where brokers are concerned, they are remunerated by way of commission from Underwriters usually a percentage of the policy premium with an annual bonus ( can't use the word overrider now ) depending upon the profitability of the broker's account with that particular insurer. Their "admin" charges are therefore in addition their commissions from Insurers. Such additional costs are there purely to enhance profit but are not illegal albeit probably unethical as they are a charge for a service given. Yes they are a rip off but this is why ( and many will not agree with me on this one ) that personal lines car insurance is so cheap to buy in the first place. Oh dear - may have started a bit of a discussion point here !!!!

From what I can deduce, a claim was made in Feb 2004 when if the insurer had paid out & no recovery available then your NCD would be reduced at the next renewal. I am assuming that you would therefore have Nil entitlement as it appears you had less that 2 years NCD ( Unprotected ) during that year. Any subsequent policy(ies) would not accrue an NCD entitlement unless that policy had ran its term of 12 months without claim or unrecoverable loss. If a policy is cancelled mid-term, you do not accrue any NCD or part NCD ( unless that is now something new in the personal lines world ) and any subsequent policy taken out would be on Nil NCD. The advice you were given does appear to be incorrect by the "advisor" but even if you do get a recording of the conversation, I doubt it would do much good. Unfortunatley, these direct writers do not seem to employ qualified insurance personnel at the front line who actually have indepth knowledge of underwriting criteria. It's the old " well the computer says so" syndrome. I'm afraid it could be a case of having to accept the situation as it is however do write to the call centre manager / Underwriting manager again detailing your complaint & requesting that they write off the difference due to the misunderstanding and/or misrepresentation by a member of their staff. If my memory serves me right, Churchill is Underwritten by UK Insurance which is wholly owned by RBS - Worth checking on your correspondence to check who the policies are "Underwritten" by. One final thing, all policies sold are subject to the rules / regulations of the Financial Services Authority. It may be worth contacting them about your complaint. Ultimately, these guys have the power to withdraw trading licences. Best of luck.

I was wondering with the vast knowledge on this forum whether anyone could provide some needed advice. In a past life my house was repossessed (March 1999 ) and then subsequently sold by the bank with a shortfall. Correspondence was sent by the bank in August 2002 which advised the shortfall. I did not acknowledge debt in writing although there was a subsequent phone call. Years passed & now a further agent on behalf of the bank has caught up. I have had conversations with them however again I have not acknowledged anything in writing. Although the date of repossession was March 1999, the date of sale is not stated in any correspondence. On advice from CAB ( and another well known forum ) I wrote to the DCA & transcript as follows;- " I refer to previous correspondence in respect of the above and apologise for the delay in replying to this matter. Due to the nature of the correspondence, I needed to seek professional advice before replying to you in writing. Following the advice provided, I would be grateful if you could request from xxxxx full details of how the amount allegedly owed is calculated. Please therefore arrange for the following details to be provided;- Full Statement of Mortgage Account to include a complete list of transactions and charges relating to the account since its opening including charges accrued for arrears and missed payments. Date of Sale and amount received by xxxxx following the sale and expenses associated with such sale. Please acknowledge receipt of this letter in writing advising whether you are able to arrange the provision of this information. Should you not be in a position to provide this information, please provide me with the contact name and address of the xxxxx representative to whom I may write requesting the above. Until the above information is provided, I cannot be in a position to admit liability for the amount in dispute therefore please refrain from further recovery action until the above is received." I received a reply dated 26/7 following my reminder 18/7. "My client can not detail a list of transactions since the start of the mortgage as it would take a lot of manpower and time to do this. Below are details available Up until the date of repossession the arrears wrer £xxx. 1. balance at redemption was £x 2. Sale proceeds were £x 3. Estate Agents costs were £x 4 Solicitors costs weer £x 5. VAT recoverable was £x 6. Total outstanding £x The letter goes on to say that their client believes that I now have had long enough to deal with this matter & there initial agreement offer to pay 40% of the debt will no longer apply should I not accept by 20/8. Yesterday I received a letter stating I had failed to cooperate even though I have until 20/8 to reply & If I do not reply within 10 days of their letter dated 8/8 then the account will be transferred to their Legal dept to "review feasibility of forwarding account to solicitors for recovery through legal process. My questions now being ;- 1. I've requested a full breakdown of charges etc which the bank/DCA have failed to provide. There is a significant discrepancy between what was outstanding and amount allegedly owed. Also the amount the has was sold for was if I can recall, far in excess of the original mortgage amount. 2. There was a mortgage indemnity policy attached to the loan therefore, am I entitled to know any recoveries against this ? 3. Members of the CML have agreed not to persue mortgage debts where no contact / agreement etc in place 6 years from the date of sale. ( Not sure of excact date as the still have not told me ) but would assume before Apr 2000. Should they therefore still be persuing this. Any additional help / advice on this subject would be gratefully appreciated. I do intend to challenge their letter as the information requested has not actually been supplied. Sorry a bit long winded but tried to get as much fact in as possible. Many thanks.

Ed, Only the charges added for late payments and over limit can be reclaimed as they are penalty charges. You will need to reclaim these from Nationwide using the process detailed.

Just a thought here which may help. As you were 14 at the time, & this was a current account and not a credit account and would assume that there was no overdraft facility ( as you were under 18 - even though application had you as 15 ) then any debt must have been as a result of charges made for unauthorised spending. However if no OD then how did the bank allow spending on the account. In addition, although not an expert in this area, as at the time youe were under 18, can a lender legally persue a debt ? Either way, the 6 year rule still should apply so follow the link above and send them the letter recorded/registerd post. Do not telephone them & if someone rings you from the collections agency, simply refer them back to the letter & advise all future correspondence must be in writing. If the continue to phone then threaten them with legal action for harrasment. Fortunately on this one I believe the law is on your side.

Hi Trace, I've read through your thread & so that it is clear in my mind, can you confirm that when you accepted the quote, that you had 1 year NCB i.e you had been with that particular insurer for 12 months continuously before accepting the policy from the new insurer. You should therefore have received a renewal notice from the incumbent which would show a 1 year NCB entitlement. If however you changed insurance policies mid year then any time accrued would not count towards any new insurer. You must complete a full year with one insurer to qualify for an additional year of NCB ( subject to no claim ). Have you since provided the required proof to the insurers ? As a footnote, rates are calculated on a number of factors such as postcode, make & model, year of vehicle, NCB, previous claims & age etc. However, the personal lines market is extremely competitive for motor insurance at present especially now that access is a lot easier via the internet. It does pay to shop around but please read the terms of the quote as not all of the cheap policies are as Comprehensive as those from the well known brands. If you can advise further about your personal circumstances, I'll see if I can elaborate further.

Sorry, Think I'm getting my facts wrong - Its the DPA request which goes back 6 years but as Zoots says, there's know harm in trying.

AY1000 Have been reading this thread & trying to get my head round what Tesco have done. Your car was written off - was a third party involved & if so who was deemed at fault. If no other person involved & you wrote the car off, the insurer would offer you the market value of the vehicle less the excess. Did the make an offer & did you accept ? It is a while since I dealt with personal lines insurance ( commercial now ) but in the event an offer is accepted then providing to finance on a write off then the insurer should pay direct to you irrespective whether you are paying by instalments or not. However if a claim is made against the policy, the full annual premium is payable however you can/should be able to add another vehicle. Unless there is something in the policy wording that states that any AD payment made to you will be used to offset any outstanding instalments, the action they have therefore taken is incorrect. If you provide further detail of the policy and circumstances of the claim, I may be able to assist further. Ironically Tesco is Underwritten by UK Insurance who have many schemes & are ultilmately owned by one of our friendly banks - RBS !!