Alliance & leics (equity) car insurance ...cancellation charge

[davzer]

I took out car insurance with A&L via online. I set the insurance to have no excess on the policy and was given a price of £293, which I thought good for a group 17 car. I paid online.

 

7 days later a letter arrives asking for proof of my no claims, which I posted to them ( took me 5 days to find it! lol) I then get my documents after another week but with a £200 excess on the policy and a request for a further £42!

 

I phoned and told them I was unhappy, but they wouldn't do anything, so I cancelled the policy, for which they have invoiced me for £45. I have refused to pay. I consider this most underhand, lure you in via the deal on the website and then renege on the deal and ask for more money! extortion!

 

I took screenshots of the quoted deal and what it included when I paid online, do they have to honour this deal? Do I have to pay cancellation charge? Should I report this to trading standards?

 

Any advice most welcome

[Darkangelsdelite]

Hi there,

 

First of all lets try and clear up a few things to give you the best advise possible.

1) how long was the policy in force before you cancelled it? If it was within the first 14 days then there's no cancellation charge as you automatically get a 14 day cooling off period under FSA regulations.

 

2) you say they sent you a letter asking you for an extra £42, what was this for? was it due to a problem with NCD or a undisclosed claim or something?

 

3) when you say that you cancelled the policy, presumably you asked them to cancel the policy when you were on the phone to them and didn't just cancel the direct debit.

 

 

 

DA

[davzer]

Hi Darkangelsdelite,

The 14 days were up, due to the xmas holiday slowing things down and my difficulty in digging out my renewal from my 'special' filing system.

The extra £42 was because I put my renewal as £324 but it was £347, I didn't have my renewal when I got the quote online, as I was getting quotes in preparation for my renewal, so i put down what I paid previously as it would be close.

The increase of £200 excess is unforgivable when I was quoted no excess on the website, they didn't even let me know by writing, they just added it on in the documents.

 

I have cancelled the policy on the phone and then cancelled my direct debit.

 

I'm going back to sainsburys car insurance who have now quoted me £327.

[Darkangelsdelite]

Ok so as i see it: You were outside your 14 day cooling off period meaning that they are within their rights to charge you at the least for the "time on risk" plus potentially a cancellation fee to cover the costs of setting up the policy. So in this case, i don't really see you have a lot of choice here other than to pay up as you've had the cover.

 

The £42 was basically cos they agreed to "beat your renewal quote" or something then when you renewal quote was sent to them for verification, the figure was higher than you told them so they amended their quote to take this into account.

To be honest, that sounds fair to me. They gave you a price based on the info you gave them, the info then turned out to be in-accurate so they rightfully corrected their quote based on the correct info, in this case in generated and extra £42 premium but this would have been included in the original quote had the info you gave them been correct in the first place.

 

As far as your XS goes, I cant see any logical reason why the XS on the docs would differ from what you were told on-line. The only thing i can think of is that you are perhaps getting your voluntary and compulsory XS's mixed up. You say you set the policy up with "zero XS" I can only assume that means a zero VOLUNTARY XS as i cant see a group 17 car not having some kind of compulsory XS as its no doubt a sports car of some sort so will be a high risk. My guess would be that the £200 XS is actually the compulsory XS that applies to the vehicle due to the group rating and is therefore also correct.

Only way to check this out is to call them up and see what they say.

 

 

Hope This Helps

 

 

DA