Admiral left us without car insurance for 4 months without informing us, what can be done?

[serendipityretail]

We have had a rather disturbing telephone conversation with Admiral Car Insurance today when trying to renew our policy. We adjusted our policy (my fiancé is the main driver I am still learning) in August to add myself to the policy over the telephone which incurred an extra cost which we paid by credit card over the phone to the representative of Admiral at the time of making adjustments.

 

However today when we called to renew we were told that for some reason the payment didn't go through and that they then cancelled our policy (even though we had paid until the end of December on the original policy). Therefore we have unknowingly been driving the car since August without insurance. This was back in August, nobody contacted at any time regarding this matter.

 

Therefore if we had been in a crash then we would have not been insured and my fiancé could have been faced with charges of driving without insurance. We have also lost the no claims bonus for the whole year.

 

Any advice on how we should proceed would be greatly appreciated.

 

Many Thanks

 

Serendipity

[smoore102]

Hello,

 

A slightly similar thing happened with me and the AA earlier this year. I had moved house and they never changed the address on my policy, meaning I was uninsured for a good few months. After complaining a lot, and them managing to lose the recordings for the telephone calls I made to change my details, they gave me a refund for the period I was not insured for. That was good enough for me, although if you want to take it further you would probably have to go higher. Someone with more experience will be around soon to advise you what to do to escalate this I am sure.

 

smoore102

[serendipityretail]

Thanks Smoore102 we are desperately phoning around insurance companies now to try and go with someone else. Any recommendations?

[smoore102]

I managed to get with More Than. They are a bit more pricey, but you don't have to pay a deposit up front for instalments, which I find is a good thing at this time of year

[Wulfyn]

Personally Iwould advise against trying to reclaim any money. As you were not told that the policy was cancelled, and because you had paid until the end of the year then an insurance company would have a very hard time insisting that in fact you were not insured by them as per the original cover. There is more of an issue with the ammendment that you made being valid (ie that you were added), but again if the funds were there but they did not take them then that is a problem with your insurer or bank, not you.

 

 

If you try to reclaim the money for the period that they say you were uninsured for (no matter how appealing the extra cash might be) then you are effectively agreeing / admitting that you were not insured during that period. It might be very unlikley to happen but if there were a problem in the last couple of months that required you to prove you were insured during that time you would be in a lot of trouble, and personally I don't think that is worth the risk.

 

 

 

I would progress this by insisting to your insurer that you were covered and making sure that you earn your extra NCD year, and then going to another insurer. As I work for an insurance company I won't recommend anyone specific, but I think it is always worthwhile using one or two aggregator / comparison sites to get a rough idea of the range of prices you would be expected to pay to make sure that whoever you do go with isn't ripping you off.