To start at the beginning. In April I took out insurance for the Astra convertible. I needed to move to another company as the previous firm point blank refused to insure Chris because he is a learner.
I found a policy via Go Compare and paid the deposit of approximately 2 months and duly received the Insurance Certificate by email. The insurer was one of the well known ones. Chris sent the £20 voucher at Dominos. The car wash is open again so we had a nice clean car. All was well with the World. There’s a niggling issue with the roof mechanism but that can wait.
When closing it stops just before the end of the process which means I cannot open the boot and the ping reminder sounds every few seconds. Irritating but not serious.
Lots of great trips out with the roof down and Chris’s practice is showing real results. I rarely have to point out major errors and mostly sit back and let him drive.
On June 19th was shocked to receive a letter ‘WE’RE SORRY YOU ARE LEAVING US’ dated 11th of June.
This meant that for about 8 days we were apparently not insured.
I logged in to my account with the insurer and found there was a letter dated 24th of May advising me that a payment had not been received. I hadn’t received this letter, an email or a text message so I was totally unaware that there was a problem. My bank would have told me if a direct debit had been rejected and thus unpaid.
I called the insurer and asked why my policy had been cancelled and the adviser started off by asking me if my policy was monthly or annual. I thought all standard policies were annual so said annual.
She then abruptly told me that I paid monthly. It got worse from there on. She told me I had cancelled the policy which didn’t go down well. Then she said she would refer the case to the underwriters and call me back.
No call-back was made.
I went back to GC and took out cover with another insurer.
About a week later I received a text message. Welcome to ******. Strange as I hadn’t agreed to renew the policy.
I called again and asked why the policy had been reinstated. This adviser actually said it was my fault that the issue wasn’t resolved because I didn’t call again on the 19th. I told her to read the notes on the file before deciding what the issue was. Never a good sign when I have to say that.
Yesterday, 22nd July, a professional and polite lady called me to apologise.
She has now confirmed what she said in the phone call with a letter
I attach the text of the letter.
In fairness, because they have resolved the issue I am not mentioning their name here.
If you really want to know which company this was please email me privately
david@davidmurtagh.com
Dear Mr Murtagh
Thank you for taking the time to speak to me about your concerns. I’m pleased we were able to reach an amicable outcome to the matter.
Complaint Outcome
I’ve carefully considered the matter for you and I’m pleased to confirm I’m upholding your complaint. I have set out my findings below and outlined what we will do to put things right for you.
Background
It’s my understanding that you’re unhappy with our cancellation of your cover, also the poor service we provided. I can certainly appreciate your frustrations and I thank you for bringing this matter to my attention.
My Findings
Having reviewed your file, I have found your policy commenced on 10 April 2021. Rather than pay upfront you opted to pay by monthly direct debit.
The payment terms on the policy were a deposit payment payable at the point of purchase, followed by 10 monthly payments by direct debit. Also at the time of purchase, we confirmed the payment amounts and due dates in your close of sale documents.
Since cover was taken out, I am aware there was an issue with your first direct debit payment not being collected. As discussed, it has come to light that a number of policies have been impacted by an error whereby the direct debit mandate is not processing correctly, this error resulted in the payment not being applied for, and sadly your policy is one of the policies impacted by this error.
As we failed to apply for the payment our system generated arrears letters however, I have found these letters were suspended, and were not issued out to you. Unfortunately, we then cancelled the cover on the 11 June 2021 as we hadn’t received the first direct debit payment.
On the 18 June 2021, you contacted us to see why we’d cancelled your cover. Our agent confirmed she would arrange for cover to be rekeyed and she promised to call you back once this had been agreed. However, I have found she failed to return your call.
On the 26 June 2021 we rekeyed your cover to policy reference M*********, backdating the start date to 10 April 2021 and we accordingly transferred your deposit to the new policy.
On the 27 June 2021 you called to find out why we’d set up a new policy. You informed us as we’d failed to return your call you’d set up cover with a new provider, and you asked for the new rekeyed policy to be cancelled.
I sincerely apologise we cancelled your original policy I also apologise for our failure to send the payment request letters, and for our agent failing to return your call. As a customer, you’re entitled to expect and receive the highest level of service and on this occasion, the service you received fell short of expectations. Please be assured that we take your concerns very seriously, and when resolving such issues, we investigate them to ensure we learn from our mistakes.
My Final Decision
Given the above, I’m upholding your complaint. As discussed, by way of an apology for the poor service and the obvious inconvenience caused, I’ve arranged the following:
• To refund your deposit of £131.21, also the £21.53 that we collected on the rekeyed policy after cancellation. I’ve arranged this to your bank account, and you can expect to receive it in the next 5-7 days. Please note if we are unable to make this payment to your bank account, we’ll send a cheque to your home address and the timescale for a cheque is 10-14 days.
I hope you are happy with my review, if needed you can contact me at angela.payne@uk.rsagroup.com.
Thank you again for allowing us the opportunity to review our actions.
If you need more help
This letter represents our final decision on your complaint, and we have now closed our file. If you have any further queries about your policy, please contact our policy team on 03** **** *** and they will be happy to assist you.
You also have the right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, free of charge, but you must do so within six months of the date of this letter. If you do not refer your complaint in time, the Ombudsman will not have our permission to consider your complaint and so will only be able to do so in very limited circumstances. For example, if the Ombudsman believes that the delay was because of exceptional circumstances.
We will of course be happy to answer any questions you have in the future.
Yours sincerely************
I confess I thought of asking for a complete refund if only for the inconvenience. She assured me on the call that if there had been any issues with proving I was insured to the Police or making a claim the insurers would have been able to sort that out.
