Insurer back charging me £1000+

Personally tell them you are not renewing. Then cancel Direct Debit, then wait to see if it appears in writing. While waiting for this to most likely happen, seek advice and do your home work. You maybe have to take this to a small claims court and argue the case especially as its £1000. Also follow the insurers own complaints procedure.

At the end of the day you made a mistake honest or not.
 
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matthab said:
Personally tell them you are not renewing. Then cancel Direct Debit, then wait to see if it appears in writing. While waiting for this to most likely happen, seek advice and do your home work. You maybe have to take this to a small claims court and argue the case especially as its £1000. Also follow the insurers own complaints procedure.

At the end of the day you made a mistake honest or not.
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Lol at the idea of taking the insurers to court.
 
Is it not as simple as looking in the T&Cs of the policy?

If there is anything in there along the lines of reserving the right to charge you for non-disclosure then I would imagine, having agreed to the T&Cs, that the OP is liable.

I would consider giving the Financial Ombudsman Service a call - they might be able to provide info or guidance.
 
SC0TTRS said:
Yes OP! everyone here is whiter then white, savours of man kind I call them. :rolleyes:

Some people need to take their own heads out of their own arses.
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He broke the law, then blew himself up to his insurers.

They have tv shows in America for people like him :D
 
matthab said:
Personally tell them you are not renewing. Then cancel Direct Debit, then wait to see if it appears in writing. While waiting for this to most likely happen, seek advice and do your home work. You maybe have to take this to a small claims court and argue the case especially as its £1000. Also follow the insurers own complaints procedure.

At the end of the day you made a mistake honest or not.
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Worst idea ever, small claims will get nowhere & if the policy isn't paid up say bye to your NCD as money is still owing.

This is a normal scenario, I used to get it a couple of times a week when I worked for an insurer, there is nothing to complain about as material facts weren't disclosed and you got found out, a complaint will be open & shut. Bear in mind calls will be recorded and kept for probably 6+ years so don't try and say you told them previously either.

As mentioned above it normally got discovered at the point of claiming and the additional premium got deducted from the claim although I have seen a couple of claims refused apart from the 3rd party element they were all for undisclosed mods rather than points, oh how I got some abuse on those phone calls :D
 
As stated elsewhere, you need to read the specific set of terms and conditions for your policy

In terms of the sum however, I would be interested in how they have calculated the additional premium and how they can prove it is a reflection of what you would have been charged.

Regardless of the fact you should have told them (and negligence really is no excuse), it does not absolve them of their responsibility to act both fairly and reasonably.

If they can/will provide you with details on how the uplift is calculated and you can test it on a similar policy quote now(i.e with the details you would have used in the previous years) then you're into plums really. If you see a vastly different amount then it may help argue the case downwards, even though it is only an indication.

Given they have suffered no material loss regardless of the risk I'd have a guess that you will be successful in reducing the charge. Cancelling direct debits/ not corresponding is not the way to go. Discuss formally and take formally to the ombudsman only if and when these channels are exhausted
 
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rodenal said:
If however they can/will provide you with details on how the uplift is calculated and you can test it on a similar policy quote now(i.e with the details you would have used in the previous years) then you're into plums really
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I might be wrong here as other insurers may be different but i'm pretty sure they recalculate the policy as it would have been at the time so an online quote may not be reflective as that is todays ratings. I highly doubt you will get a detailed calculation as to how a policy is calculated as it will be deemed commercially sensitive, a competitor would love to see it. And if you did I doubt it would make any sense.
 
I think you're probably correct, but at the same time they can't simply pluck a figure from thin air and demand it is blindly paid without question or justofication. The only way for the OP to get some sort of verification is to look.t what it would cost now, though I accept your point.

I have been told roughly how insurers would calculate uplifts for certain changes in the past so it's always worth exploring
 
I would have thought that each year was its own contract.

The idea that they could go back and say "By the way, we think you mislead us so we want a back charge" is monstrous.
(Mind, I can think of an alternative argument! :( )

I would tell them to go **** themselves!

(The down side of course is that they will no doubt tell all their scummy Insco mates about you which might cause probs in the future.)

Ho Humm!
 
All I'm really trying to get at is that it is not unreasonable to request detail on how the sum has been calculated. Personally a response of "trust us, we have calc'd it as we would have then" wouldn't be remotely acceptable to me if i could look at similar quotes now and see, for example a quarter of the uplift. Whether any detail was ever actually provided is a different matter I guess
 
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Vargas said:
This. Dont pay them anything and cancel.
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This is a stupid idea.

The company is willing to charge a back dated policy increase and stand by OP and his insured status during that time despite the endorsement not being disclosed.

Or:

He can refuse to pay and the insurance company can void his policy for that entire time, potentially look into an obtaining insurance fraudulently offence or otherwise.
 
I'm not certain they can void any policy that has been honoured and is now expired tbh, though i can see how they may choose to remove ncb proof
 
Policy won't be voided as you have to be really naughty for that. It'll likely end up with NCD being held back and it being recorded as an unpaid debt which will go on his credit file & at 1k+ probably get passed to debt collection.
 
I'm struggling to see why there would be a back charge. A charge for what exactly - the period of time that's already elapsed without any claims being presented? When you renewed your policy it was underwritten based on the information presented. You've now gone nearly a full year on that basis and not presented any claims. If you had, then the claim will likely have been challenged, but no claim was made. Neither you nor they need to go back for nearly a year and re-underwrite the past on new terms. This is the equivalent of you phoning your insurer and asking for an insurance quote to cover you for your driving for a year back in 2010. Pointless.

The pragmatic approach is that you now have to pay the correct premium for the remainder of your policy term - a few days or weeks by the sounds of things - plus the inevitable admin fees. Then you can re-quote and reinsure for the next full policy year.

TLDR: the insurer has not and cannot incur additional cost for the duration of the policy that's already lapsed as that would be insuring the past, hence should not be able to levy a back charge.
 
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