It's in your rights to ask for a breakdown of any charge anyone sends you. Definitely do so and post back here as to what they say.

The reason why they can do this is a very technical part of what insurance does - to indemnify you against loss for a certain period of time. That you pay by direct debit only confuses the matter. You should not think of paying in installments as paying for your insurance in installments because that is not what it is. What happens is that a finance company loans you the money to pay the entire balance of the insurance contract, and then you repay them the loan. Getting the difference helps a lot in inderstanding what the insurance contract provides, because now you understand that you are not paying 'a month at a time', you are simply repaying a loan. So I'm the insurance company and I offer for the fee of £500 to cover you for damage to your vehicle and for any damage that you are liable for through using that vehicle for a period of up to one year. So we strike a deal and a week later your car gets stolen and never recovered. Now a couple of things kick in here, but mainly we are in a total loss situation - that means that once I have paid you for your total loss the contract is considered as complete and finished. It's the lack of having anything left to insure that triggers this. So you paid me £500 to cover you, and I have done just that. It doesn't matter at what point during the year you make this claim, but naturally some time limit has to occur. That you pay by direct debit makes no difference as you still owe the finance company whatever part you have not paid fo the £500 they lent you to pay me. Does that make more sense now?

From a quick glance those rating groups seem very basic and some of them are very much out of line with my experience. It is not uncommon to have over 50 different rating groups in an insurance product, and these can and do change over time. For example your old address may have been reclassified as a higher risk area whilst you were away from it. Ratings can change for a large variety of reasons - technical cost, competition with other insurers, limitation of exposure, willingness to sacrifice profitability for volume etc.

What is the name of the insurance product that you have bought (will be on the polc dcumentaton / guide)?

Legal Aid and ULR are very different things - you cannot force your insurer to go to court because their contract has agreed to indemnify any damages you take, and it is up to them to decide whether they wish to recover any of these costs. But Legal Aid is a separate section, and underwritten differently. It's not a part of an insurance contract per se, rather a benefit. Check the terms and conditions of your legal aid cover to find out what rights you have. What exactly are the other driver's insurers trying to claim? It seems to me that you had 2 areas of damage - to the rear of your car where the driver behind hit your car, and to the front of your car where you were shunted into the car in front. Now the other insurer can do nothign about the damage to the rear of your car, the driver behind should have left enough space to stop. However they may be claiming that the damage to the front of the car (solely) was caused by your son, and not by the shunt. This is a trickier situation to prove.

Ok this is a bit weird. Are you trying to get out of paying because you didn't sign the credit agreement? That might give you some standing with regard to paying Premium Credit Ltd but would not save you for the premium - your insurer will just remove the pay by installments option and charge you the full premium. However that said I think they are bull****ting you by saying that you have to pay the full premium. Usually the penalty is the pro-rata insurance cost (so whatever was in April, May, June and July) plus a cancellation fee usually around £40-£50. If you have alreay paid up to date then it should just be the cancellation fee. Why are they telling you that you need to pay the full amount?

Provisional Licence holders often get a discount.

Well they were lucky indeed, as the vehicle value should establish the limit of indemnity. You should check the policy wording to ensure that this is specified however - if they don't cap the LOI at the given vehicle value then it is worth pushing for more.

Dizzy - you are right to be concerned as this is a grey area. Even if the staff tell you that it is ok does not necessarily mean that a claim will be processed - after all you know it is fronting and you still have gone ahead with it. For the record I'm totally on your side here, but I know how claims departments work and most will try to wriggle out of it any way that they can. You are right to get written confirmation. With this you could at least then claim against the insurer for the poor advice given! The only thing I can think of in your favour is that good pricing models will have already taken into account your son. The concept of main and named drivers is fuzzy at best - if you drove the car 51% of the time how much of a 'main' driver are you, for example. To cover this many pricing models don't care who is put as the main or named drivers, as they will pick the riskiest and rate that as the main driver (as it is the driver most likely to cause a claim). This is by no means a solid defence, but it might be what the insurer is getting at by it 'making no difference'. However you need written confirmation from an underwriter to confirm this.

Ask your insurance company for an interim payment for you to be able to purchase some basic items you consider essential to your well-being, such as a bed.

I'm amazed they can put in a comment such as "will be determined by us" in there - doesn;t seem that it can be contractually binding. The general reason for this sort of thing is that if you have an old model that is no longer made then it allows the insurer to get the closest match (which is fair enough) - not to decide to just skimp on the specs to what they can be bothered to give out (which is outrageous). Interested to see what they have to say.

Have you thought about claiming from the French driver's insurance company? Technically the french driver made you miss the flight, so would be liable for the financial damage caused to you.

Ask the insurance company for their reasons for why they have valued the carpet at only £1200, when your quotes have stated that it is more expensive. State that unless they provide a cheaper quote you will go ahead with the quote from carpetright, and seek to recover the costs plus legal expenses through litigation (fancy word where you go to court to get a judge to decide how much the insurer is liable to pay). If you put this as a complaint then they will have to respond within 14 days. Let us know what they say and get back to us here if they don't settle up!

From a premium calculation point of view DR40 and DR50 are almost always considered equally bad. Some will and some won't - it depends on how complex their rating engine is. All of them will force the premium up because she has received a ban, but some will also take into account the length of the ban.

Under UK consumer law any product bought has to be fit for purpose (up to a maximum of 6 years). This means that if you buy a laptop you would not consider that as an item that has a working period of just a few years - out of date and crap compared to new stuff maybe, but broken? No. Go to the manufacturer and state that you know your statutory rights, and that the laptop breaking at this point means that you are entitled to a repar, replacement or your money back. Also state that due to the poor history of the machine that you would consider it in both of your interests for a replacement or refund to be issued, as if the machine breaks again in the near future you will continue to claim against the manufacturer. That you got this under an insurance policy is immaterial. Products still have to be fit for purpose. You might find even better advice in one of the other forums (ones that deal with things like washing machines as they get this all the time!)

mkb - your problem is simple to solve in theory, although you will need a bit of a fight because well you always do with insurance companies. The laws that control Full Cycle insurance products (ones that auto-renew) is VERY strict about giving you ample time to cancel: :DThe renewal notice has to arrive 21 days before the renewal date. :DOnce received you have the normal 14-day cooling off period in which if you cancelled you would only have to pay the pro-rata insurance fee. Now the second point is just there for information, because you are undeniably in the first point. Contact your insurer by telephone, and read them the following word for word after they have done their security checks etc (jump through loopholes for them at this stage so they cannot later claim you did not identify yourself properly etc). If you can record the conversation then do so, but IMMEDIATELY AS THE FIRST THING YOU SAY notify them that you are recording the conversation. Once you have done this read out the following word for word: "Good morning/afternoon/evening. I am contacting you to make an official complaint. Your company has auto-renewed my insurance policy [state policy number of last year] that expired on 6/2/2009, without giving me the required 21-day notice period. By renewing this insurance you have acted against the law. Please ensure that any renewal policy is not in force, and that I am not going to be penalised in any way for your illegal action. Please also ensure that any current action being taken against me is cancelled. I refer specifically to a claim for £62.14 being made against me. Please contact me in writing within 14 days stating that you have understood the nature of my complaint, and detailing what actions you are taking to resolve this complaint. Do you understand this?" Once you have gotten confirmation then thank them and hang up. If they do not confirm then read out the statement again in full. You do not need to speak to a manager because you have made a complaint it has to go directly to the complaint commissioner. A complaint can be received verbally by telephone, and by law the company has to respond within 14 days of receipt of the complaint. The law is 100% on your side here. I personally would not deal with the debt collection agency at all - they are uncaring muppets, and you do not need to waste your life on them. The further the debt collection agency take this the more your insurer has to clear up.

Sorry Gizmo, but that is incorrect. The value of the vehicle is used to set the Sum Insured limit, and is the cap of the Market Value of the vehicle. Civic - I'm sorry but you have underinsured yourself, and I think you will be lucky to get more than you valued the vehicle at. However do check your policy wording because they might have not covered themselves. However what you will typically find is: Loss / Theft of vehicle: cover up to the Market Value of your car where Market Value is defined as being the value to purchase / replace a vehicle of your type but not exceeding the value estimate provided by you.

Yes, they are both owned by HBOSI (Halifax Bank of Scotland Insurance). More to the point EVERYONE who works for an insurance company will have undergone an induction which will have trained them on what insurance fraud is. If she is found guilty of trying to commit a financial crime then it will count as Gross Misconduct and she will have her employment terminated.

Subject Access Request. You need to send them a letter stating that under the Data Protection Act you want a copy of all information held about you. This includes (but is not limited to) records of any telephone conversations. You will need to enclose a cheque / bankers draft / post order for £10 to cover their administrative fees. You also need to find out who their Data Protection Controller is and post to her/him directly. Also send it recorded delivery so they can't say they didn't get it. The exact time/date is just a laziness thing on their part - which I guess is fair enough because otherwise they'd just be trawling through conversations all the time. However legally they are obliged to provide you with this data, you just need to ask in the right way. Sad new is that this can take up to 40 days. If you want more advice on how to send a SAR then either ask here and someone else will no doubt help, or look in some of the other forums (debt action) to see what other people have written. Good luck with this, and let us know how you get on.

Yeah it will almost certianly trigger a fraud investigation. You have to admit that it looks bad. Fortunately looking bad only triggers investigations, it doesn't decide on them (you won't be declined for the reason "it looks bad"). The fact that you changed cover because you had a long journey and was 100 miles from your home are things that "look good" to play devil's advocate to myself . So no need to panic on that - any investigation should definitely sound in your favour.

It has been demonstrated that people with a poor credit rating are riskier to insure and therefore should have higher premiums. It's the one and only demonstrable rating factor that I hate - and sadly all insurance companies are going this way. At the moment they are trying to butter it up by applying the credit check to cover the loan they give you to pay monthly. This is kinda a valid thing for them to do as monthly installments are not you paying your insurance monthly, it is your insurer giving you a loan to pay your full premium and then you paying that loan back. The sad thing is that once they have this information it can be used in other more nefarious ways. That is why they do it at the start of the call - if they did it AFTER you got your quote it would be too late for them to alter your quote because of it. The installment thing is just a cover - as Mossy said if you were going to pay it in one go why does a credit check need to be performed? Actually on that note some insurance products will charge you up to 10% extra if you pay monthly rather than annually as people who pay monthly are higher risk... you can probably see where that one is going. And it's all based on one principle - the richer you are the less likely you will claim for something.

Sadly a lot. Good news that it is totally illegal. Make a complaint to the FSA saying that you believe they acted against their TCF policy, and chances are that Swinton will begin to take you very seriously, as this sort of act has landed quite a few insurance companies/brokers with large fines. Think Hastings has the current record at £750k. Remember the FSO is for disputing money owed. The FSA is to give the consumer protection from firms acting illegally/imorally afterwards

Firstly never accept any insurance offer on the basis that "they know best". Treat it for what it is - an offer. Consider it, and if you do not agree with it then write back with a counter offer and explain your reasons for the difference in opinion. I'm surprised they didn't ask for your vehicle as salvage, but if you have repaired it then as vusys1 said above you might still be able to get insurance for it from some places. There are a lot of old cars about that are not worth a lot that can take non-structural damage and still be considered a write-off because of the cost of repair. But yes it might not be easy. You need to look carefully at your policy wording to understand the rules regarding protected NCD - this is not a standard thing between insurance products. Some will reset to 0, roll back 2 years, allow 2 fault claims before removing protection, or 1 fault and 1 non-fault etc. Anything that is not your fault where the 3rd party insurer carries the total cost is called a non-fault claim. It sounds like you have had 2 non-fault claims, and most insurance products won't even alter a non-protected NCD after 2 non-fault claims. However it seems like your insurer might have paid for damage to the hire car as they could not have claimed off the thrid party (the most common reason is where the other driver is uninsured). As it was not your fault you need to ask why they are doing this. Find out the reason and post back here for help. If you were to pay an insurance premium in January to last for 1 year, and in March your car is written off then the insurer does not have to return the premuim for the months March-December. As the car is considered a total loss then the contract is considered fulfilled, and this is why it ends. I'm not 100% but this is what it sounds like has happened with you.

Sadly "looking daft" has no intrinsic value/loss associated with it - in the same way that personal photographs have no additional value due to sentimentality. The exact law on putting you back in the same condition only applies when the pair/set/suite had an additional value due to being a pair/set/suit. So if you had 2 antique vases worth £500 each, or £2000 as a pair, then the loss of one puts you £1500 out of pocket, not the £500 that the one vase is worth. In the case of furniture it is almost always the case that a sofa of £500 and a matching chair of £200 will be worth £700 as a suite (and often bought for less). Because of this, no matter how daft it might look the insurance company need only replace the £200 chair. Be very very very careful about asking for cash over a replacement. If Tesco gets a discount from the places you have to buy a replacement from (say 25%) then they can issue you a cheque to cover your chair (say £200) at the price it would cost them (ie £150). So you get your £200 replacement, but it only costs Tesco £150 because of the disount. Now if you waive the replacement and ask for cash they only have to provide you with what they would have to pay - ie £150. So asking for cash could put you even further out of pocket. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news

Ultimately you and the insurer need to reach an agreement on what the vehicle is worth. You are right to be shocked, because they can't do this without your permission. They make you an offer (for whatever reason) and you can accept or decline the offer. If you decline it is my opinion that you should clearly state why, provide your estimation of the value and give evidence as to why you think it is worth this (glass' guide, evidence of condition, similar models on ebay/autotrader/local dealer etc). Ultimately if you can't agree it will end up in court for them to decide it. However claims departments are under pressure to try it on (especially if they are a third party claims handler as they need to perform well or lose their contract), so they will always try stuff on. Don't stand for it!