Automatic renewal - very unhappy with Hastings Direct - ** RESOLVED **

[FlymoRacer]

We've just realised that Hastings Direct have automatically renewed the insurance policy for my wife on her motorcycle without asking. She had since taken out insurance with another company for the entire period, starting immediately that the Hastings policy ended.

 

On phoning today they have refunded only £67.06 from a renewal fee of £196.75. That is disgusting. I think that this practice of auto-renewal without explicit permission is totally unacceptable, even if there is something buried in small print. To add to the cheek of it, this was auto renewed using a credit card that expired some 4 or 5 months ago.

 

This is totally unfair practice and does nothing to maintain my trust in this company. Insurance is expensive enough, but we certainly cannot afford to pay for it twice on the same vehicle.

 

Hastings customer service, please get in touch with me to resolve this.

[Hastings Direct. Joe - Soc]

Hi FlymoRacer, Thank you for taking the time to post. I am sorry to hear that you are unhappy your policy has automatically renewed. This process is designed to help our Customers and to support the continious insurance enforcement law, renewal documentation would have been issued out prior to the renewal date giving you all the details of the quotation we offered plus information on how to proceed. As you have stated above that alternative insurance has been taken from the renewal date with another company we should be able to provide a full refund of the premium taken once we recieve proof of the cover elsewhere. Can you please contact me directly with the policy details? help@hastingsdirect.com Many Thanks, Jamie

[FlymoRacer]

After making contact with Jamie I am pleased to say that we have been able to resolve this successfully with a full refund back to the original date of renewal. It is a shame that the person who originally took our phone call was not able to deliver the same level of customer service as this.

 

On the issue of auto-renewal, I take the point that this could be seen to be a helpful feature to some customers potentially avoiding the situation where insurance lapses without replacement. But I see that as my (our) responsibility to deal with and had we been given the choice when taking out the policy originally we would have declined an auto-renewal option. I suspect that this also reflects a tactic on the part of insurance companies to pick up business from policy holders that forget to look for competitive quotes at renewal time.

 

Anyway, all's well that ends well. Jamie thank you for your help.

[honeybee13]

Hello there, that's a good result. Well done to you for persisting and to Jamie.

 

I'll alter your thread title, thank you for coming back to tell us.

 

My best, HB