Motor insurance - good or service??

[mhiggins2009]

Good evening,

 

Today I purchased a one day "temporary cover" motor insurance from Haven, the purpose of this was to use my brothers car in order to move some stuff around. I took the insurance out through a broker called temp cover. The site was very misleading and anyway after 20 minutes I managed to process the application for the policy. I paid 39 pounds for the one day cover. However, when my policy certificate was emailed to me when I opened it the policy was in fact for the 3rd to the 4th of June. So either through a mistake on my behalf or a glitch in the system (I cant be sure) I had a useless policy as I am in work on that date anyway.

 

So I looked to remedy this and on the website it had a number on the top. It was an 0845 number and I have no idea whether this will have cost me money to ring. Anyway, after about ten minutes working my way through the minefield I managed to get through to somebody.

 

I explained the problem and the agent automatically answered me back with "unfortunately Mr Higgins we cannot give you a refund or neither can we change the date of the policy". Basically, tough!!! I asked her if i could speak to her manager to which she replied I am the manager. I explained that I am pretty sure I have some statutory rights to a refund and feel it is completey unfair that they cannot offer me at least a partial refund.

 

I have decided not to take this lying die, why should we as the consumers be bullied by this big companies. 40 pound is not a lot of money but the principle of it is worthless. So this is were anybody reading this comes in. What I would like is some free honest advice. Also, I have a few questions aimed at people who know the Sales of goods and services act as well as long distance selling regulations.

 

Under the latter it states that I am entitled to a 7 day cooling off period. Now I know it would be pointless as in 48 hours the service would have been null anyway. But should I not be entitled to a refund?

 

Any free advice would be much appreciated.

 

Kind Regards

 

Mr Higgins

[renegadeimp]

You have a right to cancel, plus you can always initiate a chargeback with your bank.

[TSx]

Distance Selling Regulations don't apply to financial products so there is no right to cancel without penalty.

 

You generally have a right to cancel - the so called 'cooling off period' - however the company also have a right to charge an administration fee. With low cost insurance (travel, temporary), that fee is likely to be more than the cover costs - so you would not actually receive a refund.

 

You can make an official complaint - the company will sometimes back down (if you go to the FOS then they generally get charged a fee of £550 regardless of if they win) - the company has 8 weeks to respond, after which time you can take it to the ombudsman.

 

If you carry out a chargeback as per the above advice, they're likely to just sell the debt onto a debt collection agency.