Insurance Cancellation

[Guest]

I had my car insurance cancelled by a new car insurer I was trying to move to, several days before it was due to start, because they said I did not meet the underwriting criteria. They refunded the policy.

I was worried about needing to declare the cancellation to other insurers in the future which would greatly increase premiums. The insurer however told me in writing that the cancellation did not need to be declared to other insurers. The advised that the information would not be shared with any databases for other insurers, so other insurers would be unaware.

However some time later I checked the MIB MID and lo and behold the policy details were in fact registered there with the policy start date showing as the date it was originally supposed to start and ending on the same day, even though the policy was cancelled several days earlier.

I complained to the said insurance company who are now refusing to have the policy details removed from MIB despite their prior assurances that the policy details would not be shared externally.

Do I need to declare the cancellation to other insurers despite what the insurer is saying and also how do I get this entry in the MIB removed?

[des8]

I think that company might well be in breach of contract.

The company made a mistake offering you insurance, and really they should not have cancelled it.
However having done so and you having complained they should have rescinded the cancellation and not lodged notification with MIB.
Have you used the company complaints procedure?
Have you considered a complaint to Financial Ombudsman Service?

Can you name them please, and give us a link to the policy wording so we can examine it.

PS The above comments assume you had made full disclosure to the insurers

[tango123]

I think that company might well be in breach of contract.

The company made a mistake offering you insurance, and really they should not have cancelled it.
However having done so and you having complained they should have rescinded the cancellation and not lodged notification with MIB.
Have you used the company complaints procedure?
Have you considered a complaint to Financial Ombudsman Service?

Can you name them please, and give us a link to the policy wording so we can examine it.

PS The above comments assume you had made full disclosure to the insurers

The insurance company is Hasting Direct. I'm not really interested in using them again or giving them any of my money and I have now car insurance with other provider. However I'm still concerned if this "cancellation" will continue to plague me for years and impact other insurances like my buildings insurance!

They wrote to me saying "“I accept your version of events and thus the policy has been refunded in full. The fact that we have cancelled your policy in this instance does not need to be declared in the future to other insurers. The policy was cancelled due to the reasons we discussed on the phone call. The policy was not due to start until 30/09/2018 so was not on risk.

The cancellation was within our own systems and is not shared with other insurers.”
“You do not need to declare Hastings Direct cancelled the policy prior to the start date. This information is not kept on a database for other insurers, so other insurers will be unaware. I can confirm you do not need to declare it on future applications. I hope this resolves your concerns.”

Can I rely on these words and not have to declare the cancellation to other insurers as Hastings are saying or do I need to get it reversed in case it causes any problems in the future with an insurance claims?

Many thanks in advance.

[des8]

I would never rely on anything told me by a company when you already know that what they said was untrue , at least in part.

From their statement "“I accept your version of events" it would seem there was some problem with your application.
Can you tell us about that?
I was not suggesting that you would want to place your business with them again.
I was solely wondering why they had cancelled the policy "because they said I did not meet the underwriting criteria".
That appeared to suggest they had issued a policy outside their normal underwriting criteria, but it was their error.
Now normally decent insurers stand by their error and allow the policy to run to expiry.

If it was purely their error you should be complaining to FOS at least to get that MIB database entry deleted

[tango123]

I would never rely on anything told me by a company when you already know that what they said was untrue , at least in part.

From their statement "“I accept your version of events" it would seem there was some problem with your application.
Can you tell us about that?
I was not suggesting that you would want to place your business with them again.
I was solely wondering why they had cancelled the policy "because they said I did not meet the underwriting criteria".
That appeared to suggest they had issued a policy outside their normal underwriting criteria, but it was their error.
Now normally decent insurers stand by their error and allow the policy to run to expiry.

If it was purely their error you should be complaining to FOS at least to get that MIB database entry deleted

This is what they said:

“I can confirm our validation checks found you had run multiple quotes and these contained changes to personal information such as the policy holder name, occupation, date of birth, residency, licence year and type. Because of these inconsistencies this is why we have cancelled your policy.

We cancelled the policy with a full refund as we rejected you for not meeting our underwriting criteria. “

I had a conversation about this with them and it was apparently related to a change in job title in a price comparison site which they found suspicious.

Every year, for many years, I have used a price comparison website to get a quote and then go on to purchase the policy without any issues.

Normally I enter my profession of IT consultancy without any issues which I’ve been doing for decades. I derive income from both property and IT consultancy.

However in the year being referred I initially entered the IT consultant role in the comparison site and obtained the quote as normal.

However I revisited days later and I decided it was more accurate If I changed my job to reflect my property role as I now derived all my income from property activities and was not engaged in any IT activities. There was no change in the amount of the quote and it was paid in full.

I went on to purchase the policy with the property job title which I considered to be the correct situation as I didn’t want there to be an issue with job titles in the event of a claim! My desire to supply the correct information rather than help made things worse for me.

They phoned me a number of days later and several days before it was due to go live to cancel the policy. I protested they told me they sympathised with me but they told me the decision was not reversible.

[des8]

So really they suspected you of fraud, and without investigating further. they cancelled an already existing policy and left a report with MIB.

IMO that is breach of contract, and does not justify the MIB report.

I would, just to avoid possible future problems, tell your current insurers the whole sorry tale (giving timelines of when you discovered the report after being told by Hastings it was not necessary).
Complain to Hasting's CEO personally
Complain to FOS

[tango123]

So really they suspected you of fraud, and without investigating further. they cancelled an already existing policy and left a report with MIB.

IMO that is breach of contract, and does not justify the MIB report.

I would, just to avoid possible future problems, tell your current insurers the whole sorry tale (giving timelines of when you discovered the report after being told by Hastings it was not necessary).
Complain to Hasting's CEO personally
Complain to FOS

Thank you for your advice

[des8]

Asterman if you are looking for help please start a new thread