Proof of No Claims Bonus

[Loganberry]

Hi There

Can anyone help me, please? At the beginning of April, I had to call in the administrators to my company because a customer had defaulted on a large payment. It was a family business comprising myself and my three children. We insured our vehicles on a company fleet policy, so that if anyone needed to go out on business and the company vehicle was not available, our employees could use one of our cars. We had to notify HMRC as this was deemed a benefit in kind.

We all had to subsequently insure our own vehicles and needed confirmation that we had not made a claim on our insurance for 4 years. My broker has charged me £30 each for 4 letters (total £120) one line in each letter and only having to change the christian names on each letter. He told me to give him 5 minutes to brief his colleague and I paid by debit card. When I spoke to him I just wanted to get the confirmation as the new insurance companies needed proof of our NCB, otherwise they may have cancelled our individual insurances.

I did this yesterday as I was worried that, with the bank holiday, our insurances may become invalid. Thinking about it this morning, I think I have had the wool pulled over my eyes. My broker originally told me that it had cost him £900. I queried this as the vehicle policy was up for renewal at the beginning of March and we went into administration at the beginning of April. The cost of the insurance was £4000 and I asked him how he was £900 out of pocket. He told me that there is normally a cancellation fee of 30%, but he had managed to sweet talk his way out of this and the cost to him had been £300. I m now thinking that he has charged me this money to claw back some of his costs. This saddens me as we have dealt with him for four years and he must have made some money out of us over this time.

I would be very grateful if anyone could put me right on this, please. Many thanks in advance for any assistance that comes my way.

Kind regards
Loganberry

[des8]

Re: Proof of No Claims Bonus

Hi and welcome

A policy cancelled within a month of renewal date will be charged by the insurers at their short rates (probably about 30% of annual premium but details will be in the policy).
This is the premium payable by the insured
If insufficient premium has been paid by the insured the intermediary will be responsible for collecting it
The intemediary will also charge the insured an administration fee for cancellation
This will be detailed in his terms and conditions and is often around £75 per policy, but varies from company to company

So if your company policy was £4000, the premium due for 1 month would have been about £1200.
If the company was paying monthly, perhaps only £400 paid , leaving a balance of £800.
Possibly the broker has had to account for this to the insurer, and has realised there is little possibiity of recovering it from your company now in administration.

£30 per letter seems reasonable (check solicitors charges for comparison!)

Obviously a lot of surmising in the above, but..........