Beware automatic renewal

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Co-Op Car Insurance
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Guest's review of Co-Op Car Insurance

“Beware automatic renewal”

★☆☆☆☆

written by on 21/01/2012

My wife took out a new policy in Jan 2011 over the phone. As she did not have enough money in her account I paid for a years cover on my card. The Co-op kept my card details and took out this years policy from my account without contacting me. This was not mentioned when I spoke to them last year. How can they take money from my account without my permission? (leaving me overdrawn with subsequent overdrawn charges). Trying to resole this over the phone was a waste of time, with their operator threatening me with further charges to cancel.

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Guest's Comment

Written on: 01/03/2012

My husband and I have just found ourselves in a similar situation with Co-op Car Insurance we renewed with Saga and have just received a Certificate Of Motor Insurance from the Co-op when i called to say we had insured with Saga I was told it would cost £20 to cancel £20 TO CANCEL SOMETHING WE DIDN'T ASK FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE!!! is this legal? Can anyone advise me please? I am not happy at all.

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Guest's Comment

Written on: 21/03/2012

Yup, another victim of this blatant insurance industry fraud here. Something really needs to be done about car insurance inertia selling (aka "automatic renewal"). Insurance companies unswervingly try to portray this vile and deceitful practice as being a 'service' to forgetful customers, rather than the reality which is that it is plain old inertia selling fraud.

If you or I tried to use someone else's credit card without explicit consent, we'd quite rightly be arrested for fraud. Insurers who act this way are as big a bunch of scum as those salespeople that dodgy utility companies got caught employing a few years ago: you know, the ones that were heavily fined for mis-selling gas and electricity deals to OAPs, often without obtaining consent. Jack Straw had it right for once: the UK car insurance industry is rotten to the core, not just because of nefarious practices like selling claimants' details onto ambulance chasing companies as he highlighted, but also because of their blatantly illegal commercial practices like inertia selling. I fear it'll take some of the worst individual offenders working for the sales departments of these companies to go to prison for fraud before it will finally stop.

In the meantime, I recommend anyone that's been affected do as I did: recoup any payments taken via your Direct Debit or Credit Card guarantee scheme, then complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service. By making a complaint, you will cost the company involved £500 in arbitration fees, even if they win. Don’t worry about debt collection agencies coming after you or damaging your credit rating: nobody listens to these inertia-selling con artists any more, they are afraid to go to court, and in my case my recouping my money didn’t do me any harm whatsoever credit-wise. I also won my case when I went to the FOS.

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Lizduffy's Comment

Written on: 01/03/2012

I have just found myself in similar circumstance, did you get your money back?
Had I wanted Co-op Car Insurance I would have contacted them. I was insured from 2011 to 2012 surely they cannot continue to take money from my account without my permission?

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