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“My Daughter bought a policy from Diamond Car Insurance...”

written by sharpg on 12/10/2005

Good Points
Good Rates.

Bad Points
Make a lot of assumptions. Customer service. Interest rates on monthly payment options.

General Comments
My Daughter bought a policy from Diamond Car Insurance in March this year, and really paid through the nose for the privilege of paying monthly. She is a student on a tight budget, and this was her first policy, so she couldn't afford to pay the whole premium at once, but eventually succumbed and went ahead.



In July this year she got the opportunity to work abroad, and decided to take a gap year. She also decided to sell her car and cancel her policy. She phoned Diamond and informed them of her decision, called her bank to cancel her direct debit, and promptly sent off her insurance certificate. She called Diamond a week later, as she hadn't heard from them. They confirmed that they had received the insurance certificate, the policy was cancelled, and they had confirmation from my daughters bank that the direct debit was cancelled.

Diamond also confirmed she would receive a refund of about £125 on the policy. The refund arrived in good time, and my daughter left for France in late August.

About a couple of weeks later, a letter arrived from Diamond which we forwarded to my daughter, along with her other mail. She called us at the weekend to say that the letter from Diamond was claiming a payment of £108 was overdue.

I have been in touch with Diamond this morning, who said that it was because they calculated the original refund before the next payment was due. But she cancelled the policy 3 weeks before the next payment was due!! So how come? I couldn't get a straight answer to what I thought was a reasonable question, so I requested a thorough statement of the account.

The young man I spoke to didn't understand it himself, but did inform me that the "account" has now been passed to a debt collection agency, and they would be adding an administration to the outstanding amount.

Well I am not very pleased about this to say the least!

How, when my daughter called them the second time they confirmed the Direct Debit had been cancelled, could they have calculated the refund at £125, and then say "whoops actually you owe us money" almost two months later. Confused?? or baffled by incompetence.

If indeed she was overpaid, we do not have a problem in paying what's due.

But why should we have to pay a debt collectors fee for Diamonds incompetence?

When I get to the bottom of this I will post the details on this review.