Question for help re insurance cock up

[g00ner]

Firstly - this is ‘my’ cock up…just best practice advice from here if anyone has knowledge

Son insures his CRF250L through Hastings
He’s 10 of 12 months through his policy- two payments left to make.
He’s moved out to Uni, bike is at my place as stipulated in the policy
He has an outstanding payment missing as he swapped accounts.
Hastings wrote twice to my place to 1. Tell him ..and 2. Warn him of possible cancellation. He didn’t get the letters, I didn’t open them. That’s on us I know.
Outstanding amount is £23

He’s come home and opened the letters - policy cancelled with a £45 cancellation fee plus £23 outstanding. It was cancelled 10 days ago
Call centre handler unwilling/unable to see the circumstances as valid

I can handle the cost but the future “have you ever had a policy cancelled” question will now be relevant.

Is there someone/somewhere we can ask above the call handler for due consideration of circumstances to alleviate any future issues? Best offer at this time from Hastings is to take a new policy at which point they will refund the cancellation fee. This will leave the ‘cancellation’ on his record..

What’s best to do?

Cheers all

 

[wessie]

Not sure you can do anything beyond put it down to a life lesson. There is one possibility of redemption. Did he use the banking switching process that transfers all direct debits to the new account? If this is the case, was there a failure in this process? Could the bank(s) involved accept liability and submit mitigation to Hastings?
If he just set up a new student account and was responsible for manually changing direct debits then there is no recourse as Hastings gave him chances to repay the missed payment. One wonders if they also sent emails and messages in their app that were not noticed? I have a Hastings policy and chose to only get emails and app messages.

If he has to accept full responsibility then I would take the new policy offer from Hastings. Assuming he pays this off correctly then he will have a full 12 months of a good record. I would also consider paying the premium in full at the outset, even if you have to pay it for him and then maybe reduce any contribution to his student living costs.

He also needs to check his credit rating as they might report this missed payment to Equifax etc. He can do this for free via Credit Karma, Clearscore and others.

 

[g00ner]

Much appreciated Wessie

 

[Snaf]

Have you sorned the bike or does it stil show as insured on MID.
https://askmid.app/

 

[theoneandonly]

i can't believe his parents didn't steam open his letters !

 

[Scubaregs]

I had something similar, changed banks but forgot insurance was not a DD, just a card payment. Postal strike over Xmas so letter came in late.
Pointed out to them they had my telephone number so could have called or texted, they said they had sent a text. However when they checked there was an error in their system and some texts did not go out.

They couldn’t reinstate the policy but gave me the same cost to start a new one. Also gave me in writing that the policy was not considered canceled and that I did not need to inform any future insurers of this as they had put nothing on any system.