to think this is illegal?

[CruzControl]

I have a provisional driving license and DH has a full, clean driving license. I was a named driver on his insurance. I had a seizure and the doctor said to stop driving (I barely did anyway) and contact the DVLA (which I did). We contacted our insurance company to tell them and remove me as a named driver. They've spent the last three months trying to decide what to do (apparently this is a VERY complicated situation for their tiny brains to understand).
They've now come back to us and said they're cancelling our insurance. We have to declare to all future insurers that we've had our insurance cancelled. In addition, they are charging us £125 for a cancellation fee!
They're saying they can't leave me on the policy because I don't have a valid license (because of the seizure) and that they can't take me off the policy without cancelling the whole policy.
Our insurance premium with everyone else will skyrocket and we've lost our no claims bonus - which seems unbelievably unfair. AIBU to think this is illegal? If so, what can I do about it?

@CruzControl, you are reading @ProfessorSlocombe post wrong! Read it again! They are saying the policy has you as main driver despite what your OP says. Not accusing you of being main driver or lying about it. Just that the insurer may have it wrong. You have since confirmed this is not the case. I can see NO accusation at all.

[quote anotherwinkywinkybumbum]**@CruzControl, you are reading @ProfessorSlocombe post wrong! Read it again! They are saying the policy has you as main driver despite what your OP says. Not accusing you of being main driver or lying about it. Just that the insurer may have it wrong. You have since confirmed this is not the case. I can see NO accusation at all.[/quote]
When you get to my age, every misunderstanding is a hint of dimming faculties - pleased that I wasn't only making sense to myself. I can get very lonely there

okay, so far you have done the correct thing, you have logged the complaint with them and there are strict rules about complaint handling so it should be dealt with properly and if not, you can go back to them or FoS.

They need to put you in the position you would be had they done this correctly.

It would some kind of weird policy if what they are saying is correct. They should have altered the policy as requested and then the option of charging you the fee and any change in policy cost.

You did the correct thing, they didn't even need to remove you as long as you had informed them and you didn't drive tbh.

The important thing is that you are currently insured? Part of any compensation should be that they cover any extra charges and your new insurance company should re assess your premium for your DH once you have confirmation that his insurance shouldn't have been cancelled. They should also cover any fees. You should then be entitled to payment for your distress and inconvenience.

Sounds like you are the policyholder which means the policy can't continue. You should only be charged for cover received. And you wont have to declare this as it doesn't fall under the guidelines re this question.

Yours,
Tiny brained insurance consultant

I am an insurer by trade. If the facts are as you have stated this is extremely poor practice. Firstly on the cancellation fee, insurers are allowed to charge one, but it must be justifiable in respect of the costs incurred. £10-20 insurers will get away with, I have never come across a charge of this level. The other factor to note is that via your illness the FCA (the industry regulator would regard you as a vulnerable customer and therefore all firms should have processes to deal with this type of issue. Make sure you complain in a written form. Please be very clear it is a formal complaint that must be logged and dealt with according to FCA rules (some sneaky insurers will say thanks for your feedback as a way of not starting the complaint clock), They must then consider your complaint, and if it is not resolved take it the the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), which you can find via a google. This is simpler than you might think. Also, as this is not your policy I am unclear on what technical grounds they can cancel it. There are a very limited number of grounds to cancel a policy by the insurer, and having a named driver who has a health condition is not one of them.

@Brainwave89 cancellation fees, i work for a large company - we charge £60 in the first year and £35 subsequent. This is standard. Ive never really heard of a fee being £10 or £20 even the administration fee is £26.

@kleew1

Sounds like you are the policyholder which means the policy can't continue. You should only be charged for cover received. And you wont have to declare this as it doesn't fall under the guidelines re this question.

Yours,
Tiny brained insurance consultant

IF OP is the policy holder then her DH has not his insurance cancelled by the insurer and therefore shouldn't face any issue being reinsured. They can't have their cake and eat it.

@ProfessorSlocombe I was just pointng out that OP was a tad touchy... and your post may not have been 100% clear on first reading, I could see how she could have misunderstood.

And if you have a read down you'll see that she is getting the same "You may have made a mistake" style posts, in many vared guises.

As I said, have a heart!

You accused me of lying. You very clearly accused me of lying

It really doesn't read like that to me.

Even if they were doing something strange with the cancellation I don’t see how a legitimately earned NCD would be lost, just doesn’t make sense.

@WaxOnFeckOff agreed. Even if he was the policyholder, given the explanation, we'd not expect an insured to disclose this in future. Maybe it's been a monumental mistake to make by the insurer but doesn't add up to me.

Complaint doesn't have to be in writing, but some companies don't listen to the calls, just read the Call handlers notes which may or may not reflect what you said.

SOunds like youve had an acknowledgement letter, the 8 weeks wording is an FCA requirement and not necessarily an indication of how long it may take.

Yes to making sure that you are a vulnerable customer and yes to making sure that they know the worry, distress and inconvenience this has caused, if you can swing any additional impact on your health, even better.

There is no reason you can't reply to the acknowledgement with any further info or clarity before whoever is allocated the case concludes based on what they have so far.

[quote kleew1]@WaxOnFeckOff agreed. Even if he was the policyholder, given the explanation, we'd not expect an insured to disclose this in future. Maybe it's been a monumental mistake to make by the insurer but doesn't add up to me.[/quote]
Having worked in Financial Services for 30 plus years and the offshoring and misunderstandings that are increasingly made, sadly it seems very legitimate that they've made a monumental mistake.

I would call back and ask to speak to a manager within the complaints department. If they can't sort it ask them to confirm the reason for the cancellation as this should help you work out what is wrong.

Ask them to confirm in writing and definitely put your formal complaint in writing but I wouldn't just wait for them to process your complaint I would try to get them to sort their error.

Of course they can remove you, how can they insure someone disqualified from driving. They are trying it on, I'd threaten the ombudsman.

Different circumstance but when i was getting near to doing my test my housemate put me on their insurance so i could get extra practice. Once I'd passed they had it taken off without a problem. No idea who they insured with though.

There seem to be 2 issues here

1 Cancelling the policy/ changing it

2 Taking out a new one

The usual practice is to change the policy and they might charge £30 or so for 'admin'.

But I don't understand why your DH is being charged a lot more for a new policy- assume you have shopped around? It ought to be less for him on his own than with you as a learner driver!

Why is the new policy 2.5 x higher?

Surely you aren't making the mistake of ticking a box saying 'insurance refused' on a new policy/ quote?

which company is this?

I've had a licence for almost 50 years and never ever heard of anything like this with insurance so I think either you or they have got their wires crossed.

It's worth writing to the Guardian's moneywatch man (forget his name). His team investigate all sorts of dodgy dealings. I wrote and got a lovely detailed reply, telling me exactly how to phrase a letter to get back some money my mother had had stolen from her by crooks. Your complaint doesn't have to appear in the newspaper - they just give free, really astute legal advice.

I was told that I was the second driver and it was their practice to put the man as the main driver when both drivers live at the same address.

Which company is that? DH and I both have "insured + spouse" policies for our cars; he's the main driver on his and I'm the main driver on mine. What you've described sounds like blatant sex discrimination.

It's ridiculous and heavily weighted in their favour especially as road insurance is a legal requirement.

It takes a lot to get me really angry, but one thing guaranteed to make me see red is the fact that insurance companies are exempt from the rules governing unfair clauses and exclusions. This means they can charge as much as they like, but deliver as little as they like - and for any reason they like. In cases like this, where insurance is compulsory, it's tantamount to legalised extortion.

I was told that I was the second driver and it was their practice to put the man as the main driver when both drivers live at the same address

This is clearly nonsense so whoever was told it is wrong.

DH and I have had insurance on cars for 35 years. On my car I am the main driver and on his I am the name driver.

You complete this yourself online so there is one in some office deciding who is the main/ 2nd driver according to their gender!

so there is no one in the office

Insurance companies absolutely are not exempt from the rules and are a really heavily regulated industry. Im pretty confident the Op will get a result on this as on the face of it from what the Op has said they have been treated very unfairly.

I've just been through a very painful process of adding a car to an Admiral policy and repeatedly informing them of who the policy holder, main driver and named driver was. It was enormously difficult to get them to understand that I wanted a quote on a different driver basis than the car they already had insured and that I didn't necessarily want to include all the drivers. I was banging my head on the table by the end. It eventually got resolved by the onshore complaints team who managed to give a correct quote and I just needed to accept it.

It's not just small firms and you might get one great experience back to back with a very poor one depending on who you get on the day.

I suspect the OP has read something incorrectly or the insurers have made an error.

The 'insurance cancelled' label surely applies to people who commit fraud and therefore find it harder to get insurance with another provider.

It does not apply to anyone changing their details.

Furthermore, if you do cancel your insurance - ie you no longer own a car or the driver dies- you are given a pro rate refund, the same as you are for road tax depending on how many months are left.

Contact the financial ombudsman service