Last year I took out a new car insurance - a black box one - because I’m a fairly new driver and it’s super expensive despite my age.
I had problems with the driving score and it wasn’t recording properly which was confirmed by the insurance company and they put me on a list for the technical team to come out and fix it all etc. I had a complete lack of communication from them over a course of weeks/months about this and then they cancelled my policy completely out of the blue.
I made a complaint and this was upheld based on the fact that I had been misinformed and told wrong information and advice on several occasions and they had not even bothered to open an investigation or put me on the list to get it fixed like they said they would. I have the final letter from them as proof of all their wrong doings.
I had to go into debt to take out a new car insurance and it caused me a lot of stress because I kept being messed around saying it was being cancelled, then it wasn’t, then it was - because no-one knew what they were talking about and the company have confirmed they have had to put those people back into training because they were giving me really false information and should have known better.
I took out a new insurance and have had that for 1-2 months now. Now the old car insurance are chasing me for a sum of money that I apparently owe them, but when I called and questioned them on it they said it should have been cleared off my account and I actually didn’t owe anymore money, however they are still sending me emails and letters and threatening to put it on my credit file.
I have so much other stress going on in my life at the moment including multiple court cases against my ex for domestic abuse against both me and my young child and this business with the insurance company over the last few months is starting to push me over the edge.
I have reported it to the financial ombudsman for compensation however they have a huge backlog, so I was thinking to take this to the small claims court instead?
Upon doing some reading on the financial ombudsman website, based on my circumstances of what’s happened, I can claim up to £750 for distress and chronic stress of it carrying on for so long. I also want to claim back the deposit that I had to put down on a new insurance policy which left me in financial hardship - so the claim altogether would be around £900.
Would it be worth pursuing this?
(The main point isn’t why they cancelled it - because they’ve already admitted that they were wrong but couldn’t reinstate it - it’s mainly how they have handled it all)