House insurance cancellation charge

[PhillipPhillop]

Boring, so apologies in advance.
We have been looking at quotes for my mum's house which is unoccupied since she's gone into a care home. Yesterday we paid for a policy to start tomorrow but today needed to query some things but the person on the phone didn't really resolve them so we asked for the actual policy to be forwarded so we could read it through ourselves. This would take a couple of days apparently and so would take us into the policy start date before we could read what cover was included, then the person said it would cost £30 to cancel regardless of whether cover had started or not. Quite surprised at this so phoned up again and apparently this would have been stated clearly at the time we took the policy out. (Not sure about this as I think we would have not paid for it on that basis). I'm interested to know if this is normal? That you pay a cancellation charge if you cancel the policy before its start date without seeing the terms and conditions?

I don't believe this is lawful. As far as I am aware, if you sign something online or enter into any kind of agreement that is not signed in person, you have 14 calendar days to cancel, penalty free, for any reason. It's referred to as the cooling off period I believe.

I run a business that requires online booking and we have always been advised that we legally have to offer that "cooling off period" unless the customer overrides their right to this by using the services before that 14 days has ended. We also have to make them aware of their right to this, otherwise the period becomes 1 year and 14 days.

If they change their mind within that 14 days, we have to refund them, in full, no questions asked, no charges applied (unless services have already been provided in that time.)

They can charge for:

• actual exposure of risk for the time of the contract
• sales costs and potential commissions
• Fair expenses in setting up the policy

BUT can't make a profit on any of those things.

Raise a complaint, ask for a breakdown of the cancellation fee and how the company has deemed it to be reasonable and they'll waive the costs.

Keep in mind every complaint you send to the financial ombudsman service (after the 8 week time frame or final response letter) costs them £550 then they're unlikely to argue over £30

@anonnamouse that was our understanding as well.

@stackhead interesting, I will definitely follow it up knowing this.

Thank you both