Cancelling Insurance

[James]

We wish to cancel our house and car insurance with a well known insurance company, and phoned them,  and they said we have to wait until our policies are up for renewal. We pay by direct debit and it seems they have to cancel the direct debit. Is this the case on both fronts?

 What did you have to do to cancel your insurance?  Many thanks.

[Clair]

They usually require a letter (preferably registred post with proof of delivery) 2 months before the contract is due for renewal.

The exact the procedure is written in your insurance booklet under a section called "Résiliation".

[Will]

It depends on why you want to cancel. If you have sold the house and car then it is rather different from what would happen if you have just got fed up with being insured by that company.

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

[quote user="Clair"]They usually require a letter (preferably registred post with proof of delivery) 2 months before the contract is due for renewal.

The exact the procedure is written in your insurance booklet under a section called "Résiliation".

[/quote]

Always confused me that. Seeing as the current company doesn't give you your renewal price until a couple of weeks before it is due for renewal.

[Sunday Driver]

The Loi Chatel sets out the timescales for the issue of renewal notices and the insured's rights of cancellation.  Any delay on the part of the insurer in issuing a renewal notice actually extends the insured cancellation rights.

 

 

[James]

Thanks for all of your replies. We will send them a letter to sign for, requesting our cancellation of their insurance, for when our policies are up for renewal.  Many thanks James 

[allanb]

A small point: if you are changing to another insurer, the new insurer can take care of the cancellation of the existing contract for you, assuming of course that you agree to the new deal before the start of the 2-month notice period.  You have to sign a piece of paper, naturally, but it's one less thing to worry about.

I recently did some shopping around before changing insurer, and all the ones I spoke to offered to do this without waiting to be asked.

[James]

 Hi Allanb,

   I think we will get our new insurance company to give them notice, like you say, and much easier.  We will next week get some quotes for house and car insurance.  Thanks James.

[Wendy]

Difficult one that.

Under European law, you cannot be legally obliged to pay something before you know the price of it which makes the two month rule in France illegal. The insurance companies know this so in fact you CAN cancel well before the renewal period comes up. When we were insuring our car here originally we did exactly that as they quoted one price when we called and a figure more than twice what they'd originally quoted when the bill came out several weeks later. They expected us to just pay the inflated price and threatened us with legal action when we refused. They were quite shocked to say the least when we stood up to them over this as I suspect the French just pay up without question. They backed down once we quoted EU law, and the fact that they were acting illegally as such; we took our business elsewhere.

However, if you just want to cancel mid-contract then the cancellation conditions of the contract itself come into play which, probably, means a recorded delivery letter and two months delay.