I recently added my 17 year old Son to my existing policy. He is 17 and holds a provisional license. When I added him my premium doubled but I knew it would be expensive so I continued. Over the next couple of weeks I was able to take him out for some driving lessons but as his exams were coming up the opportunity to take him out became rarer I therefore decided to cancel his insurance via the online servicing portal. I logged on, and confirmed that I would like to take him off the policy. Guess what, my monthly premiums went up by 9GBP per month. So it was now more expensive to insure just myself (more than double existing) than to insure my 17 Son and myself. I then called the helpline and was not given any explanation of why this happened but was told if I wanted to take my Son off the policy there would be a substantial increase to what I was paying previously just for myself and that my no claims would be effected. At this point I wrote to customer services to complain. There was no explanation in the final reply other than to offer to waive the 58GBP cancellation fee, if I cancelled the policy by a certain date. I wrote back by that date and confirmed that I wished to cancel having obtained equivalent insurance elsewhere for less that half of what I was paying originally. Halifax then sent me a default notice stating that the policy was still active and I was due to pay them immediately. I phoned customer service again to explain that I had written to confirm that I wanted to cancel the policy and was told it was not possible to cancel cover in writing it had to be done over the phone and I was liable to pay up to date (which was several weeks later). At this point I had to read the correspondence that was sent to me stating that I should write to my contact to cancel. Eventually the person agreed and said that he would cancel from the time that I had cancelled and no further charges would be applicable from that time.
To understand that Halifax wanted to charge me more than double my existing premium to take my Son off cover is absurd.
To understand that it was now more expensive to cover just myself rather than my 17 year old Son and myself is absurd.
To be told it is impossible to write to cancel a policy is dishonest.
In my opinion the algorithm that sets the premiums has to be rigged. In my opinion this is profiteering and FCA need to investigate.
Reviewed on: 22nd July 2021
