I need help please! We bought a new house a few months ago and moved our auto insurance with our new house insurance under an umbrella discount with Allstate. Although I called our previous insurer Safeco to cancel our contract with them, they never did. Somehow we missed the fact that we kept paying Safeco monthly for 5 months (I know, terrible accounting!!). Now we have just noted the problem, can I call safeco and ask for a refund? Thank for your advice!
Two insurances paid on the same car for five months - is refund possible?
Not unless you can prove you cancelled. Cancellations should ALWAYS be done in writing.
WolfpackAgent
Expert
- 91
Sometimes they will use proof of duplicate insurance (insurance card, for instance) as proof to backdate coverage. Once it goes past 30 days it could be dicier, but this is in addition to what the rest of the posters have said.
- 6,457
If op's situation with Safeco is like mine, getting written documents is a bit of a difficulty.
My local agency that had sold me my Safeco policies sold out twice. The last time I tried to go into their offices with some paperwork, they treated me like a criminal for not using email. They switched their Safeco customers to Safeco customer support numbers and then after the last sellout, got so big they moved their offices out of state. So the only option I have is to talk to Safeco by telephone. So far everything they promise on the phone has happened and I've gotten policy revisions in the mail in a few days, but there is no way to get an "agent note" in writing at the time of change.
- 2,623
You can call.
You can ask.
It's anybody's guess what the result will be.
You should have requested the cancellation in writing. There's a form for it but a letter would have sufficed.
And if you were using automatic bank withdrawals (always a horrible idea) to pay your premiums monthly, you should have been checking with your bank to make sure the withdrawals were stopped.
