Seriously ill man left paying insurance for a car he doesn’t own and can’t drive

A reader called Claire mailed us in an “absolute fury” over how Bank of Ireland Insurance Services had treated her father who has been seriously ill for the last number of years.

“It came to my attention in June 2022 that his car insurance had not been cancelled as the renewal letter was received around this time last year,” she says.

She says her father “has not owned this car since 2021. I contacted his branch and spoke to the manager, who confirmed he had been continued to be charged for the insurance and they advised me that unfortunately there was no recourse to recoup the insurance paid for 2021 but if I sent a letter to Bank of Ireland Insurance services I could cancel the policy before it renewed in 2021. I organised for a letter to be printed and signed by Anthony and return to Bank of Ireland Insurance Services to organise for the renewal to be cancelled.”

Fast forward to more recent times when she found out that rather than cancelling the policy Bank of Ireland simply renewed it. In 2021, her father paid €762. He paid €576 in 2022 and was being asked to pay €697 – all for a car he did not own and cannot drive.

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Claire says she spoke to Bank of Ireland’s vulnerable customer department, which advised her of the forms that needed to be filled in and advised her to make an appointment in branch to get this sorted. “As I am sure you know, you can no longer ring branches, so you have to fill out a booking request and wait for someone to call back. I tried this about three times and never got a response from anyone in Bank of Ireland to organise that meeting.”

When we brought this to the bank’s attention we received this statement: “We would like to apologise for how this request was mishandled, we fully acknowledge that the policy should have been cancelled when the original request was submitted. We can confirm that it is being addressed as a priority, we have cancelled the policy and contacted the customer’s daughter to arrange a refund. We would like to sincerely apologise for the error.”