GEICO refused to cancel my insurance and then billed me for insurance I had refused

July 7, 2006

I have heard of insurance companies refusing to renew a policy, but I had never heard of an insurance company that refused to cancel a policy. Thus, after 5 years as a GEICO customer, I was shocked that GEICO kept refusing to cancel my insurance. I had sold my car 2 weeks before coverage was supposed to end. I waited a few days to give the buyer a chance to get his own insurance. Then I called GEICO to cancel my the policy. They refused, saying they need a confirmation number from the DMV that I had surrendered the license plates. I said I have not paid the premium to renew the policy and will not be doing so because I have sold the car and do not want insurance on it anymore. They would not budge. I waited a bit, called back again, and still they refused to cancel the policy without a DMV confirmation number. Seeing that I had no other choice, I had to hassle the car buyer for the license plates to surrender to the DMV. I finally got the license plates and went to the DMV and got the confirmation number on the day my insurance was supposed to have expired. I called GEICO to confirm that the insurance has been cancelled due to expiration. They said no. They did agree to cancel the insurance after I gave them the confirmation number, but they said that since the policy expired on midnight of that day (less than 24 hours before), they would charge me $10.97 for that day’s of insurance coverage. I never asked for this coverage; in fact, I had explicitly asked to cancel my policy days ago. Now they have sent me a collection notice for the $10.97. I DID NOT WANT TO RENEW THIS POLICY. GEICO WAS THE ONE WHO REFUSED TO CANCEL MY POLICY. Furthermore, the fee for less than a day’s of coverage that I had explicitly rejected should have been around $1, based on the premiums I had been paying for 6 month terms, rather than almost $11. I did pay the collection bill to prevent my credit from being trashed, but I want a refund from GEICO. As a result of this experience, I plan not to do business with GEICO again in the future, but for the sake of GEICO’s current and future customers, I would suggest that GEICO cancel a customer’s insurance when the customer asks to cancel. It is one thing to advise a customer to take care of matters with the DMV, but totally uncalled for to refuse to cancel the customer’s insurance and then bill the customer for coverage that was refused. — KJ,

Buffalo, NY