Not upheld: Other regulated complaint complaint against Qmetric Group Limited

Decision detail

Summary

Mrs K (through her son Mr S) complained that QGL renewed her home insurance policy after she asked to cancel it. Mr S had purchased the policy using his card and requested cancellation multiple times, but QGL refused to act on his instructions because he was not an authorised party on the account. QGL advised Mr S that Mrs K needed to provide direct authorisation for him to act on her behalf. The ombudsman found that QGL acted fairly and reasonably by refusing to discuss the account with an unauthorised party, and there was no evidence that the policy should not have been set up to auto-renew. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that QGL acted fairly by refusing to discuss Mrs K's account with an unauthorised party. Although Mr S made multiple requests to cancel the policy and payment method, QGL reasonably required Mrs K's direct authorisation before taking any action. The ombudsman found no evidence supporting Mr S's claim that he had instructed QGL not to set up auto-renewal, and the call recording confirmed he never made such a statement. The email Mr S presented as Mrs K's consent could not reasonably be concluded as authorisation as it was part of an email chain using the same email address with no mention of Mrs K's name.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website