Should my daughter have been paying insurance twice?

Q On checking her bank statements, I have just discovered that my daughter has been paying two direct debits for her buildings insurance - one included with her mortgage payment and one on a separate policy with another company.

Is there any chance of getting a refund from either company? The house is now sold, the mortgage repaid in full and my daughter is travelling in Australia for a year.

CH

A There is no law against having more than one insurance policy covering your home. In some cases, this can even be advisable as a top-up policy where, for example, the property is freehold and the leaseholder wants more cover than the freehold policy provides.

In other cases, policies might be linked in such a way as to make it impossible to separate them - for example, your daughter may have had no choice in taking out buildings cover with her mortgage if it was part of a mortgage package, and she might have ended up with supplementary cover in a combined buildings and contents package from a separate insurer.

If the situation was ongoing, I would suggest that she approach whichever insurer she no longer wanted to continue with, explain the situation and ask for a refund of at least some of her premiums. The insurer would be under no obligation to agree but most general insurers abide by a voluntary code of practice covering dual payments like this.

That said, as the house is sold and the mortgage repaid I'm not sure a refund will be forthcoming - though it's certainly worth the cost of a stamp to write to both companies requesting one. Your daughter would have to demonstrate, however, that she was unwittingly paying twice for buildings insurance, and neither I nor the Association of British Insurers can offer much help on how she would be able to prove that.