Refund for Quinn customers

MOTOR insurance customers are to receive refunds of €293,000 from Quinn Direct after they were overcharged by the company.

The overcharging on 18,500 policies came to light during an internal review.

The overcharging occurred when Quinn Direct was calculating refunds due upon cancellation of motor insurance policies or when a customer ordered a policy change midway through an insurance term.

The company will write to all affected customers in the coming days with details of each error and the amount owed to them.

Up to 13,000 customers will receive refunds of an average of €15.77, plus compound interest each.

The refunds relate to the period from January 2001 to February 2006, with the maximum refund amounting to €25, plus compound interest.

A Quinn Direct spokesman said the refunds do not relate to the recent court case involving Quinn Insurance and the Financial Services Ombudsman.

“The errors occurred due to the system not calculating the refund on the total amount of premium charged on changes to policies,” he said.

Quinn Insurance has reported the matter to the Financial Regulator.

Quinn Insurance general manager Colin Morgan said: “We would like to apologise to all the affected customers from 2001 to 2006 for these errors in calculating refunds on their policies and we will repay all amounts in the coming weeks.”