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Well what a tarradiddle that all was. About 4 hours of my life in the last couple of days I'll never get back.
The upshot of all this is that, yes it appears there was a case of mistaken identity of the car registration, and eventually, some time in September it was referred back to the correct insurer (not mine). At that time this claim should have been removed off my policy. But it wasn't. At no time have I been kept in touch with what's been going on.
So it seemed that I was going to have to renew a policy, which didn't fit my needs, and was going to cost me £100 more than a new policy, with the same company, which did fit my needs. Once it became obvious that this claim needed to be removed, evidently it could take 24 hours, or actually no, 48 hours to be removed. No one could answer the question why.
After much toing and froing, between various different people, in various different departments, in the end they accepted the application for a new policy, which I have now bought. My instincts were to avoid Tesco like the plague, but I wasn't able to get a policy elsewhere due to information I didn't have to enter into the compare websites.
That was 2 hours ago. I was reassured that the policy wouldn't be declined due to the presence of a claim, that shouldn't be there, but isn't yet removed, and which I haven't declared, because I wasn't able to. So far so good. I have asked them to contact me to let me know when this claim is removed, but I am not holding my breath.
So for now, I have insurance, and have asked how to complain about this. Because I am going to complain. Somebody, no idea who, has not done his/her job properly, and someone needs to know.
So - if anyone else gets into this position, my recommendation would be to keep contacting the insurance company, every week if need be to find out what's happening. No you shouldn't have to do this, but better that than getting right to the point of renewal and finding there's a major issue.