Overcoming the angst of auto-renewal

The Guardian

Wed, 25 February 2026 at 2:49 am GMT+9 2 min read

AA rescue van towing a car in Warwickshire. ‘We noticed that the AA premiums were very high.’

Photograph: Colin Underhill/Alamy · Photograph: Colin Underhill/Alamy

Re: Adrian Chiles’s column (My breakdown cover was extortionate – and that taught me an important lesson, 18 February). My dad was a member of the AA for 60 years and called them out about once a decade in all that time. When he died last year aged 91, we noticed, like Chiles, that the premiums were very high, and rang to move the account to my mother’s name and see if we could reduce the cost. The answer (without any condolences or recognition of Dad’s loyalty to the brand) was: “No.” Unsurprisingly, we are no longer with the AA.
Louisa Clarke
Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire

• Adrian Chiles has fallen foul, like most of us, to pernicious insurance auto-renewal.

A couple of years ago, the Financial Conduct Authority ruled that insurance companies couldn’t charge existing home and car insurers customers more than new customers.

Unfortunately, insurers seem never to have heard of the FCA or concluded that they could ignore it – and have carried on regardless.
David Quinn
London

• I expect that some Guardian readers will be checking their auto-renewals after reading Adrian Chiles’s article. So he can take some comfort from that.

People lead such busy lives these days. I am retired, but I find it quite exhausting renewing policies and TV deals. I find threatening to leave produces a better deal.
Helen Evans
Ruthin, Denbighshire

• Though “SMBOBU Recovery”, as Adrian Chiles calls it, wasn’t charging me as much as it did him, I discovered that it was charging me £424.40 per year. I bought cover from a similarly prestigious firm at £101.40 and cancelled SMBOBU. Thanks, Adrian.
Margaret Squires
St Andrews, Fife

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