Good article : "Are you due a Covid-19 refund?"

Brendan Burgess

Brendan Burgess

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Good article by Conor Pope

www.irishtimes.com

Are you due a Covid-19 refund on health insurance, school fees, travel card or gym?

Consumers may be due money back for services they are still paying for but can’t access
www.irishtimes.com www.irishtimes.com

It's subscribers only.

In summary

Health insurance: Probably no refunds, but premiums should reduce due to lower claims

School fees: The schools are educating remotely, so probably not. They are still looking at it.

Car insurance: The motor insurance industry appears unmoved by the situation, and does not appear to be taking any steps to pass any savings it will make in the weeks ahead back to consumers.

Commuter tickets: Irish Rail is looking at it. Hold onto your tickets.

Gyms: Ben Dunne, David Lloyd and Westwood have all confirmed that membership fees have been suspended until they can reopen.

Brendan
 
Sky will allow you freeze your Sports package. This amounts to close to 40 euros a month savings. Hard to know when Sport will re-convene so no point in paying subscriptions.
 
What about refunds on motor taxation?
I am not allowed to go beyond 2 KM, so I walk and cycle.
I am going to ask for a refund, for the months of the lockdown.
 
fistophobia said:
What about refunds on motor taxation?
I am not allowed to go beyond 2 KM, so I walk and cycle.
I am going to ask for a refund, for the months of the lockdown.
Click to expand...
+1. Politicians saying bank fees should be postponed (even though bank services have continued) while the collection of car tax continues...
 
Brendan Burgess said:
In summary

Health insurance: Probably no refunds, but premiums should reduce due to lower claims

Car insurance: The motor insurance industry appears unmoved by the situation, and does not appear to be taking any steps to pass any savings it will make in the weeks ahead back to consumers.
Click to expand...

Both of those seem very wrong, to me :

We pay health insurance premiums in advance, for certain types of cover that can no longer be provided

We pay car insurance cover in advance, subject to certain expectations about how much time we will spend in our cars, how much distance we will travel, how many other motorists will be on the road at the same time as us etc.

The point made about motor tax, is also valid.
 
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You could not use your car and declare it off the road I guess. A simple way of dealing with this would be to amend the rules slightly so the minimum is less than the current 3 months/full calendar months does not apply. In practice i would imagine though, most cars are being used very little, but still being used. Ours for example is used only for big shops, but still in use. Also as the tax is used to part fund the repair of the road network, I would say that the gvt could argue that this work will still need to be done. A couple of months of light useage will not make a dent in the required works.
 
Here's a better article about travel not behind a paywall.

www.independent.co.uk

The Independent’s Simon Calder answers your coronavirus travel questions

The Independent’s travel correspondent Simon Calder responds to readers’ Covid-19 concerns
www.independent.co.uk www.independent.co.uk

I heard Calder on BBC yesterday, he's often on. He's really good but I disagree with his advice on package holidays. (Atol protected) We have with another family a deposit of about 1K on a trip to America and we will not pay the balance unless we know it goes ahead. We are prepared to lose the €500 in our case. For our other trip in June we have 1.5K in flights and a €500 deposit with balance due this month. We will forgo the €500 and hope that if the airline cancels we get the money back. If allowed to travel we will go ahead. Going to the future we will move to more package based holidays as we now do for anything very expensive or long haul or odd countries. Europe is a different matter. We always based our Irish trips on not worrying if the flights didn't go as we just stay home or if in Ireland wait an extra day or too or take the boat which has never happened.
 
I read at the weekend some car insurance companies are offering 10% off car renewal policys for Frontline staff. Any idea which companies are doing this? james.
 
My father has a taxi and i rang his insurance company onhis behalf to see if we could have his cover downgraded to personal use only until restrictions are lifted. This resulted ina significant monthly reduction.

Axa were very accomodating, the person went off and checked with a supervisor and called us back within 30 mins confirming the change was effective immediately and direct debit amount had been amended. This may be of interest to people with similar type commercial policies
 
Pugmister - that is great news for them. Some bit of relief as I can imagine that the income is close non existent for taxi drivers.

I hope that the change in the insurance, would be recorded as a "break in their record" when he changes it back to commercial use again. Have you got anything in writing / discussed such over the phone with the rep, to indicate that it won't affect a renewal in the future?
 
Jazz01 said:
Pugmister - that is great news for them. Some bit of relief as I can imagine that the income is close non existent for taxi drivers.

I hope that the change in the insurance, would be recorded as a "break in their record" when he changes it back to commercial use again. Have you got anything in writing / discussed such over the phone with the rep, to indicate that it won't affect a renewal in the future?
Click to expand...

Yes, income is non existent....thankfully he is not reliant on it and does it to keep himself active more than anything.

Yes all has been confirmed in writing and confirmed as a break with no future implications. They were very willing to work with us so i would advise anyone in a similar position to at least approach their providers.
 
MrEarl said:
Really?

... In what country? ;)
Click to expand...

I had posted on that a few years ago, I had to dig it up again and checking on the details, I see I missed the 2018 change that diverted all motor tax receipts to central Government. Up to that point, motor tax was paid to the Local Government Fund, and that fund paid for all local road maintenance (non-NRA works), social housing, water, etc., with more spent on housing and water than roads.

With the 2018 change, roads maintenance continues to be funded by the Local Government Fund, but none of your motor tax gets paid into that fund.
 
Pugmister said:
Yes, income is non existent....thankfully he is not reliant on it and does it to keep himself active more than anything.

Yes all has been confirmed in writing and confirmed as a break with no future implications. They were very willing to work with us so i would advise anyone in a similar position to at least approach their providers.
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Dont forget to inform the NTA of the suspension of his SSPV cover.
 
misemoi says" Also as the tax is used to part fund the repair of the road network, I would say that the gvt could argue that this work will still need to be done. A couple of months of light useage will not make a dent in the required works"
think it now going to be diverted to repair the heavy usage of footpaths
 
johnwilliams said:
think it now going to be diverted to repair the heavy usage of footpaths
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How about the cycle lanes, signage, traffic lights etc that the cyclists are using?

... Its long past time that the cyclists paid something towards the services that they use.
 
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