Ignoring the completely pointless argument about burglars and going back to the original point, it is correct that most (if not all) insurers use the same auto-renewal procedure if you do not contact them. Therefore, the same situation would have happened with the other insurers. I don't feel this is a valid reason to not use the company again.

What gets me is that many of the companies use renewal time and auto-renewal to bump up your premium in the hope of you not bothering to shop around and them making more money out of you. Invariably, if you call to say you do not wish to renew the policy for another year they offer to find a better deal. Sorry, but you had that chance when you sent the renewal through!

But, these scammers use computer models to make sure they maximise their revenue. It's exactly the same as gas and elec suppliers. They offer great deals to NEW customers and shiit deals to existing customers, because they already know pretty accurately what numbers will stay, what numbers will swop and what the net result will be. So they don't care if you don't renew, so long as their numbers stack up.

Motor insurers use similar models when making compensation settlement offers. They deliberately undervalue, because enough will accept rather than fight for fair compensation, and so they don't care about being landed with the legal bills for those that will not accept an undervalue, as in the overall scheme of things, it doesn't matter.