Pay Double If You Live in L8

By ADRIAN BUTLER

AN insurance company cancelled a woman's car policy after they realised what part of Liverpool she lived in.

Julie Cooney, 40, from Toxteth had been paying Hastings, for her car insurance since March.

But this week bosses at the company told her they had made a mistake in offering her cover for pounds 734 a year.

They offered to give her a new policy but warned she would have to pay around double the amount because of her L8 postcode.

Today she said: "It's outrageous - how dare they discriminate against us?"

The company admitted around 3,000 people across the country had been given the wrong quotes because of a system failure.

The mum-of-three returned from work to be met by an answerphone message asking her to call her insurancers urgently.

She said: "They told me that due to an underwriter's error they were not able to insure me. Then they said I could have another policy, but it would cost me twice as much."

Mrs Cooney, from Greave Street, has a completely clean licence, and uses her Suzuki Swift car working with drug addicts for the Criminal Justice Service.

She said: "Just because L8 has a reputation for car crime not everyone should suffer with high insurance payments and having been originally offered cover I don't think they should be able to just withdraw it."

A Hastings Direct spokesperson confirmed there were areas of the country where Hastings did not offer insurance, but would not say whether any of these were in Merseyside.

Should people face higher insurance costs because of where they live? Go to www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/forums

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