New research from Abbey has shown that people in the UK are being charged a total of nearly £300 million, simply for paying their home insurance by direct debit, which is adding to many consumer's debt problems.
It has been reported that many of the people who incur these charges have no idea that it is going on, and are unaware of the savings they could make.
A spokesperson for Abbey commented: "Using direct debit to buy home insurance is not a service you should be paying for. There is no point using a competitively priced insurer if they then go and add to your annual bill using back-door methods."