I have just discovered that the credit and debit card insurance I have been paying for since moving to Thailand from the UK 12 years ago is completely useless.

If my bank account had been raided or somebody had stolen my credit card and gone on a shopping spree, I would not have got a penny in compensation.

The shocking truth only emerged when I contacted UK-based insurers CardGuard about renewing the annual premium on my Kasikornbank and HSBC Offshore bank cards.

For more than a decade they have been happily taking my money via a standing order. Now they tell me I am not entitled to cover - and never have been since I moved to Thailand.

According to the CardGuard agent I spoke to, this particular policy is available only to UK and Channel Islands residents and I should have had mine terminated years ago.

He couldn't explain how nobody had "picked up" on the fact that I lived in Thailand (I have never had a second residence in the UK) and was therefore ineligible for cover.

It's a mystery to me, too, since CardGuard has written to me regularly since I moved to LOS, asking for updates on my card detais, changes of address etc. - all of which I have duly sent them.

How can it have taken so long for CardGuard to realise that Cha Am, Petchaburi, Thailand is not part of the UK or Channel Islands?

I have now been left high and dry, with no card insurance nor even an explanation of how such an extraordinary situation could occur. My only consolation has been the return of my last premium, with no mention of all the others I paid for non-existent cover.

Hopefully, mine is just a one-off case and other UK expats in Thailand and elsewheree will not find themselves in a similar predicament.

^same happened to a mate of mine.

His bank have told him they will return the premiums for the years he has been outside of UK.