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Another innocent person screwed over by a scrote and a ridiculous law
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Before anyone gets on high horses, read this first:
tinyurl.com/ncgqsbm
Some of the respondents are professionals.
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I cancelled a car policy earlier this year and the confirmation letter that I received from the insurance company stated that I was legally obliged to return the cover certificate. A return envelope was provided.
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You even get this when the certificate was emailed to you...
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Does that make it less of a legal requirement?
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No idea, it's only a stamp even if they don't supply, so they'd just be humoured here. Not worth getting excited over.
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This may be worth a read to explain some issues. It is somewhat better written than the original reporting.
www.thompsons.law.co.uk/road-traffic-accidents/road-accidents-uninsured-stolen-vehicles.htm
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I am confused :-(
You own a car. You allow someone else to drive [who is not a named driver] and it will be deemed as driving without insurance (or may be deemed as fronting depending on case).
You sell the car. New seller has no insurance, but it is being deemed that he is covered by your insurance.
Looks like whatever you do, law is always against you!
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The new driver was disqualified, which seems to be the key point. As I understand it, that makes the ownership of the bike irrelevant and the policyholder's permission (intended or not) invalid. While the policy is in force, the holder has a duty to see that the vehicle is driven only by authorized individuals in possession of the correct licence. Unfortunate perhaps that he got found out by events, but that is what the seller failed to do.
May also be relevant that this happened in Scotland. Might not work the same way under English law.
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>>
>> May also be relevant that this happened in Scotland. Might not work the same way
>> under English law.
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The small print of most policies say that English law applies.
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I always thought it was the responsibility of the driver, or rider in this case, to ensure the vehicle was roadworthy and complied with the law(s) e.g. valid drivers licence, insurance and MOT - if applicable.
If he had been stopped he would have had the bike confiscated for riding without a licence and insurance. Or, would that have been the sellers problem too?
Insurance companies do not have internal checks.
I found out this year that my insurer which has been the same company for the last three years had three separate policies running for my bike at the same time. The previous two years had auto-renewed. You'd think in this day and age where the police have access to insurance data online, the insurance companies would have some sort of check to make sure multiple policies were not being applied to the same vehicle or at least flag them for further investigation.
Or, is this a common occurrence having multiple policies on a single vehicle?
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>>
>> If he had been stopped he would have had the bike confiscated for riding without
>> a licence and insurance. Or, would that have been the sellers problem too?
I suddenly have this image of a biker escaping prosecution for riding without a helmet because it was the previous owner's responsibility, who happened to be a Sikh.
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>> Or, is this a common occurrence having multiple policies on a single vehicle?
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Maybe someone now has three lots of new policy commission. :)
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>> >>
>> >> Or, is this a common occurrence having multiple policies on a single vehicle?
>> >>
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>> Maybe someone now has three lots of new policy commission. :)
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As I got two lots of insurance premiums back the insurer will have lost out.
I guess the insurance company could go after the employee for defrauding the company or the Tester for not testing thoroughly enough or missing a test case, the Programmer for writing buggy code or the Analyst for introducing the loophole in their use cases etc...etc...etc...
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Indeed, these days i never have a paper cerificate so can't return it - do I send their own email back to them?
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The issue here seems to be the hierarchy by which claims for uninsured loss are settled.
The rider of the bike was uninsured. He had no policy of his own and was in any event disqualified from driving. The owner and/or driver of the car with which he collided would need to rely on the statutory provisions and insurance industry protocols for dealing with uninsured loss.
While ultimate backstop is the Motor Insurers Bureau it seems that under some circs there is recourse to ANY policy in force in respect vehicle (eg if it is stolen or being driven with insured's consent but outwith terms of policy). The Thomson's solicitors link upthread sets this out in plain language. It may look unjust in way things have panned out in this accident but there is a certain logic in terms of uninsured loss and how it is shared out witihn Insurance industry and MIB.
I suspect the use of word 'faces' in the report is in that sense much used by press where rather than referring to something certain or likely it means might happen if all intermediate safeguards, discretions etc are thrown out of window.
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It is curious if true that the insurance company has discretion whether it assumes responsibility for the claim or not. The suspicion is that it only does that when it can immediately foist the loss off on to someone else.
It is also curious that insurers seem able to cancel policies instantly and automatically when it suits them, but hang tenaciously on to liability in the circumstances of this case.
Can an insurance expert elucidate exactly what is going on?
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I'm about as far removed from an expert as you can get but my understanding is this is very clearly defined in law. So very little room for manoeuvre.
Do bear in mind, for such a case to arise in the first place, an innocent party has collected dents or worse and although we know it not always to be true, there is an expectation that any road users are insured.
Last edited by: Slidingpillar on Thu 4 Sep 14 at 21:00
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>>>I cancelled a car policy earlier this year and the confirmation letter that I received from the insurance company stated that I was legally obliged to return the cover certificate. A return envelope was provided.
I've mentioned this before I'm sure but in a similar circumstance Saga sent a link to an insurance certificate (password protected) when they expected us to auto renew but in fact we cancelled. We didn't access the link but they insisted we had to log in then print it out and post back to them.
Sheer madness and contrary to legislation introduced to cover electronic insurance certificates. The call centre level workers got quite childish saying until we went through their process the policy would still be charged.
A call to the complaints manager saw them backtrack and send a £50 cheque for our trouble.
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We just had to send one back to the Pru for the boss's car, though they do insist on sending paper ones out. It didn't hold up the refund (£150+, despite a £47 cancellation charge) and we only paid £185 for a year's cover with LV including legal - result:)
Main trigger for this was that Pru charge hefty increases for SP30s (mine). Doesn't seem to make much difference with LV, at least within reason.
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This is the legal bit about insurance certificates.
www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/147
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Insurance trap. - TheManWithNoName
