Hi

I took out car insurance mid 2007 and paid my premium up front, received all policy documents etc and have been driving my car ever since thinking i was covered.

The other day i was stopped by the police who accused me of having no insurance! To cut a long story short, the insurance company had cancelled my policy two months into the year for alleged non-receipt of no claims discount proof (i did send it, but can't prove this)

They claim to have sent a recorded delivery letter informing me of their intention to cancel, but i never received it. They have admitted this verbally, telling me it was returned to them a month later as i never collected it from the sorting office. Unfortunately i'm not psychic and never had anything through the door telling me a letter had had attempted delivery. The insurance company tell me it's not their problem and i should take it up with the post office! They have two phone numbers for me and an email address too but never let me know.

My car was impounded because of this (now retrieved at great expense and worry after getting new insurance cover out) and i was cautioned by the police for lack of insurance and am likely to get a court summons where i could potentially get banned from driving!

The company did pay some money back onto my credit card when they cancelled, but it wasn't the whole premium (or even a proportionate amount) and i didn't notice this at the time sadly.

Does anyone have any advice on how i proceed with the legalities of this and attempting to get compensation from the insurer for doing this?

thanks in advance

Hi Zugz,

The insurer has no legal requirement to call you, although this would've been nice through common courtesy! They sent a letter recorded delivery, which you failed to collect- which isn't there fault, so they have sent correspondence to advise you of there actions, so it is unlikely that they will accept any responsibility. with regards to the premium, if they have canceleld the policy 'from inception', this would usually mean a full returned premium as far as i'm aware.

Best thing you can do is:

Write to the insurer's customer relations dept, explaining your issues.

If unsatisfied, register the complaint with fos (financial ombudsman service)- will take a while, but they will decide who is responsible.

hope it gets sorted for you,

Hi Zugz,

i know its not much help but as long as you are over 21 have held a full licence for 2 years or more and have no other points on your licence you will get up to 6 points on your licence and a fine. This will however affect your insurance premiums. I doubt if you will get a ban if the above applies.

Out of interest was it a Traffic cop that stopped you or a normal bobby in a panda.

thanks for replies so far.

I must admit if this is the case i find it outrageous that a company can cancel such an important thing as car insurance without ensuring that i knew, especially when they had no need to do so (i had sent my no claims proof to them). Imagine if i had had a crash?!

I have three points for a relatively minor speeding offence (36 in a thirty limit) 3 years ago. This is the only endorsement on my license in 20 years of motoring......

If i get any points for this at all i thinks its a disgrace. I've spent £200 + already retrieving my car and paying extra insurance premiums top get the car out. Now my premiums for future years will almost certainly go up dramatically and i've already discovered that many insurance companies are unwilling to insure people who have had their insurance cancelled.

Surely i have some recourse to the insurance company for doing this?

In answer to your question RK08, I think it was a regular panda car, but can't be sure. He had a computer on the dashboard that flashed up my details and a large "no insurance" indicator. He approached me at a petrol station in the middle of a city, much to my suprise.

I think you need to look at your policy T & C's and unless anyone else can advise you to the contrary i think the insurance only need to inform you by post that the policy will be cancelled in x amount of days. I will try and verify this tomorrow.

As for the offence if it does go to court you can try and apply the following.

Special Reasons:

A legal term for a set of circumstances advanced to avoid endorsement and/or disqualification:

It must be a mitigating or extenuating circumstance;

It must not relate to a legal defence to the charge;

It must be directly connected with the offence and not solely to the offender;

It should be a factor the court should properly take into account when deciding the sentence

An example of this could be where the insurance company have cancelled an insurance policy but the notification never reached the driver.

Unfortunately a recorded/registered letter is deemed as delivered on the day it is posted even if the recipient can prove that they never received it.

This was in a case of a landlord sending a quite notice to a tenent but I would suspect that it will be the case in all correspondence.

 

I think you need to look at your policy T & C's and unless anyone else can advise you to the contrary i think the insurance only need to inform you by post that the policy will be cancelled in x amount of days. I will try and verify this tomorrow.

Yes that is correct. In order to cancel a policy, an insurer has to send a letter to the policyholder's last known address (usually by recorded delivery or registered post) giving 14 days' notice of cancellation. This period of notice is not standard; some insurers state 10 days, others 30 days.

Personally I think it would be best if the insurer had to phone the policyholder as well as send them a letter to notify them of the cancellation, but unfortunately the current law doesn't require this.

Just to add my 2p's worth, I have to agree with the majority here, the insurer has an obligation to notify you in writing of their intent to cancel the policy but they don't have to email/telephone/fax or send smoke signals (OK, that last one was a bit flippant but you get the idea!)

Can i just also mention that for it to have got to this stage, they must have been waiting quite a while for receipt of your POB and must have written to you prior to this to let you know.

In regards to the refund, at a guess i'd say they probably charged you for "time on risk" rather than give you a full refund.

Easy way to work it out is to check when the inception and cancellation date of the policy is and work out how many days were "used". Then take your annual premium, divide it by 365 and then multiply by the amount of days used. this is the charge for the time you've been on cover, if you deduct this from your annual premium then that figure should be what went back into your account.

If you want a purely personal opinion, i think you're probably wasting your time taking this any further, especially if the company sent the letter recorded delivery, which they will no doubt have proof of.

I'd personally take it as a learning experience and move on, but as i said, that's just me.

DA

DA

I was just posting a reply when I saw yours.

I'm a little rusty as I have been out of the industry for a while but would the insurer not have requested a gross premium payment in the absence of POB before issuing cancellation for non payment?

It depends on the circumstances.

I can only speak on behalf of our company but.....

Usually we'll send out a letter saying that if we don't receive pob by XXX date, we'll reduce the discount to zero and an additional premium of £XXX will be due.

In some cases this isn't possible, like if the car was a high performance vehicle for example, the criteria for insurance would usually include an age restriction (e.g over 25s) and also a minimum NCD amount (usually 2 years) so in that case we cant reduce the NCD to zero cos we wouldn't insure the car with zero NCD so our only option would be cancellation. (if that makes sense?!)

Also, he paid in full (presumably on a card) so we wouldn't be able to take the funds without him calling in, whereas if he paid by DDinst, we'd just automatically spread the extra over the remaining instalments or take it as a lump sum if they paid by DDlump.

Either way he would have had several letters (we send out 4 at 10 day intervals before we cancel) before cover was terminated.

DA

Thanks for posting that Darkangel/Lemon Twist you both saved me a load of typing in the box, after doing some research with a few contacts my coments were going to be along the same lines.

No probs.

Car insurance cancelled by insurer with no notification after 4years:confused:

I woke up the other day, being about 300miles from home and received a message from my girlfriend to say there is a letter from my insurer stating that my car insurance has been cancelled.

I then picked up phone immediately and called my insurer but surprisengly no one could explain to me why my policy was cancelled (they just said sorry). Instead I was offered a new quote which was more than what I have been paying for the last 4 years so I turned it down and demanded an explanation why was my policy cancelled.

I had to pick up a bill on my phone of about 1,5 hrs being passed from one person to another ,mind you I was 250 miles from here so I needed my car to be insured so as I get home , the guy who offering me a quote was even threating to report me to the police for driving a car without an insurance so that I take the quote he was giving me. I then decided to leave my car and jump into train home as I was not ready to fork out for another insurance company.

I have been asked to write a letter to their head office so as they investigate why my policy was cancelled.

Does anyone have any advice on how I proceed with legalities of this and attempting to get compensantion from the insurer for doing this? Please help. JUST TO POINT OUT THE NAME OF THE COMPANY .

IS HASTINGS !!!!!!!!!!!!i wouid be very happy if anyone could help:confused:

Hallo everybody,

!New to this section of the forum.

My son is in an awful situation. On 14th August he was involved in a nasty accident. He was hospitalised and the police were supposed to take a statement from him but never turned up. He contacted his insurance company who told him his policy was cancelled the previous April as they were unable to collect his direct debit. However he never recieved any correspondence from them, nor indeed his bank who normally write (and charge!) He was not asked to return his certificate of insurance either.

I have complained to the FOS , but meantime the insurance company of the other driver are demanding £14,000 from him. The other driver admittedw as on the wrong side of the road at the time, but what can my son do without help from his insurance company. Hope I'm not hi-jacking your thread but am quite desperate for advice.

Hallo everybody,

!New to this section of the forum.

My son is in an awful situation. On 14th August he was involved in a nasty accident. He was hospitalised and the police were supposed to take a statement from him but never turned up. He contacted his insurance company who told him his policy was cancelled the previous April as they were unable to collect his direct debit. However he never recieved any correspondence from them, nor indeed his bank who normally write (and charge!) He was not asked to return his certificate of insurance either.

I have complained to the FOS , but meantime the insurance company of the other driver are demanding £14,000 from him. The other driver admittedw as on the wrong side of the road at the time, but what can my son do without help from his insurance company. Hope I'm not hi-jacking your thread but am quite desperate for advice.

It might be better to start your own thread, then advice will be given.As i am sure you understand.

Has he checked with his bank re the direct debit and did the insurance company say when they informed him and by what means. Was it an injury collision and have the Police contacted re any prosecution for no insurance.

I am familiar with some insurance law and procedures but not to much. I am more on the side of traffic law. Hopefully someone will assist you with the insurance side shortly.

Thanks RD08

I will try and check with his bank. The trouble with my son,like many other people they don't check their bank statements each month and therefore don't notice if direct debits go through or not unless notified. So long as they can draw at the cashpoint that's all that matters!!!!

Sorry RD08 didn't answer all of your questions. Yes he was injured. No there has been no prosecution from the policy re lack of insurance

thanks

mummybird

sorry for the delay

As per earlier the insurance companies tend to send out a letter informing that a policy is going to be cancelled either due to not being able to collect the premium or lack of info etc. every insurance company is different but most of them send the letter by recorded delivery, if it is delivered and returned to them they are under no obligation to make any other contact.

Since it was an injury collision the Police should have completed a collision report. They would have been in a position to check your sons insurance at the time of the collision and i am surprised that if he was not insured that they didnt report him for driving without insurance. I am also suprised that they have not followed this up as there is a possible offence of driving without due care on the part of the other driver.

Was your son issued with a form HORT/1 request for production of driving licence insurance and MOT.

You could start asking questions of the Police but the only problem with this is that your son could end up in Court for driving without insurance.

Is he liable for the 14000, the answer to that is i dont know at this time. I think it might be best to start a new thread for this one and se if there are any insurance experts out there. In the mean time i will see what i can find out. I can quite confidently give you advice on the traffic law side but not an expert in the insurance field

Thanks RK08

Will start a new thread as suggested. Perhaps you any others would look at it for me

I will call it mummybird and the cancelled car insurance

look forward to it

hi ,thanks for the reply ,i think someone has hyjacked my user name this one is not for me but i red about this lady and her son .hope you get time and read about mine mate , its about a copany called HASTINGS they just cancelled my policy without any notice! please help if you can, i had to leave my car 250miles from home and they took their monthly payment as well .

sorry for the delay

 

As per earlier the insurance companies tend to send out a letter informing that a policy is going to be cancelled either due to not being able to collect the premium or lack of info etc. every insurance company is different but most of them send the letter by recorded delivery, if it is delivered and returned to them they are under no obligation to make any other contact.

 

Since it was an injury collision the Police should have completed a collision report. They would have been in a position to check your sons insurance at the time of the collision and i am surprised that if he was not insured that they didnt report him for driving without insurance. I am also suprised that they have not followed this up as there is a possible offence of driving without due care on the part of the other driver.

 

Was your son issued with a form HORT/1 request for production of driving licence insurance and MOT.

 

You could start asking questions of the Police but the only problem with this is that your son could end up in Court for driving without insurance.

 

Is he liable for the 14000, the answer to that is i dont know at this time. I think it might be best to start a new thread for this one and se if there are any insurance experts out there. In the mean time i will see what i can find out. I can quite confidently give you advice on the traffic law side but not an expert in the insurance field

Yep been reading a lot about this company who tend to cancel policies for the slightest thing. Just a word of warning, if your policy is cancelled and you left your car at the side of the road or indeed on any public road then it needs to be insured.

Sorry ndnorthleeds for hi-jacking your thread have started my own now

regards mummybird

The first thing is to get yourself insured, have you thought about cancelling the direct debit and taking out a policy with another company. Most insurers will give a big discount for new policies. There are some good search sites on the net.

The next thing is to establish why your policy has been cancelled and contacting the FSA. Have a read through Hastings T & C's see if anything applies. It could as simple as failing to notify motoring convictions, no claims bonus etc.