Thread: Advice On Non Disclosure Of Speeding Convictions

Hi,

I'm really worried. I've just taken a new policy with 1st Central through confused.com. A few days in I drove into the back of another car at a roundabout, clearly my fault.

I've notified my insurers, there is no damage to my car but a fair bit to hers, I won't be claiming but I think she will.

My insurers phoned me today to check a few details and asked if I'd had any accidents or convictions. I told them about the 2 speeding offences and they had no record of them.

I explained I put it in the confused application and that I've only had an email for the new policy but nothing in the post so not had chance to check the full details properly. They told me to send in my confused form and my DVLC to review it. Now I'm really worried they will refuse to pay the 3rd party claim?

Can anyone let me know where I stand?

Thanks

When you took out the insurance you will most certainly have been asked about convictions.

Insurers base their premiums on a number of factors, one of which is convictions of the proposer, so if you failed to declare your convictions it's really up to the insurer as to what they want to do.

Worst case scenario, they tell you that they wouldn't have insured you and leave you to deal with the matter privately, ie YOU pay for all the repairs

Most likely scenario, they tell you how much more insurance would have cost if you had declared them and you pay the difference and then they deal with it on your behalf.

MORAL OF THE STORY: DO NOT FAIL TO DECLARE OR HIDE ANYTHING FROM YOUR INSURERS, THEY USUALLY FIND OUT ABOUT IT SOONER OR LATER.

Mossy

It wasn't a deliberate attempt to mislead them, I applied through confused.com and declared I had convictions, I have a print out of the form, some info must have got lost in the application as I didn't take it out straight away.

I also declared it immediately during my phone call with them and was shocked they didn't have a record of it.

Hopefully I will just have to pay the difference which is fair enough.

The OP explained that he had indeed declared the convictions when applying for the policy.

It seems to me that there has been a mix up and either Confused or your insurance company (or both) are responsible, it doesn't look like it's your fault, although (as Gyzmo's already explained) when the insurance company realises their error, they will probably charge you for the difference, i.e. the extra bit of money they would have charged you for the policy had your details of the convictions got through to them.

If on the off chance your company is one of those companies that refuses to insure you if you have more than X number of points and it turns out they wouldn't have insured you in the first place if they'd known your details, I would hope that they would give you a refund for the policy but I wouldn't guarantee it at all, they're like Ryanair, when anything goes wrong it's never their fault!

Best of luck, hopefully they will realise you had indeed been honest when applying and it was not your fault that the details were mislaid somewhere in the process, you did everything you were asked and declared everything you should have so I can't see you being in the wrong.

If when changing your policy to the price it would be with your convictions and they try and add the customary extra £20 or whatever for altering the policy, don't let them do that, kick up a fuss, that would be really unfair of them to charge you the changing fee as it is their fault and not yours that they have to change the policy in the first place.

If the fault of non-disclosure lies with the agent, and not the cutomer (as the OP explained) then the customer is not liable for the difference in premium as he may not have purchased that policy at the higher premium.


A quote is a quote - if they get it wrong, tough luck to them. If the agent got it wrong, then they are liable for mis-selling.


If you would not even have been offered the policy as it does not meet their underwriting criteria then nothing has changed. The insurance company still has to insure you - they are not allowed to cancel the insurance (among other things that would mean you'd have to answer yes to the question of having insurance cancelled which would **** you over properly). In fact if the policy were full cycle they would even have to give you a renewal quote.