Hi,

I've been driving for about 10 years now. Around 7 years ago I had an accident where someone drove into the back of me through no fault of my own. At the time I had aftermarket alloy wheels fitted to my car which I had made my insurance company aware of by way of a phone call. During this call I was told that this didn't affect my premiums and the wheels had been added to the policy. When the accident happened my insurance company tried to refuse the claim based on the fact the car had been "modified" without their knoledge. This was despite the fact that they weren't even going to have to pay anything as this was being taken care of by the other guy's insurance company as he was at fault. I suspect my insurance company was attempting to keep the funds they received and not pay out.

After much negotiation they agreed to look back in their notes and confirmed that they had a record of me calling about the wheels but they weren't added to the policy for some reason. Because of this they agreed to release the funds and do the repair. The repair (Done at their recommended repairer) was a complete bodge job, that went on for months and months, resulted in many complaints and eventually them paying me the princely sum of £100 compensation.

The policy had a few months left to run and I assumed that they would contact me with renewal documents when the end of the policy was drawing close. I knew the policy ran out in August so assumed they would contact me. When they didn't contact me by the 4th week in August I phoned them and asked what was going on. It turned out the policy ran out 2 weeks previously and I had been driving around with no insurance for 2 weeks. I know this was my fault for not checking the policy date but I naturally assumed they would contact me. I asked them why the hadn't renewed the policy and they said they wouldn't renew the policy because I had lied about the wheels that were fitted to the car. I asked why they didn't even send out a letter to make me aware of this and they said they don't send out letters telling people that their policy is ending unless they are going to renew it. At that point I went with a different insurance company but didn't mention the above debacle to them and have never made a claim since.

My question is, should I make any future insurance companies I use aware of the above? Most companies ask if you have ever been refused insurance. Should I say yes to this? Had I not of phoned the insurance company in question I would have never even known that they weren't prepared to insure me. It also seems very unfair that for the rest of my life I should have to declare that I've been refused insurance due to their incompetence.

If I don't declare it, whats the chances that this info is stored / shared between insurance companies and will come back and bite me?

What would you do?

Thanks.

no its past 6yrs limitations act

dx

How does that work then?

you could send a S.A.R to that insurer as that would reveal what info they hold about you then if there is nothing about the accident and the wheels there will be no need to declare it

How does that work then?

The limitations act just means that you could not be subject to any court action regarding the original issue, if they have not obtained court judgement before the 6 years was up or you admitted liability in writing.

With Insurance, if you have ever had a policy cancelled or made void BY Insurers due to non disclosure by you, then you would have to declare it forever. Yes you did read that correctly, FOREVER.

BUT this does not apply to you. The Insurers did not cancel the policy. It lapsed because the Insurers did not, by mistake, offer or not offer renewal. If Insurers are cancelling or voiding Insurance due to non disclousure, they have to confirm this in writing to you, giving atleast 7 days notice. In any such letter they would have to provide the reason.

So forget what the person said on the phone. This is just an excuse to cover up a mistake.

If you really want to enquire about this further, you could make a subject access request under Data Protection to the company concerned. Then use the paperwork as the basis to make a complaint. At the end of it, you might just get a letter saying that the policy lapsed and there was no intention to decline you Insurance, by giving you written notice of this.

Thanks for all the comments.

The Insurers did not cancel the policy. It lapsed because the Insurers did not, by mistake, offer or not offer renewal. If Insurers are cancelling or voiding Insurance due to non disclousure, they have to confirm this in writing to you, giving atleast 7 days notice. In any such letter they would have to provide the reason.

 

So forget what the person said on the phone. This is just an excuse to cover up a mistake.

No they didn't cancel the policy and certainly didn't write to me. But I did ask them to renew it and they did say no. Does this count as being refused insurance? Obviously, if I hadn't asked, I'd have never known.

I would have thought that when phoning around for insurance quotes many people get turned down as they don't meet a certain company's criteria. Does this mean all these people have been refused insurance and should declare so?

The SAR is a good idea but what I'm worried about is then I'll "officially" know that I've been refused. At the moment there's just one phone call which they may or may not have a record of. If I do a SAR and the info in it says I've been refused, I can hardly deny that I knew this.

Anyway, do these companies share information like this? We're talking about 1 phone call 7 years ago. Would this not mean that any future insurance company looking to deny a claim would have to track back through all the insurance companies I've used over the years and request information from all of them. And even if they did this, a record of the phone call and what was said would need to have been keept for all this time and be accessible to them. Or is all this info just kept on a big database accessible by all companies?

Thanks again.

I would leave it.

The Insurers let the policy lapse. Then you made an enquiry and they could not provide a new policy. This would not count, as something you needed to declare.

It is only if you had received written confirmation that Insurers were refusing to provide you with further cover, that you would need to declare. This is why it would not be wise to ask for written confirmation of something that was said verbally, following the Insurers mistake.

OK thanks.

a SAR will probably not reveal much anyway.

It's not an all signing all dancing copy of the file. revealing the deepest darkest secrets.

Insurers are not allowed to pre-date cover. They could not have renewed it even if they wanted to because of the gap.

Hope that helps.