Hi,

I received a letter in September 2016 stating that an insurance claim had been made against my car licence plate in an area in the North West I have never been to.

Contacted my insurers who asked me to fill in some forms they were sending out and could I make my car available for inspection, both of which I did.

My car insurance was due for renewal 23 January 2017,

earlier in this month, I received a quote of £1178 for this year's insurance, three times the previous years quote!!!

I rang my insurers who told me they would contact me to check if I still wanted to go ahead with the renewal quote and there was nothing they can do until this false claim is settled, this never happened and the funds were taken from my bank without further notice.

I have made numerous phone calls only to be told that renewals dept can deal with my renewal complaint but I must contact separately their claims dept for information or updates on what is happening!

I was told that I am 'innocent until proven guilty' by a call handler and I have been told on several occasions that I will get called back, but have not received anything back to help resolve this matter,

I desperately need my money back as am struggling financially but my insurers say there is no timescale for getting this matter ended.

Please help, it seems like this is going to cost me money I can ill afford to lose through someone implicating me in something I know nothing of or can do nothing about,

I have asked my insurers to give me the third party insurer's details allowing me to help myself,

they say they can't under data protection rules

but this is a joke as my personal mobile number, I believe was passed to the third party insurer's without my consent,

but am having difficulty from my insurers getting an answer to my question as to how the third party insurer's gained my personal information. NIGHTMARE!!!!!!

First off, I would set about reading our customer services guide, implement the advice there and stop doing stuff on the telephone without having any record of what has been said.

This data protection excuse which you have been given on the telephone sounds like a load of nonsense to me. I can't see any reason why you shouldn't know who your accusers are.

Secondly, are you intending to continue with the same insurance company? Have you looked around for quotes elsewhere?

I think that you need to write to them as a matter of urgency. Refer to the conversation which you have had with them on the phone and tell them that you are told over the phone that they couldn't let you know who your accusers were because of data protection and that you reject this entirely and you want them to disclose to you who it is that is apparently making this claim against you, what the circumstances of the alleged incident are, and how did they make contact with your insurers without contacting you.

Tell your insurers that if they want to stand by their data protection claim, then please will they confirm that in writing because you will then be making a complaint to the Information Commissioner.

Tell them also that you do not accept that there is no time limit for solving this matter. Tell your insurers that they are treating you unfairly and that this is a breach of the FCA regulations – ICOBS. Tell them that if they cannot give you a satisfactory answer then you will be beginning a complaint to the Ombudsman and that they should consider your letter as the beginning of that full process.

At the same time, but under separate cover, send them an SAR which should also put pressure on them to reveal to you all of the information which they hold in respect of you.

You say that you have told them that you are prepared to make your car available for inspection. Has that happened? If so when?

Otherwise known, as "One Call and you will regret it."

You should have asked them to cancel the auto renewal and contacted a local brokers to sort out alternative insurance. As long as any new Insurers were aware of this claim issue, then you should have been able to arrange alternative cover.

There is no reason for your Insurers not to provide the third parties insurance details, if you have been accused of having this accident. If you were given the third parties registration number, you could visit the Askmid site to obtain the Insurance company details.

If you have made a complaint to Onecall about this and they have not responded properly, then you could phone the FOS to see if they can intervene to make Onecall respond.

You should not have left it this long after receiving the letter in September. You should have made an official complaint about this and insisted on having full details of the third parties claim information, so that you could sort it out. It is not helpful to this third party either, as their insurers have contacted the wrong company and as a consequence they will not make a recovery, so the third party could see a premium increase as well.

go try and get the moneyback under the DD guarantee from your bank.

if onecall did not send you notification they were taking the money 14 days in advance

they cant use the old DD mandate for the rolled over policy.

dx

There's no dpa breaching in giving the third party's insurer details and claim reference.

They can't give any of the third party's details though, name reg etc is a no no.

one call are just a broker though, you need to speak to the right people at the underwriter, go to their customer relations team.

Awkward situation, These type of issues usually fix themselves, but until then paying the extra (which you will be entitled to have back once it's all cleared) hurts.

They can provide the third parties registration number, location of alleged accident, date/time, as these are not part of the data subjects personal information.

If you think about it, if registration plates were covered by Data Protection in terms of actual number on its own, you could drive around with them covered up.

Using Askmid you can find out the third parties insurers details and can speak to them about the accident to advise that the registration number they have been given is incorrect, as the current Insured of that vehicle has never been to where the accident is stated to have occurred.

They might confirm the make/model of the car their driver had the accident with. (Record the call if you can).

Of course, as you say it is simpler to provide third parties insurers details and the claim reference.

One call are the most useless insurance people ever

so to be realistic expect to do as much as you can for yourself in getting to ther bottom of this.

As for the claim itself,

suggest that you try and get the insurer to investigate the matter as fraud.

YOu may have to take them out of the loop and let the other party's insurer sue you.

A risky strategy, I know people who have both succeeded and failed using it.

They can provide the third parties registration number, location of alleged accident, date/time, as these are not part of the data subjects personal information.

 

If you think about it, if registration plates were covered by Data Protection in terms of actual number on its own, you could drive around with them covered up.

 

Using Askmid you can find out the third parties insurers details and can speak to them about the accident to advise that the registration number they have been given is incorrect, as the current Insured of that vehicle has never been to where the accident is stated to have occurred.

 

They might confirm the make/model of the car their driver had the accident with. (Record the call if you can).

 

Of course, as you say it is simpler to provide third parties insurers details and the claim reference.

Unfortunately it's the ico who see a registration plate as personal data. Time date and location, make model, even driver description are fine.

One call are the most useless insurance people ever

 

so to be realistic expect to do as much as you can for yourself in getting to ther bottom of this.

 

As for the claim itself,

suggest that you try and get the insurer to investigate the matter as fraud.

 

YOu may have to take them out of the loop and let the other party's insurer sue you.

 

A risky strategy, I know people who have both succeeded and failed using it.

the insurer is barely dealing with the issue, you throw fraud in you give them licence to delay even further!

Sadly this issue is pretty common,

the downside of the MID database,

it cuts out the buffer making initial enquiries with the other party direct.