Insurance company system failure, car siezed £105 fine, potential 6 points £200 fine, advice needed

[hasani007]

Hello, i will cut down my long story short to make it easy for you to read,i brought insurance from "More Than" on Monday and recieved a thank you for buying email, i was stopped by traffic police Thursday last week who told me i had no insurance on the car, i assured them i did, they phoned my insurer who said no insurance was found on the system, the car was siezed, i phoned the insurance company who after several checks found that the quote did not change into a policy because of the incompetence of there system and no certificate of insurance was sent, they provided me with a letter of indemnity via fax which stated that i was insured on the day the car was siezed. i took this faxed letter to the police who rejected it as soon as seeing it was a fax and not a certificate,"More Than" cannot backdate the insurance as its not legal and have asked me to buy a new quote wait for the certificate and take it along with the letter of indemnity which they will send by post and should reach me tomorrow, im being fined on a daily basis whilst the car is in the pound and i risk losing my license, i do not know what to do in this sticky situation. Hope you professionals can help.Thanks.

[jumpjet]

I will be corrected if I am wrong, but I would have said that when you recieved a letter of confirmation of the insurance and the companies systems was the reason. The police will have to back track.

It sounds like you are victim of circumstances beyond your control.

As a safety measure put a complaint in writing to the chief constable along with all your documentation.

I would have thought that the fines will not be enforced once the facts are out and your car should be returned. they will have to take this to court to take your licence off you and if you can prove that none of this your fault and you are a victim of the system, I dont see they have a case to pursue.

 

It is an unfortunate set of circumstances for you but I can see the point of all sides. From what you have said it would seem to me to be a situation that will sort itself out.

[Bernie_the_Bolt]

Strictly speaking you have to be in posession of a certificate of motor insurance to be "legal".

It's an odd position as you can still enforce the contractual elements of cover.

I'd be interested in knowing what the letter of indemnity says though!

[vusys1]

This happens on a regular basis with our company, policies not auto renewing etc & we dont tell the customer, and the ones we do send a letter to are sent the day after the renewal date, despite a previous letter telling them their policy will auto renew.

 

The Police in this matter are blameless, if the ins companys system did not setup a policy, it didnt go on the MID and hence the stop. They are to blame

 

You will still have to pay the release fee and storage charge as the police were acting correctly, you can still claim this back from more than and claim for the inconvience etc.

 

they should pull out all the stops and issue a manual cert next day delivery etc and a letter of indemnity.

[jumpjet]

This happens on a regular basis with our company, policies not auto renewing etc & we dont tell the customer, and the ones we do send a letter to are sent the day after the renewal date, despite a previous letter telling them their policy will auto renew.

 

Are you saying that hundreds of drivers who have taken the word of the insurance company that their cover is automatically renewed are not really insured?

[hasani007]

The letter on indemnity is as follows: "We confirm that on 19/06/08 we would have provided an indemnity to Mr XXXX in respect of liability, which is compulsarily insurable under the Road Traffic Acts in respect of the use of motor registration number XXXX XXX. As discussed, due to a failure on our website, the above quotation number failed on our website, the above quotation number failed to convert into a policy as scheduled. We are hoping that this will be recitified within the next 7 working days. If you have any queries then please ring me on 0800 XXX XXX.Mon-Fri 8am-5pm. Or email me on [email protected].

 

Yours Sincerely

XXXX XXXX

Customer Manager

[jumpjet]

Well it looks like it should sort it out!

In fairness to the police as vusys1 points out, they are doing their job. Hopefully they will release your car without storage charges or charges to yourself as this is a genuine error not of your making.

[Bernie_the_Bolt]

Sorry to sound negative, but:

What they haven't done is to give you an indemnity for the costs and penalties. You may still have to fight for this.

Note that even if they had given you an indemnity for criminal penalties you would not be able to enforce it at law.

[jumpjet]

Hi Berine the bolt,

 

You are obviously quite knowledgeble in this field where as I can only comment on face value as I see it. It is interesting to see this from a legal standpoint rather than my "heartfelt" one.

 

I may be naive in the way I see it, but surley they wont prosecute hasan for this? He seems to be the victim!

[vusys1]

This happens on a regular basis with our company, policies not auto renewing etc & we dont tell the customer, and the ones we do send a letter to are sent the day after the renewal date, despite a previous letter telling them their policy will auto renew.

 

Are you saying that hundreds of drivers who have taken the word of the insurance company that their cover is automatically renewed are not really insured?

 

 

Unfortunately yes,we have teams working on lists of policys that have not auto renewed, and the consultants have to manually accept the renewal,but not always and not all the lists are worked on a daily basis.