[!] Indemnity refused, GoSkippy wants me to pay a heavy amount of money in over an accident a year ago.

[unclebulgaria67]

Wait to see how they reply to email about why Indemnity was refused.

 

Short summary of the position as I see it.

 

Your Mum was at fault for the accident, as she pulled out from a side road causing  the accident to take place.

 

 Your Mum was found not be complying with UK Law which requires an MOT for the car to be on the road legally.  

 

Your Mums Insurance company are refusing to be liable for the accident costs due to a breach in the Insurance contract, which is likely to be not complying with UK law in regard to driving the car on a UK road. ( There is likely to be a clause in the Insurance contract which enables the Insurers to ask your Mum to pay claim costs, where there has been a failure such as not having an MOT)

 

 The Insurers want your Mum to accept being liable for the amount of claim costs including payments to the third parties involved in the accident.  The Insurers are trying to resolve this with your Mum,  before they consider taking her to Court, which would incur more costs.

 

I would say that the correct course of action is to enter into communications with the Insurance company to obtain all information first and not to sign any indemnity form the Insurers are asking for.  The problem could be that the £20,000 is not the final sum.  If for example there were a number of people in the third party vehicles they could all be claiming personal injury.  Never advisable to sign a blank cheque !

 

 

[unclebulgaria67]

As soon as I saw which Insurance company was involved, I automatically presumed that the policy wording would be fully of exclusions.   People do need to realise the reason these companies are the cheapest on comparison sites and to read the policy wordings carefully before buying the policies. 

 

I have found a Policy wording online for GoSkippy/Watford Insurance, which I think is likely to be similar to the one your Mum had, but do ask the Insurers for a copy of the actual last Policy wording that was issued by them.

 

Section 15 General Exclusions Applying to the Whole Policy

 

This Policy does not cover the following: The below exclusions apply as well as the exclusions shown in each Section detailing the cover provided.

 

1. Any injury, loss or damage occurring while Your Car is being:

a) driven by or is in the charge of any person not shown on Your Certificate of Motor Insurance; or b) driven by, or in the charge of, anyone who does not meet all the conditions described in the Endorsements in Your Motor Insurance Schedule and all the General Conditions Applying to the Whole Policy and any other Terms of this Policy; or c) Involved in an incident following which You, a driver described on Your Certificate of Motor Insurance as an insured driver, or any other person are:

 

 Driving with an alcohol level in excess of the legal limit;

 Driving while unfit through drink or drugs;

 Failing to provide a blood, urine or breath specimen (other than for a roadside test), for analysis; or

 Driving whilst unlawfully using a hand held phone;

or d) used for any purpose not shown on Your Certificate of Motor Insurance;

or e) driven by, or is in the charge of for the purpose of being driven by, any person to whom Your Car has been hired;

or f) used in an unsafe or unroadworthy condition or, where such regulations require, does not have a current MOT Certificate;

 

or g) used to carry any dangerous substances or goods; or h) Loss or damage if Your Car is used on the Nurburgring Nordschleife, or for racing formally or informally against another motorist, pace-making, competitions, rallies, Track Days, trials or tests, speed trials or speed tests, either on a road, track or at an off-road 4 x 4 event.

 

2. Any loss, damage or liability when Your Car is involved in any incident regardless of type, be that Accident, Fire, Malicious Damage, Theft or attempted theft and does not have a valid MOT Certificate in force at the time of the incident.

 

3. Any loss, damage or liability if caused maliciously or deliberately by any person driving Your Car with Your permission, agreement or support.

 

4. Any injury, damage or loss for any person involved in an accident arising out of the deliberate use of Your Car: a. To cause damage to other vehicles or property; and/or b. To cause injury to any person and/or to put any person(s) in fear of injury. c. To commit suicide.

 

5. Any loss, damage or liability arising from the use of Your Car on any description of footpath, bridleway or restricted byway, this Policy only provides cover to meet the minimum insurance requirements under the Road Traffic Act for vehicular use on a byway open to traffic.

 

6. Any injury, loss or damage occurring while Your Car is being: driven or in the charge of anyone who does not have a valid driving licence, is disqualified from driving, has not held a driving licence, is prevented by law from holding one and who does not keep to the Terms and Conditions of their driving licence as required by DVLA/DVANI rules and regulations and any relevant law.

 

7. Liability You have under any agreement, unless You would have had the liability if the agreement did not exist.

 

8. Loss, damage, injury or legal liability directly or indirectly caused by, resulting from or in connection with invasion, war, revolution or any act of Terrorism regardless of any other cause or event contributing concurrently or in any other sequence to the loss, except where such liability is required to be covered by the Road Traffic Act. The definition of Terrorism shall follow the interpretation as set out in the Terrorism Act 2000 or subsequent amendments thereto or be any act deemed by the Government or a UK Court of Law to be an act of Terrorism.

 

9. Except to the extent that We are liable under the Road Traffic Acts this Policy does not cover any injury, loss or damage caused by or arising from:

[unclebulgaria67]

Suggest just entering into communications, asking for reasons why they are refusing liability.  Ask for a copy of the last Policy they issued your Mum.  Send them an SAR.  Ask for all of the claim documents to be disclosed.

 

Don't sign any forms of indemnity as already advised.  Your Mum should use the complaints process and referral to the FOS, to ensure that the matter is fully looked into, before thinking about coming to any payment arrangement.  

 

Be careful with this company.  They have been known to quite difficult to deal with and may issue a Court claim.  So make sure you keep a record of emails and letters issued, don't delay in making the complaint and taking it to the FOS.  Not saying that the FOS will find in your Mums favour, but she might as well exhaust the full complaints process, which will add many months before having to pay anything.  

[unclebulgaria67]

PI = Personal Injury.

 

Don't be fooled by peoples reactions or lack any sign of injury at the scene of an accident.  People will see an accident as an opportunity to make money.

 

The Insurers will have to deal with the third parties claims as the Insurers of the vehicle.  But they will then try to claim back the sums paid out from your Mum.  

 

As advised your Mum needs to obtain full disclosure of the claims being made.

 

 

[unclebulgaria67]

Suggest when requesting SAR, that your Mum also specifically asks for all data at the point of sale.  What information did the Insurers provide to enable a consumer to be aware of all important exclusions that applied to the policy.

 

If your Mum used a comparison site to make the purchase, she has the same rights to obtain SAR information from  them.  The comparison site acting as agent has to make available details of Insurers terms/conditions and exclusions.

 

This is to help when taking forward any complaint to the FOS. If the sales process was faulty in some way, it may help argument that the MOT being invalid by 5 days is an admin failure by your Mum and it is unfair to apply the exclusion when the Insurers did a poor job of highlighting the exclusion at point of sale.

[unclebulgaria67]

Typical of Go Skippy, They won't engage in discussion and will ignore requests/complaints.

 

From what I remember of other cases, for SAR requests, people have had to ask the ICO to interveve.  And in regard to complaints, the FOS have had to drag responses out of them.