Car Insurance claim help

barr182

Ok this is quite a long story but basicly i bought my first car febuary last year, a Y-reg citroen saxo, for £1275 on my birthday a few days after i passed my test.When i was about 10 my dad had set up a bank account for me and every birthday/xmas when i got money i would put half in the bank and this is what i payed for the car with.So as i payed for it myself the car was registered to me.

My stepdad told me he would help me out with the insurance, i wasnt actually with him at the time he set up the policy (he did it online i think) but when i came home one day he told me he had got me insured and i was all ready to drive.

So this was all great untill june time when i was going round a roundabout and a car that should of been giving way to me didnt stop and crashed right into the front of my car.There was another driver behind him who said the guy was turning around in his seat telling his kids off all the way down the road, so he obviously wasnt paying attention,then carried on through the roundabout and hit my car.We swapped details and i rung my insurance company straight away ( the company was Swinton).I explained everything that had happened, how he wasnt paying attention and i gave them the name/address of the guy behind the car that had hit me. A few days later i got a letter saying the car wasnt worth repairing and that i should send them all the documents i have for the car and that they had valued the car at £1600.

Ok i thought, bit of a !!!!!! about the whole thing, but atleast i would be getting abit more than i had payed for the car, which would help alot with buying a new one and MOT's etc for a new car. I sent off all the documents i had, got a letter a few days later saying the Logbook was missing so i had to apply to the DVLA for a new one, which cost me £20.I applied for a new one,sent the £20 and they sent a letter back saying the insurance company had informed them the car was written off,and that it shouldnt be the company that tells them, but the engineers who looked at the car at the garage. They said this would make the whole process longer and that they had to recall some microfilm in order to get a copy of the logbook, this took even more weeks.

Eventually got it through, sent it to Swinton (It turned out to be a company called Gateway who i was dealing with now), and i was expecting a cheque soon as they had everything they needed.By now it was october/november time.I rung them every few days to see what was going on and they said it was all being delt with and everything was fine with the claim.

During this time my mum and step dad had broken up and i had to go live with my girlfriend, with no car to get to work etc. Anyway in the end my step dad had got a letter which he passed onto my mum, which she gave to me which bascily said my step dad had told them when he took the policy out that the car was registered to him, which it wasnt as it was me who payed for it, and that if they had known this they wouldnt of insured me in the first place, and that they were now not going to pay a penny, i had also lost any no claims i had built up.

I dont know if i can do anything about this? I mean i feel like ive been well and truely done over by the company and my step dad. Now im at my girlfriends i have to pay for everything myself and im finding it really hard to save for a new car. I dont get how they can say everythings fine and say their sending money, then at the last minute come out with this. Is there anything i can do? Sorry about the long story!

Quentin

They said they would pay up before learning the truth!

What you have done (albeit in ignorance) is attempt to defraud them. The insurance is invalidated by this. You are lucky no third party is involved, as were a claim made against you, it would ultimately have been down to you to personally pay for it!

barr182

This is all true. At the time the policy was taken out i didnt really ask any questions, he said it was all sorted so i left it at that.It was my first car so i was just wanted to get out and drive! And now that my mum and step dad arnt together anymore hes not bothered by it at all,i had to sort it out by myself and ring the insurance company, most of the time they wouldnt talk to me as i was a named driver,the policy holder didnt want to know. I think he knew he had lied on the registration but didnt tell me. I dont know if its worth making a complaint or not to an ombudsman, it might make it worse!

Quentin

You have nothing to complain about as far as the insurance company's decision over this.

All you can do is learn from this experience, make sure all your motoring legalities are completed properly in future, and see the silver lining mentioned already (no one else has made any claim against you whilst you have been driving with this invalid insurance).

Crazy_Jamie

Quentin is right. It's really unfortunate from your perspective, but they are quite within their rights to refuse to pay you. I feel for you, but ultimately you can do little more than learn lessons from this and be thankful that it wasn't a lot worse and involved a third party.

barr182

OK i just needed some other peoples perspectives on this as everyone I seem to speak to doesnt know what to suggest,insurance is very confusing. Thanks alot guys!

Quentin

You can't have been speaking to any "authority" on the problem - as the suggestion to escalate this to an "ombudsman" demonstrates!

dacouch

You /Your Step Dad have paid a premium much much lower than you should have if the car had been insured in your own name correctly. I'm guessing you probably saved around £1000 doing this. If you do get the Insurers to pay out on the claim it is possible they may ask you to pay the correct premium you should have paid in the first place...

sarahg1969

You can still pursue a claim for the value of the vehicle against the person who was at fault, ie the other driver, instead of claiming from your own insurance.

wytco0

dacouch wrote: »

You /Your Step Dad have paid a premium much much lower than you should have if the car had been insured in your own name correctly. I'm guessing you probably saved around £1000 doing this. If you do get the Insurers to pay out on the claim it is possible they may ask you to pay the correct premium you should have paid in the first place...

And I am sorry to say your next insurance will be higher because you have had an accident. Insurance is a very tough world and very hard for new drivers but the reason that the premiums are so high for new drivers is that they have a lot of accidents (including non fault accidents).