A chance for all bankrupts to change your life - Your help needed!

4$£&*(£$&*(!

There is info on the sex offender's list about named people challenging a lifetime on the list here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jun/14/sex-offenders-register-right-to-challenge

Aside from that debate, as it's not one I really want to get into, I think the issue of perpetual publication of Gazette information and companies being able to use that information is against the Human Rights Act on the grounds of privacy and discrimination. I am aware there are bigger issues the HRA deals with but I feel we have to work with what we're given and so our issue may well be open to challenge within HRA.

I have drafted this email:

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I am campaigning on behalf of bankrupts who are faced with their details being made publicly available for a lifetime via the London Gazette (and other Gazettes) who then face financial detriment. It is my belief the indefinite publication of such information and the allowance of companies to use this information to the detriment of the bankrupt is incompatible with the Human Rights Act.

Putting this in perspective, my partner was declared bankrupt in 2008 and subsequently discharged in 2009. Many home insurers ask a question if the proposer or anyone else living at the address has ever been bankrupt. Since I am required to positively confirm this information indefinitely, I am each year presented with prices significantly higher than if this question was time restricted. I then have to answer 'no' to this question then contact the most competitive company by phone to admit what I have done and ask if their underwriter will still consider cover. Should they decline I have to go down the list until I find an insurer who will provide cover.

All this takes time and is beyond what most bankrupts are likely to do. I accept bankruptcy may present an increased risk to financial companies in the period immediately following a bankruptcy, but the perpetual application of data published via the Gazettes is discriminatory and against the right to privacy in relation to the HRA. I would like to see a restriction on bankruptcy data meaning bankruptcy cannot be taken into account beyond six years following the date of bankruptcy, subject to that person being discharged. This brings the disregard time in line with the time credit reference agencies consider reasonable and bankruptcy will fall off their records.

Additionally I would like to see such data information being erased from the Gazette's publications after six years following discharge. The recent rulings of criminals registered on the Sex Offender list being able to argue they are removed from this list after 15 years is what I believe is a similar application of the HRA, albeit in a slightly more extreme example of the act's application.

To date I have lodged complaints with some of the major price comparison websites yet they all generally still ask if anyone at the house has ever been declared bankrupt. I have made representations to insurance brokers who advise they can only quote based on risk levels and bankruptcy is a risk. I have challenged the Information Commissioner who states they agree data becomes less relevant as time progresses, and insurers may be in breach of the third principle of the Data Protection Act but insurers have said whilst they are using it to process risk the information needs to be valid. I am currently lobbying the Association of British Insurers but getting nowhere fast. This work has been ongoing for over a year now.

Would you consider progressing this case to identify firstly if there is a case to be heard, secondly if there is a case to be heard advising me how to progress, and finally advising me of general information you are able to? Bankrupts and their families are generally treated as unspoken victims of unfair processes that are discriminative for years following bankruptcy. I do not disagree financial penalties should apply for so long, but a perpetual life of declaring bankruptcy is surely against the HRA.

I appreciate your help and look forward to hearing from you.

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So far I have found BPP University College who provide pro bono (free) work within the Human Rights Act http://www.bppuc.com/index.htm and I have emailed them.

Can I ask others to get involved on this? Can you research colleges and universities in your area, find a contact email, ask if they take on pro bono work (or students who are willing to look at the case as a case study), and submit something similar to my email? Please feel free to plagiarise my work if it gets results and saves you drafting something from scratch.

I have not heard a dicky bird back from ABI yet, it has been a week, I tend to give large organisations like that 28 days. Equally I have written a note to the FSA stating I feel I have grounds to make a formal complaint against them for not progressing regulation adequately against insurers to prevent this situation, and I am generally trying to bring the whole game up a notch.

Any help you can chip in - mainly at this stage through continuing to lobby your MP and through contacting universities for pro bono work - is all going towards a very good cause, shouldn't cost you anything to do and in most cases only takes a very short amount of time.

Ineedaname

A superbly written missive as always, just a couple of thoughts this time around...

CitySlicker wrote: »

I accept bankruptcy may present an increased risk to financial companies in the period immediately following a bankruptcy,

Not convinced of this statement myself. Once BR we have no debts chewing up our income and the allowances are reasonable enough to ensure we are highly unlikely to default on regular payments. So where's the increased risk? Also, it's not financial companies in general that your email is about, but insurance companies...

CitySlicker wrote: »

I have challenged the Information Commissioner who states they agree data becomes less relevant as time progresses, and insurers may be in breach of the third principle of the Data Protection Act but insurers have said whilst they are using it to process risk the information needs to be valid.

I would agree with your statement in relation to the HRA as you are challenging the need for indefinite recording of BR, but with regards to the 3rd Principle of the DPA it is about whether it is valid, on the basis of whether there is continued increased risk even years after discharge.

Hope that makes sense? If not, then I'm being a complete dolt.

4$£&*(£$&*(!

Ineedaname wrote: »

A superbly written missive as always, just a couple of thoughts this time around...



Not convinced of this statement myself. Once BR we have no debts chewing up our income and the allowances are reasonable enough to ensure we are highly unlikely to default on regular payments. So where's the increased risk? Also, it's not financial companies in general that your email is about, but insurance companies...



I would agree with your statement in relation to the HRA as you are challenging the need for indefinite recording of BR, but with regards to the 3rd Principle of the DPA it is about whether it is valid, on the basis of whether there is continued increased risk even years after discharge.

Hope that makes sense? If not, then I'm being a complete dolt.

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate other views.

To give a bit more reasoning why I have said I accept financial companies may find recent bankrupts are a potentially higher risk to them is to show they have no good credit history. This isn't to say a person declared bankrupt today is going to instantly make an insurance claim and fraudulently take out a loan, what it is saying is at least during that first year of bankruptcy any financier will be taking a greater risk since there is no good credit history. Effectively that is why the period before discharge is almost a 'probationary' period, to see if all has gone to plan or if bankruptcy restrictions need to stay in place.

I would love to say bankruptcy is an instant clean sheet, remember the recent thread on here about certain bankrupts giving the rest a bad name? There are a minority who abuse this position (no-one I have ever come across on this board I hasten to add!). That's all the statement reflects.

You have hit the nail on the head about the DPA, and I understand where you're coming from as that was my approach with the (pretty unhelpful) Information Commissioner. The comparison and brokers all get away with it because the underwriters want to know this information, the IC seems to be happy to let this slide. This could be taken up with an IC complaint about a specific underwriter but I have not been able to get firm evidence as the brokers are always cagey about underwriters on this topic. Again if others can find more information about underwriter discrimination I would be grateful.

Thanks again for the feedback and I listen to all of it, it's very helpful to know what others think.

Ineedaname

Many thanks for that CS. I thought I might be a bit shaky on the first aspect as I guessed you had been careful with your wording anyway.

You go for it as it seems as though you are making progress, albeit slow. Just keep picking away at the various organisations and departments and eventually they'll start talking to each other about it - with luck!

MissCynical

Hi everyone

I work at a CAB and they are most keen to raise social policy issues, which is what I believe this matter is. If everyone went into their local bureau, or even wrote/emailed, the CABs then forward (anonymously) ALL social policy issues to Citizens Advice who would lobby parliament. Citizens Advice have campaigned for many changes ie: Tax Credit overpayments etc. and it maybe worth those on here who have written to MPs and institutions adding Citizens Advice to their list??

http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/campaigns.htm
http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/index/policy.htm
http://www.citizensadvice.co.uk/PageFiles/1415/volunteer%20role%20social%20policy%20.pdf
http://www.citizensadvicehart.org.uk/social-policy.html
http://domain2224076.sites.streamlinedns.co.uk/default.asp?iId=KMLDM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Advice_Bureau

Good luck.

4$£&*(£$&*(!

MissCynical wrote: »

Hi everyone

I work at a CAB and they are most keen to raise social policy issues, which is what I believe this matter is. If everyone went into their local bureau, or even wrote/emailed, the CABs then forward (anonymously) ALL social policy issues to Citizens Advice who would lobby parliament. Citizens Advice have campaigned for many changes ie: Tax Credit overpayments etc. and it maybe worth those on here who have written to MPs and institutions adding Citizens Advice to their list??

http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/campaigns.htm
http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/index/policy.htm
http://www.citizensadvice.co.uk/PageFiles/1415/volunteer%20role%20social%20policy%20.pdf
http://www.citizensadvicehart.org.uk/social-policy.html
http://domain2224076.sites.streamlinedns.co.uk/default.asp?iId=KMLDM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Advice_Bureau

Good luck.

A big thank you for this advice, I am keen to get CAB involved as this is an area ideally matched to them. I am having trouble finding suitable email contacts, is there an email address you can provide please?

MissCynical

Yes, of course, I'll get email address/es on Monday and post here.

unquiet-mind

Does anyone here live in the Walthamstow constituency? Stella Creasy, the MP for Walthamstow, might be a good person to contact. Her campaign against pay-day loan companies shows that this is an area of interest for her. However, MPs are only allowed to reply to their own constituents, so it would need to be someone from that area that would need to contct her.

4$£&*(£$&*(!

MissCynical wrote: »

Yes, of course, I'll get email address/es on Monday and post here.

Have you been able to get the addresses please?

I have received a reply back from Martin about this. Bankruptcy is an area he does not have expert knowledge in and additionally suggests this may be an issue served better by involving Christians Against Poverty, CAB and CCCS.

I would love to get CAB involved particularly but am really struggling getting an appropriate contact. I have emailed the Money Active lead at CAB but heard no reply, so I have asked Martin if he has any particular contacts within CAB and CCCS so I can take this up with them.

I have also sent an email to CAP to see how they view the issue. My gut instinct is this is a complex matter and is a tough one getting specialist debt charities to be interested in since it is not a priority issue for their service users, however I believe the key to winning this will probably be in a supercomplaint.

The ABI have not responded yet to the email I sent them a couple of weeks ago, when dealing with companies at a director level I am aware of the demands they face so would like to give it another couple of weeks, failing that I will send a polite prompting email.

4$£&*(£$&*(!

I'm now trying a bit of brute force. Here's another letter, this time addressed to individual insurers/intermediaries:


I have used price comparison websites to obtain home insurance quotes. These tend to ask a question similar to 'Have you, or anyone in your household, ever been declared bankrupt?'. This in turn affects the quote results in the process. I would like to raise this issue with you as GoCompare.com refused to provide a quote for me with your company after answering 'yes' to the question.

To give an indication to my circumstances, my partner suffered financial difficulties prior to living with me. She was declared bankrupt in May 2008 and subsequently discharged in May 2009. Prior to this I had no issues obtaining quotes online. Many price comparison websites ask a generic question on bankruptcy regardless of who was declared bankrupt and how long ago it was. Some do ask for how long ago the bankruptcy took place, however this additional information appears to be disregarded as exactly the same results are produced regardless of what data is entered for the bankruptcy itself.

It is my understanding, after entering discussions with the Information Commissioner, asking a perpetual question may be in breach of the third principle of the Data Protection Act since information becomes less relevant as time progresses. As such, a bankruptcy that took place 10 years ago will be far less relevant than one that took place within the last 12 months.

Credit reference agencies discount bankruptcy after a period of six years (so long as the bankruptcy has been discharged and is not ongoing or subject to a bankruptcy restriction). I am also entering discussions with Otto Thoresen of the Association of British Insurers on this matter as this appears to be an issue that needs to be addressed on a higher level.

In the meantime, I would appreciate to know how long you consider bankruptcy to be relevant, if this is something determined by your underwriters I would appreciate you feeding this matter to them also since both intermediaries and underwriters are losing custom as the matter stands. I would also like to know what steps you are prepared to take with the price comparison websites who return quotes for your company in order for them to put time restrictions on the bankruptcy question. Some insurers also only consider bankruptcy to be an issue if the customer opts for monthly payments instead of a single lump sum, rather than a risk based issue, yet the bankruptcy question does not take this into consideration so I would appreciate you advising whether bankruptcy is an issue on payment or risk factors.

Ultimately it would be hugely helpful if you can agree with your underwriters how long bankruptcy is considered relevant, then enter into a dialogue with the price comparison sites to ask them either to remove a generic, non-timebound question on bankruptcy or at least for them to put a time restriction on the question such as 'Have you, or anyone in the household, been declared bankrupt in the last six years; or are you subject to ongoing bankruptcy proceedings?' This will then ensure your company appears appropriately on price comparison sites.

I appreciate your help with this matter. I understand it may not be one of top priority, however it is something that is receiving a great deal of discussion on bankruptcy support forums including Martin Lewis's MoneySavingExpert.com which has received over 16,000 views on the topic. I look forward to your reply.

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So what am I doing with this? Well, each comparison website which lists an insurer unable to quote due to bankruptcy gets a copy of this letter. I then wait for a reply, and depending on what sort of reply I get I can then submit an equal number of complaints to the Ombudsman. Until I can prove these companies have a specific link in my situation I cannot do anything with the Ombudsman, but once I've done a price comparison and they come up as being unable to quote due to bankruptcy there's my link.


This has gone to:

Kwik Fit
Direct Choice
Home Quote Direct
Quoteline Insurance
Masterquote
One Quote Direct
The AA
Swinton Insurance
Key Connect
Pearl
More Th>n
Budget Insurance
Broker King
Post Office Insurance


I have another 35 companies who refused to return quotes on the comparison websites but my eyes are getting tired so I'm going to call it a night for now (I am taking that letter, getting the company's address, putting it on the top, saving it as a PDF file and emailing it to that company directly so the letter and email are tailored but it's taken me a good three quarters of an hour just to do those few this way, I want this to look professional so no cutting corners with mass emails).

Ideally they will all say sorry, we didn't realise this was a problem and we'll get things changed. That won't happen, let's be honest, so I'll get a few dozen different responses probably contradicting each other, which I will then scan and send off as a few dozen individual Ombudsman complaints. Let's see if the Ombudsman still wants to ignore me, I *will* get them to hear me!