Legal help needed with motor insurance error

taliz

Thanks dacouch, not sure but I'll warn her to check...

Pitlane piglet - - Extremely usefull post -- Thank you..
I,ve just spoken to her and she had prevoiusly been with co-op insurance years. She didn't recieve proof of NCB from them when she cancelled and wasn't made aware she had to forward it.
However, that been said it looks like their was no policy ever created at all.

The way it was supposed to work cover was meant to start mid April she made an immediate payment to cover the first 2 months payments then a DD should have come out of her account in June.
When she spoke to staysure yesterday, they checked their system and said that they can see her quote but according to them they just gave her an online quote and nothing more. Her bank statement shows them taking the first payment though.

They tried to call her today but wouldn't leave a message.

lisyloo

Lisyloo don't get sidetracked by the house move thing. The insurer only ever had her correct address.

I think it's irrelevant and that's what I and others have been trying to say. It's up to her to make sure she's insured.
Addresses and emails are irrelevant. If it didn't arrive she should have chased it and not gone out in the car until she had it.

I would be interested to know how the payment affect things.
i.e.. if they failed to process her refund correctly, does that put her in the clear?

taliz

Her son has trawled though her archived emails today and found one from staysure thanking her for her payment and stating her policy documents will follow shortly. He can also see another email from them a week later but cannot open it..
This seems to completely contradict what the insurance compay are saying??

Pitlanepiglet

Then she needs to talk to the insurers tomorrow, setting out they they took her payment and confirmed cover so there must have been a policy in force.

She (or you or her son - with her to give consent to talk to you), need to very calmly keep going through a couple of levels of customer service until you get to someone senior who can explain what is going on.

Pandora23

Driving without insurance is termed as a 'strict liability' offence, that means in law there is no defence (the only defence is to show you were at the relevant time, insured!). If you are stopped by the police and are not covered by insurance, you are guilty regardless of the circumstances.

Options available though -
1) pay the fixed penalty ticket, for which I believe is a fine of £250 and the licence would be endorsed with 6 penalty points.
2) go to Court, admit the offence but then tell the Court there may be 'special reasons'. This is an argument that can be put forward to show why the licence should not be endorsed with points NOTE - you will still be convicted of the offence, you will have to pay a fine still, as well as Court costs. Depending on income, you could be looking at a lot more than the fixed penalty ticket.
For the argument, you have to show you have been 'misled' into believing you were insured. Some courts are more receptive to this than others. But as an insurance certificate was never received, I wouldn't be at all confident that you could show this. However, if you did decide to go down this route then you should take to court the relevant bank statement showing the payment to the Company and the e-mails that you have received from them. Another factor the Court would take into account is the time difference between the payment and being stopped by the police - if its months then again as a certificate wasn't received the Court would query why you were misled when you didn't have a certificate for that amount of time. If its days or weeks, they may be more receptive.
3) I don't recommend this, but you could go to Court, deny the offence and have a trial. However, if you can't produce a certificate of insurance to the Court, you will be convicted and then the fine and costs will be far higher.

If you decide to take the matter to Court, then I definitely think its worth trying to get legal advice/representation. I doubt your mother-in-law could afford Nick Freeman (as one poster suggested) as he charges £10,000 a day! Local solicitors to you or the Court the matter would go to, would be just as good in any event. But if you can't get this assistance & still want to go to Court, just remember that the Court Clerk is a qualified solicitor, they are also impartial and are there to assist people before the Court. They can only set out your options though as defined by the law.

As a post script, I know it can't be a pleasant experience being stopped however, if a car is stopped as there is suspicion that an offence has been committed, then the police have to place the driver in the rear of the police car (safety reasons mainly) and also caution the person (thats the law, you have to be cautioned before the police can question you about a possible offence). Its routine.

Also, its definitely worth taking further with the insurance company. They should answer as to whats gone wrong here and why they've taken a payment but not sent out the certificate. If the Company accept they are in the wrong and its there error, then get something to that effect in writing from them and take that to the Court hearing.

taliz

Thanks for the reponses. Hugely helpfull.

There has been a few developments today.

1. The insurance ombudsman will be happy to take on the case as she paid for a service and was led to believe it was to start.
2. The section on surestarts website to get an online quote has been removed and replaced with a page that states you need to ring them for quotations.
3. Surestart called and asked for the date time and location she was stopped by the police fot thier indemnity????

Does anyone know what point 3 is refering to?

They say someone will call her tommorow for an update..