MOTOR INSURANCE BUREAU call in debt collectors. Can anyone advise?

otters37

Hi can anybody help advise us please?
My husband received a letter yesterday from CLOSE CREDIT MANAGEMENT DC's, acting on behalf of the Motor Insurers Bureau, saying he owes them £43578.52. It seems the MIB paid out on an accident he had on 05/06/2003. The MIB are saying he was uninsured at the time. He had a producer from the police and provided all his details to the police station.The car he was driving belonged to his then employer who had Motor Traders insurance on all his vehicles so all his staff could use them. He then went to court later on that year and was convicted of Dangerous driving/driving without due care and attention (cant remember!) was fined and received a lot of points. Had he not been insured, would he not have been convicted of that as well?
The employer has since died so we cant get hold of any documents to prove it.
Can they chase him for this money?
Any advice would be greatly received.
many thanks in advance:)

Quentin

Best advice would be to see your solicitor about this.

Tammer

Hi,

One important point to note is that a not commonly understood principle of insurance is that you can't benefit (from insurance) when committing an illegal act.

I think this means that, for example, if someone was robbing a bank, their life insurance wouldn't pay out if the police shot them.

In your case, if your husband committed a crime at the same time as having an accident e.g. careless driving, then it's possible that the insurance would not pay out. That could be why the MIB became involved.

Like the above person said, it's certainly a good idea to get some advice from a solicitor here, or possibly the Citizens' Advice Bureau.

vaio

Tammer wrote: »

Hi,

One important point to note is that a not commonly understood principle of insurance is that you can't benefit (from insurance) when committing an illegal act.

I think this means that, for example, if someone was robbing a bank, their life insurance wouldn't pay out if the police shot them.

In your case, if your husband committed a crime at the same time as having an accident e.g. careless driving, then it's possible that the insurance would not pay out. That could be why the MIB became involved..........

No it’s not, your insurance might try and avoid paying for damage to your own car if you were drunk (and it was in your policy) but there is no way they could avoid paying a third party claim

vaio

OP……..

there is no point in having the same thread posted twice, it just confuses and dilutes the advice you’ll get, probably best to delete this one

Tammer

Hi,

Sorry if I confused matters. I couldn't see the other post so thought I'd add something to this one.

If the insurer is obliged to pay to the 3rd party even if an illegal act is involved then is it possible they would try to reclaim these costs from the insured person? And if so, why would the MIB be invovled here?

Quentin

They would try and recover the costs from the individual.

But the claim may have gone to the MIB from the outset. (eg the victim may not have had any insurance covering damage to his own car)

mattymoo

Someone is not telling the full story here. I say this as someone who has a) dealt with MIB claims for the MIB, and b) had a close friend pursued by the MIB for £1.2m,because he failed to insure his wife's car.

It is inconceivable that the first you have heard of this is the appointment of the debt collectors. Somebody suffered injury in the accident for which your husband was at fault. They will have tried to sue your husband and or his employer and found there was no insurance hence claim to the MIB.

First thing the MIB do is ascertain what insurance was in place for the driver or the vehicle. MIB is a fund of last resort so if an insurer has a tenuous connection to the vehicle or driver they will be obliged to deal with the claim as Road Traffic Act insurer. This investigation is quite extensive and can take months. The upshot is, your husband was not insured by the employer. Was he even acting in the course of his employment? Was the vehicle connected to the motor trade business?

Once it is clear no insurance exists, the MIB will come after your husband. At first they will want to interview him to explain the options. These are basically:-

- We deal with third party claim on your behalf. You undertake to repay us our outlay once matters are concluded.
- You do not co-operate. We stand back and let third party sue you in court. If you fail to honour that debt we will settle it after 7 days. We will then come after you for the outlay.

The outcome is the same but in the second option, you have the court judgement against your name.

Which did your husband do - co-operate or stick two fingers up to the process? Either way, the MIB have dealt with the third party claim and now want their money. They can obtain this through bailiffs or taking a charge on your house or garnishment or earnings. They may even accept a reduced lump sum settlement if you are in position to offer that.

lisyloo

Otters - I am not trying to be nagative or disrespectful, but is it possible your husband has not told you the full story?
I don't mean that in a bad way. He might have had good intentions to protect you?
I could be way off the mark, but it is suprising to hear these things come out of the blue after so many years,

huckster

Over the last 6 months or so, there have been a number of reports of the MIB suddenly making demands for payment via debt collectors and all have stated that these demands have come out of the blue. No previous letters, no court claims and some disputing that they were even involved in an accident.

I find this a bit odd. When people have responded to OP's advising them to send a letter of denial asking for proof or engaging a solicitor to make enquiries, the OP has then not updated the thread. Is this just a case of matters taking time to get clarified/resolved or is it that the OP has not told the full story, realising that something they thought had gone away, had now come back to bite them ?

mattymoo

Huckster - I'd suggest the latter. MIB will not even deal with a matter until all possible avenues of insurance have been exhausted. To do those checks, they need the assistance of the person who is alleged to have been uninsured. It will involve correspondance and visits to their home address if no response is received.