Medically restricted license and insurance

iharding

I passed my test in 1992 and gained a full UK car license. This has since been replaced with a 3-year restricted license which has fewer vehicle categories (but still including car, which is all I need).

My question is about insurance comparison web sites. Some are no-go because they state in their assumptions that no driver has a notifiable medical condition - that's clear enough. Others allow me to select DVLA-aware 3 or more years restricted license when filling in details, but then when I click through to a quote some insurers don't provide an option on their web site to specify anything other than "Full UK license", and a number of foreign license options. The passed through information from the comparison site has pre-populated "Full UK license".

Now, I'm cautious enough that I will call my chosen insurer before buying and confirm before risking having my insurance invalidated because of non-disclosure further down the line. However, it doesn't help when trying to make a short list of quotes from 20+ companies - calling them all to check is going to take all day!

Would it be reasonable to assume that if an insurer doesn't provide a list of assumptions that exclude medically restricted license holders, doesn't provide an option to specify a restricted license on their web site, and doesn't mention medically restricted licenses in their policy document that they don't care enough to make a distinction and I will be covered? Essentially, can my license still be reasonably described as a "full UK license"?

Thanks,
Ian

vaio

iharding wrote: »

I passed my test in 1992 and gained a full UK car license. This has since been replaced with a 3-year restricted license which has fewer vehicle categories (but still including car, which is all I need).

My question is about insurance comparison web sites. Some are no-go because they state in their assumptions that no driver has a notifiable medical condition - that's clear enough. Others allow me to select DVLA-aware 3 or more years restricted license when filling in details, but then when I click through to a quote some insurers don't provide an option on their web site to specify anything other than "Full UK license", and a number of foreign license options. The passed through information from the comparison site has pre-populated "Full UK license".

Now, I'm cautious enough that I will call my chosen insurer before buying and confirm before risking having my insurance invalidated because of non-disclosure further down the line. However, it doesn't help when trying to make a short list of quotes from 20+ companies - calling them all to check is going to take all day!

Would it be reasonable to assume that if an insurer doesn't provide a list of assumptions that exclude medically restricted license holders, doesn't provide an option to specify a restricted license on their web site, and doesn't mention medically restricted licenses in their policy document that they don't care enough to make a distinction and I will be covered? Essentially, can my license still be reasonably described as a "full UK license"?

Thanks,
Ian

Yep, it’s (long?) been established that if an insurance company considers medical conditions (or anything else) to be a material fact which would affect your insurance then they need to ask clear & unambiguous questions or clearly exclude it in the proposal documentation.

Statements like “you must disclose all material facts” are worthless as they leave the poor old punter trying to guess what the insurance company will consider to be a material fact.

iharding

Thanks, that's what I thought. They can't reasonably expect their customers to be psychic!

As I said; in any case I will inform them of my status when I buy by phone after I've selected the best quote and cover but it's good to know I'm not going to go all the way through a call and fail at the final hurdle.

FWIW, where there's been the option to specify Standard or DVLA-restricted license on a price comparison site I've tried both just to see if anyone is loading premiums and is therefore a company to avoid. In every case, the restricted license has made no difference to the premium.

Ian