Car Insurance mistake.

Bilbous

A brief outline

We had our car insured in January last year by Cooperative Insurance with my wife as policy holder and myself as named driver. In December I bought another car and we got the old car scrapped.
We rang Cooperative to change policy to the new car and they charged £13.44 for this and we got the amended policy in the post stating cover from 19th December 2011 to January 26 2012.

Today I rang them to discuss renewal when policy runs out and for me to be main driver and wife named (she has new car) and they tell me the car is not insured.

So we have been driving this car since the 19th of December without insurance.

Now my argument is that I have basically had no insurance from this company for a month (there or thereabouts) and still no insurance till this matter is sorted (Wife is policy holder so she now has to contact them tomorrow on her day off) so they should refund me the cost of the 1 months insurance.

What are peoples views and advice on this matter?

mancitychick

Did they explain why the car was not insured, especially as you had received new policy documents.

Quentin

Get back and speak to a manager about this - maybe whoever you spoke to has made a mistake and tried to trace your record via your "old" car.

Whatever, don't drive it till this is resolved!!

Bilbous

I wont drive the car nor will my wife until it is resolved. I cannot resolve this as my wife has to speak to them as she is the policy holder and i am a named driver.

Quentin

As they already spoke to you (and raised the spectre of you not being insured at all), maybe as you are a named driver (and have a certificate from them showing you are insured!) you can kick off enough (maybe via their customer service/complaints dept rather than a call centre agent) to get through to a manager!!

forgotmyname

Who is the wifes new car insured with? Same company/policy? Or they cancelled it when swapping maybe?

Formal complaint in writing if you get no joy in the phone. Sometimes trying to deal with them on the phone is not
worth the effort.
Untrained staff in call centres who have a checklist and if you try to deviate from that they are lost.

vax2002

If you hold the certificate and they have not served notice of it been revoked, then you are still insured for purposes of the road traffic act.
There is very definitive case law for this.
If there where not, insurance companies would retrospectively cancel all policies the first sign of a payout.

Bilbous

forgotmyname wrote: »

Who is the wifes new car insured with? Same company/policy? Or they cancelled it when swapping maybe?

Formal complaint in writing if you get no joy in the phone. Sometimes trying to deal with them on the phone is not
worth the effort.
Untrained staff in call centres who have a checklist and if you try to deviate from that they are lost.

With the same company and under the same policy. The difference is that the new car is registered to me and we only transferred the policy as it was cheapest option for the next 6 weeks till it ended. The amended policy arrived 2 days later and i used this to get the car tax for the car from the post office.
It could well be some idiot in the call centre who has got it all wrong, we will find out one way or the other tomorrow when the wife can ring them.