Car Insurance - Non cover due to Ex Wife lying about policy

gla98avb

Hello,

Any help massively appreciated.

My partner is getting divorced (messy and wife being a nut), he was unemployed for 2 months and asked her to pay the car insurance on his car, which she had full access to and he only had when he had the children every other weekend. He asked her in May if she had paid the policy and could he see the documents and she text him that she had (we have these still) and showed him the policy and said it was all paid. We asked as I was going to cover him on my policy and did not want to cover him twice as fraudulent.

Anyway he had a small accident and when he called his insurers he was not covered, he had no idea, and when he called her she at first denied not paying the premiums for 3 months, and then admitted that she has not and had had final requests etc, he has this call recorded too. Ie she had lied to him about being insured.

It is very Likely the MIB will take him to court over his non insurance as the other driver who he hit will be claiming, but he was in all reasonable assurance he was covered, what is his legal standing?? Do we have to counter claim against his wife? She has also got her divorcee lawyers to write to him saying he is an unfit father due to non-insurance, and even though it is unfounded they are refusing to withdraw the allegation.

We will be seeking a lawyer but if we could get our heads round the basics and get some advice that would be amazing.

Please help xxxx

Quentin

It was his policy, and his responsibility to ensure the premiums were paid. The insurer (and the MIB) won't be interested in the problem with the wife.

forgotmyname

I think your wasting your time asking here. In a situation like this they really need decent legal help.

Asking her if she paid the premiums after the incident is a bit late really. In her defence he asked at the start of the policy and truthfully said yes its insured.
The payments fell behind or stopped intentionally?? Who knows.

But they were a bit silly trusting someone who they knew to be a nut as you termed it.

This will make future insurance harder to get and more expensive, But it will be recorded on the CUE database so must be declared.

Buzby

Afraid I concur. The fact he was lied to or was mistaken is an irrelevance. The accident happened, and there was no insurer. Lucky it wasn't a police stop or the car would have been impunded and scrapped.

thegirlintheattic

Why would he ask his ex to pay his insurance in a messy divorce?!

Don't think you have a hope in hells chance of getting out of this. Driver's responsibility to ensure they are insured.

Quentin

Buzby wrote: »

..... Lucky it wasn't a police stop or the car would have been impunded and scrapped.

Ignore this unneccessary scare mongering.

Driving without insurance is an offence, but they don't scrap your car (unless you choose not to get insured and recover it from the compound!)

gla98avb

Thanks for the posts.

He asked he to pay, as he was unemployed and could not afford them, as he was paying her maintenance, and paying for everything else he could not afford it, so he asked he to take to policy over, it was had her as a named driver on. He asked as a favour as she had the car full time, yes it was idiotic but he did not believe she would not pay a premium on a car she drove the kids in everyday!!

InsideInsurance

From the point of view of settling the claim by the third party/ MIB it is unlikely that the history of why he had no insurance would be of any interest at all. He is liable for the accident, as anyone would be in the circumstances, and if he has no insurance he just has to pay for his own mistake rather than passing it on to the insurer to deal with.

The story may be of more interest to the police if they were considering taking legal action for the criminal offense thats been committed though they will balance off what has happened with how sensible it was in the first place to ask the ex wife to pay.

thenudeone

gla98avb wrote: »

We asked as I was going to cover him on my policy and did not want to cover him twice as fraudulent.

I'm not sure how you were going to insure him to drive HIS vehicle under your policy?

As a named driver?
It's not fraudulent to be a named driver on as many policies as you want.
If you are a named driver on a policy then you can only claim on that policy whilst driving that car; no other policy will cover you, not even if you have another policy of your own offering Driving Other Cars cover.

But named drivers are never covered to drive other vehicles (even if the main policyholder is)

It would have been difficult for you to have covered him on your policy. Some insurers may allow the main policyholder to add a second car for a short period (whilst the first one is sold, for example) and others offer multi-car policies, which might be available to non-married partners; but not many would cover your partner's ex-wife when she was driving his car, meaning he was risking being prosecuted for allowing someone to drive his car without insurance.

Seeing as it was his car, it's up to him to arrange and pay for the insurance. Relying on someone else to arrange it, during a break-up, was likely to end in trouble. I regularly check https://www.askmid.com to make sure my car is still insured, even though I arrange and pay for my own insurance. If he'd done the same, he would have found out much quicker.

Hindsight and all that.

chanz4

Just pray that their is no whipcash or credit hire claims

agrinnall

It's not clear from any of your posts whether the policy was taken out in your partner's name, with his ex paying the premiums, or if it was in her name with him as a named driver (which would have been the sensible thing to do as it appears from your first post that she had far more access to the car than he did). If it is the latter then while he was driving without insurance the responsibility for maintaining the policy would have been hers.