Can car insurance be retrospectivley cancelled

magpiecottage

DunstonH is correct.

All FOS will do is send a standard letter to the firm the complaint is about. It will state that the consumer wishes to complain and the policy number. Possibly it will give an indication of the nature of the complaint which, in my experience, may - or may not - be accurate.

The firm has eight weeks from when it receives the letter from FOS to deal with it - but FOS will not do anything more unless it hears further from the complainant.

somalt

I'm going to third the comments regarding the complaint notifications from the FOS.
What happens is that someone contact the FOS and they send out a letter in a few days, at most it is a couple of sentences. This may or may not contain the right references and might be sent to the right firm.
The firm then has 8 weeks to issue their final response. Sometimes it's something the firm is already dealing with but mostly when we receive them we just contact the customer to get the information we need.

somalt

euanT wrote: »

Two weeks after accident, during conference call with DVLA it transpires he had six penalty points on his license that she, or they did not know about. Diamond informed her that due to this ommission he would be removed from policy retrospectively( ie never on policy) and they would come after her personally for the costs, now around £20,000. As he was never charged for driving uninsured he was surely insured at time of the accident.

I'm a little confused by the time line here. The accident was three years ago and they were aware of the issue two weeks after the accident. When was it Diamond informed her that he would be removed and she would be liable for the costs? Did they say that three years ago and have only just got back in touch to advise of the costs?

You've advised they wrote to her, in that letter did they say if she was unhappy she had the right to go to the FOS? As if they did you generally only have six months to do so.

To me, it sounds like they have treated it as inadvertent non-disclosure and rewritten the policy on the terms that would have applied if they had have been given the correct details, ie they would not have let him by a named driver on her policy.

The decision of the Police/CPS as to whether to prosecute is not necessarily relevant as they may have simply decided it was not in the public interest to do so as he had reason to believe he was insured.

He really has caused your daughter a lot of inconvenience.

euanT

Hi all, yes my daughter did complain to Diamond and they are sticking to their opinion. After the accident there was a lot of correspondance between both parties and Diamond stated that as my daughter was not divulging her ex boyfreinds whereabouts(which she did not know) they would likely come after her. The last correspondance was nearly three years ago until last week when she recieves said claim.
FOS asked her for insurance details including underwriters at time of original claim, and stated they would be requesting ALL information on claim from Diamond

vaio

Ahh, as I guessed in post #26, it sounds like the daughter had previously complained to Diamond so it looks like the decision to chase her for the £20k was based on the final decision outcome of that complaint.

That being the case then the

dunstonh wrote: »

......low knowledge individuals that are not qualified in the subject and are not the ones making the decisions......

who answer the phone at the FOS were correct and FOS can now take it on as a formal case

Hopefully it will have a happy "innocent non disclosure" outcome

dacouch

vaio wrote: »

Ahh, as I guessed in post #26, it sounds like the daughter had previously complained to Diamond so it looks like the decision to chase her for the £20k was based on the final decision outcome of that complaint.

That being the case then the who answer the phone at the FOS were correct and FOS can now take it on as a formal case

Hopefully it will have a happy "innocent non disclosure" outcome

There's a chance the correspondence the OP's daughter sent was not dealt with as an official complaint if it was not marked as such.

vaio

The OP says that "my daughter did complain to Diamond and they are sticking to their opinion." apart from the complaint bit surely the "sticking to their opinion" means they have looked at it again as they would do with a complaint?

Apartfrom that, surely Diamond would follow the FSA/FOS advice that that says a complaint doesn't have to have "Official Complaint" in red letters on it.

Don't they say something along the lines of "any consumer expression of dissatisfaction whether written or verbal should be treated as a complaint"?

dacouch

mikey72 wrote: »

You seem to be getting very, very desperate to steer the op away from the FOS at any cost.



But from post #35, it appears it has already been picked up by them.
"FOS asked her for insurance details including underwriters at time of original claim, and stated they would be requesting ALL information on claim from Diamond "

You're confusing me with your row with Dunstonh, in this thread I answered a post from Huckster and my latter post was a suggestion why the original correspondence may not have been treated as a complaint.

I've not got involved in the he says she says about whether the FOS handling the complaint part is good or bad. Although the FOS sending an official complaint rather than starting an FOS case following a previous final decision might suggest there was no original official complaint / it was not treated as an official complaint.

mikey72

dacouch wrote: »

You're confusing me with your row with Dunstonh, in this thread I answered a post from Huckster and my latter post was a suggestion why the original correspondence may not have been treated as a complaint.

I've not got involved in the he says she says about whether the FOS handling the complaint part is good or bad. Although the FOS sending an official complaint rather than starting an FOS case following a previous final decision might suggest there was no original official complaint / it was not treated as an official complaint.

My apologies, and I have deleted the post.

somalt

If the company issued their final response three years ago it may not be possible to refer it to the FOS.

Did any of the correspondence give a date that it must be referred to them by or say that you have six months from the date of this letter to refer to them?
Had you contacted the FOS in anyway previously?

It may still be possible to refer the matter to them if there are extenuating circumstances. Otherwise you may need to take legal advice.