Drive any car - swift insurance.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

assume you havent got DOC extension. if you have, assume the other vehicle has to be road legal in its own right tax insurance MOT, assume the claus's are, NOT leased,hired,orwned or registered to the adrress of the above nomed policy holder,spouse or cohabating of the same abode of the policy holder.

whoever told you your policy would cover a car bought is wrong. ive never heared of that and if this existed there would be no posts on here asking for help because they bought a car insured on the other and assumed their DOC cover allowed the to drive ANY car with no tax mot or insurance.

there also alot of posts on here about people who have bought insurance that day drove away their nice shiny new car only to have a copper pull them over as MID database showed it uninsured have the car towed and end up in a sticky mess.

Tilt

Joe_Horner wrote: »

The current Swiftcover policy says:

http://www.swiftcover.com/CarInsurance/policy-wording/1_1_74_CarPolicyWording.pdf

So no, they won't cover this. You would probably be ok if stopped if your certificate doesn't mention this condition (and you had it with you) because recent case law says that, if you present a "relevent" certificate when stopped the police have to take it on face value of what the certificate says and have no grounds to make enquiries beyond the certificate wording. But that is NOT the same as actually being covered in an accident!

Day cover is usually between about £15 and £35 so better to take out a day policy and know you have full cover.

So the police can't check to see if someone takes out a policy, makes one payment, then cancels the policy but retains the certificate then?

Notmyrealname

Joe_Horner wrote: »

The current Swiftcover policy says:

http://www.swiftcover.com/CarInsurance/policy-wording/1_1_74_CarPolicyWording.pdf

So no, they won't cover this. You would probably be ok if stopped if your certificate doesn't mention this condition

Apart from the fact they would have to say how they had permission to drive it at which point, they're in the crap. They either lie and hope the seller is prepared to play along or they tell the truth and then get done for no insurance.

Joe_Horner

Tilt wrote: »

So the police can't check to see if someone takes out a policy, makes one payment, then cancels the policy but retains the certificate then?

No they can't if you show them a certificate that gives prima facie evidence of cover. The Act, as thenudeone posted in another thread, says:

Road Traffic Act 1988
165A Power to seize vehicles driven without licence or insurance
(1)Subsection (5) applies if any of the following conditions is satisfied.
[...]
(3)The second condition is that—
(a)a constable in uniform requires, under section 165, a person to produce evidence that a motor vehicle is not or was not being driven in contravention of section 143 [compulsory motor insurance],
(b)the person fails to produce such evidence, and
(c)the constable has reasonable grounds for believing that the vehicle is or was being so driven.
[...]
(5)Where this subsection applies, the constable may—
(a)seize the vehicle in accordance with subsections (6) and (7) and remove it;

In the case that he also linked to, the Courts decided that the order of wording, combined with the "and" in line (b), means that if you show him a certificate that appears to cover your use of the vehicle then he is NOT allowed to take other reasonable suspicion into account in deciding whether to seize or not.

Regardless of how the Police or you think it "should" be, that's what the law clearly says : BOTH parts of the condition must be met for seizure to be legal. You must fail to show a certificate AND he must have other reasonable grounds to think you're uninsured. If they meant anything else then the "and" would be an "or".


ETA: Fair point , notmyrealname, but the OP has posted earlier that the car would be "bought by a friend" (presumably with a second transfer of ownership as soon as the docs came through) so technically he wouldn't be the owner in this case

Wig

Joe_Horner wrote: »

No they can't if you show them a certificate that gives prima facie evidence of cover. The Act, as thenudeone posted in another thread, says:

In the case that he also linked to, the Courts decided that the order of wording, combined with the "and" in line (b), means that if you show him a certificate that appears to cover your use of the vehicle then he is NOT allowed to take other reasonable suspicion into account in deciding whether to seize or not.

Regardless of how the Police or you think it "should" be, that's what the law clearly says : BOTH parts of the condition must be met for seizure to be legal. You must fail to show a certificate AND he must have other reasonable grounds to think you're uninsured. If they meant anything else then the "and" would be an "or".


ETA: Fair point , notmyrealname, but the OP has posted earlier that the car would be "bought by a friend" (presumably with a second transfer of ownership as soon as the docs came through) so technically he wouldn't be the owner in this case

Yes I agree with what you say but that would not stop them from giving you a producer, so that they can double check if you are insured. When you present your documents they can check with your insurer and if not insured then you could be prosecuted.

So whilst the OP may not get seized if the coppers are up to date on case law, they may still get a producer from a suspicious cop.

Tilt

Joe_Horner wrote: »

No they can't if you show them a certificate that gives prima facie evidence of cover. The Act, as thenudeone posted in another thread, says:

In the case that he also linked to, the Courts decided that the order of wording, combined with the "and" in line (b), means that if you show him a certificate that appears to cover your use of the vehicle then he is NOT allowed to take other reasonable suspicion into account in deciding whether to seize or not.

Regardless of how the Police or you think it "should" be, that's what the law clearly says : BOTH parts of the condition must be met for seizure to be legal. You must fail to show a certificate AND he must have other reasonable grounds to think you're uninsured. If they meant anything else then the "and" would be an "or".


ETA: Fair point , notmyrealname, but the OP has posted earlier that the car would be "bought by a friend" (presumably with a second transfer of ownership as soon as the docs came through) so technically he wouldn't be the owner in this case

I think you will find that a police officer is perfectly entitled to check the insurance status of any vehicle, especially if the certificate produced does not relate to the vehicle. It even suggests it in your quote... it states 'evidence' which may or may not include the certificate. Also 'reasonable grounds' which is open to interpretation. The fact that the car does not appear on the MIB data base would (I would of thought) provide the 'reasonable grounds'.

At the end of the day, it is a police officer's duty to ensure further offences aren't committed.

Joe_Horner

@ Wig:
Absolutely right - so the uninsured will still get caught out. But Tilt's assertion was that they could seize even if you showed a certificate, which they can't regardless of whether the certificate is valid or not in the particular circumstances.

@ Tilt :
An officer is entitled to check, but he is NOT entitled to seize a vehicle based on those checks if a certificate which, on face value, shows cover is presented at the time of the stop. That's not something that "I think", it's a matter of an established Court of Appeal ruling.

That's exactly the situation that the case referred to covered. The driver was using DOC cover, and had a letter from the owner confirming that he had permission.

The Police at the scene weren't convinced because the car didn't show on the MIB database, so they phoned the insurers who told them that the car must have its own cover for the DOC to be valid (in fact the insurer was wrong because the policy included no clause that made that condition but that's beside the point).

Based on the reasonable suspicion of no MIB entry and the insurer's statement, they seized the car.

The Court of Appeal found that because the driver had produced evidence that showed he was insured - a certificate allowing DOC with the owner's permission and a letter showing that permission - the police had no power of seizure regardless of any reasons they had to suspect the certificate wasn't valid, including a statement (incorrect as it turned out) from the insurers themselves.

Interestingly, their decision was that it's what's stated on the certificate that matters in relation to seizure powers and not what's included in full policy document. If an insurer intends DOC to be valid only for cars insured in their own right, then wording to that effect must appear on the certificate, not just in the policy booklet.

Their decision does NOT relate to the prospect of being prosecuted for driving without insurance if the cover evidenced by it turns out to be invalid under further investigation, but it DOES prevent seizure of the car at the time of stopping.

In fact, this is a sensible approach to take because it provides a certain amount of failsafe against inappropriate seizure from innocent motorists. Such as a car not showing on the MIB database because of an insurer's error or, in the case above, the insurer getting their own T&Cs wrong on the phone!

Tilt

Joe_Horner wrote: »

@ Wig:
Absolutely right - so the uninsured will still get caught out. But Tilt's assertion was that they could seize even if you showed a certificate, which they can't regardless of whether the certificate is valid or not in the particular circumstances.

Where did I say that? In any event, the police can seize a vehicle if adequate insurance cover cannot be established at the roadside. They have to be sure that a further offence isn't committed. remember, no insurance is a strict liability offence.

Joe_Horner wrote: »

@ Tilt :
An officer is entitled to check, but he is NOT entitled to seize a vehicle based on those checks if a certificate which, on face value, shows cover is presented at the time of the stop. That's not something that "I think", it's a matter of an established Court of Appeal ruling.

That contradicts what you said in post 11 which I highlighted in post 13!

Rover_Driver

Tilt wrote: »

the police can seize a vehicle if adequate insurance cover cannot be established at the roadside. They have to be sure that a further offence isn't committed. remember, no insurance is a strict liability offence.!

As in earlier posts, a vehicle cannot automatically be seized for not having insurance, or it cannot be established - there are conditions attached - sections 165A (6) (b), (9) (b) and s.165 (2) (a), Road Traffic Act 1988 refer.

If those conditions are not met, the vehicle cannot be seized .

Joe_Horner

Tilt wrote: »

Where did I say that? In any event, the police can seize a vehicle if adequate insurance cover cannot be established at the roadside. They have to be sure that a further offence isn't committed. remember, no insurance is a strict liability offence.

In the other thread:

Tilt wrote: »

<SIGH!> [...] it is probably the case that you (or I) as the non-owner driver may escape prosecution if we have a DOC on our policies, BUT never the less, the car could still be seized and the RK then prosecuted under the new rules unless the car itself has it's own cover.

There is no power of seizure under the continuous insurance rules, so the only way that your assertion here could happen is if they decided that the certificate you present (showing cover) doesn't in fact give cover.

That contradicts what you said in post 11 which I highlighted in post 13!

I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting to have to play semantics. when i made the first post.

Of course they can carry out extra checks - in fact, they probably already have by checking the MIB database before even pulling you over.

But they CANNOT use the information gained from those checks to seize a car where the driver shows them a certificate which, on face value, shows that he's insured.

That's what the law says and that's what the Courts have confirmed (have you actually read the judgement that thenudeone linked to?)

You may not agree here, but I would rather have a million uninsured drivers loose on the road than allow the police to change what the law quite clearly says to suit their own purposes!