car seizures by police for no insurance

Tilt

Joe_Horner wrote: »

I go for the £80 a year, fully comp with agreed value, insurers who don't put that restriction on :beer:

I would love to see your schedule. I am 54 yaers old, have an IAM certificate, have held a full licence for 34 years, hold a PCV class 1, max (9+ years) no claims bonus and I can't get insurance for anywhere near that! :eek:

Joe_Horner

dacouch wrote: »

So how would you justify an Insurer refusing a claim say an accident where the policyholder does not have say Road Tax then which I assume you would class as not legally being allowed on the road? He has no Road Tax so if he goes into the back of someone else is the lack of Road Tax material to the accident?

On the above basis how would driving a SORNed car on the road affect having an accident?

Again would not having an MOT be material to an accident?

I'm basically on your side here, dacouch

Note that I ONLY mentioned that in connection with invalidating "own loss" insurance (fire / theft / own car damage), which isn't covered by the RTA and so can have any conditions applied contractually as long as they don't amount to unfair terms under contract law.

For invalidating third party liability, requiring a car to be "driven according to the law" would mean they didn't pay out for anyone who was speeding, drunk, driving recklessly, had a cracked windscreen or a blown lightbulb, dirty number plates and so on (all of which are "not in accordance with legal requirements").

I'm sure the insurers would love to refuse any claims in such circumstances if they could - which is probably why the RTA specifically says they can't

Joe_Horner

Tilt wrote: »

I would love to see your schedule. I am 54 yaers old, have an IAM certificate, have held a full licence for 34 years, hold a PCV class 1, max (9+ years) no claims bonus and I can't get insurance for anywhere near that! :eek:

Get yourself a 1966 Daf 32 Daffodil (or any similar classic) and limit it to 12k miles (inc business use) per year. And don't worry, at the speed that thing goes, you need a full year to do 12k miles

It can be your "main" car, and NCD isn't applicable so you can use that on something else.On the other hand, get 3 points and they probably won't touch you next year. They may also decline to renew if you have a claim, which seems like a good way to promote sensible driving to me!

thenudeone

Jamie_Carter wrote: »

The compound would not release the vehicle if it didn't have insurance that specified that vehicle.

I have already given the link to the Order, and someone else has kindly already posted the wording, but since you have difficulty with it, here it is again:

5.—(1) Subject to the provisions of these Regulations, if, before a relevant motor vehicle is disposed of by an authorised person, a person—
(a)satisfies the authorised person that he is the registered keeper or the owner of that vehicle;
(b)pays to the authorised person such a charge in respect of its seizure and retention as is provided for in regulation 6; and
(c)produces at a police station specified in the seizure notice a valid certificate of insurance covering his use of that vehicle and a valid licence authorising him to drive the vehicle,

It DOES NOT DOES NOT DOES NOT state that the policy must specifically identify the vehicle being recovered.

As long as the certificate covers the driver, in any way, then the vehicle MUST be released.

In practice, to prevent abuse, most insurers which offer DOC cover have an exclusion clause on the certificate which does not provide cover in order to recover other vehicles; but that is an insurance policy limitation, and not a blanket statutory ban.

Tilt

thenudeone wrote: »

I have already given the link to the Order, and someone else has kindly already posted the wording, but since you have difficulty with it, here it is again:

5.—(1) Subject to the provisions of these Regulations, if, before a relevant motor vehicle is disposed of by an authorised person, a person—
(a)satisfies the authorised person that he is the registered keeper or the owner of that vehicle;
(b)pays to the authorised person such a charge in respect of its seizure and retention as is provided for in regulation 6; and
(c)produces at a police station specified in the seizure notice a valid certificate of insurance covering his use of that vehicle and a valid licence authorising him to drive the vehicle,

It DOES NOT DOES NOT DOES NOT state that the policy must specifically identify the vehicle being recovered.

As long as the certificate covers the driver, in any way, then the vehicle MUST be released.

In practice, to prevent abuse, most insurers which offer DOC cover have an exclusion clause on the certificate which does not provide cover in order to recover other vehicles; but that is an insurance policy limitation, and not a blanket statutory ban.

And the car is taxed of course. As I see it, the wording you have posted simply confirms that the RK must prove to the 'authorised person' that he is RK or owner of the vehicle so it follows that he must insure the car or provide either a cover note or a certificate before it will be released. I understand that the RK can also nominate a third party (with a valid DOC policy) to collect the car (for what ever reason) but again, the RK would be committing an offence if the car was released without him insuring it.

The bottom line here is that the under the new rules a car shouldn't be on the road without being insured because it should either be insured or SORNd. The grey area and potential loop hole is with other drivers with DOC policies enabling them to drive other cars which may not comply with the CIE rules but comply with s165. So in affect, one set of rules potentially conflict with the other which not only confuses some genuine drivers themselves but also some insurance customer service personell it seems.

Joe_Horner

Tilt wrote: »

The grey area and potential loop hole is with other drivers with DOC policies enabling them to drive other cars which may not comply with the CIE rules but comply with s165. So in affect, one set of rules potentially conflict with the other which not only confuses some genuine drivers themselves but also some insurance customer service personell it seems.

That loophole is generally closed now by the insurers excluding recovery of a seized vehicle under DOC cover. Most short temporary policies also exclude such use.

Ultimately, there's no way you can stop someone reclaiming a car if they're determined enough - they can always takie out a policy and then cancel within the 14 days "cooling off" if they really want to.

But most of the habitual uninsured won't bother because the next banger they buy will be considerably less than the premium. Loss of licence as the points add up also won't stop them. The only way to get them off the road is to put them somewhere that there aren't any roads and leave them there till they're too old to drive. But mandatory life sentences for DWI is a little extreme.

Two of the biggest problems I see in all this is the loading that the insurers put on quotes for people with INS offences and the ridiculous increases in "RTA only" insurance over the past few years.

If someone had problems affording it before, they certainly won't be able to once those points are on. Assuming the objective is to stop people driving without insurance rather than screw the person who's been caught, the loading for INS points is counter productive.

As for third party only cover, when I started my driving career that was the normal for young drivers - you insured against losses to others and were careful to avoid any for yourself. Out of interest I ran some quotes recently for myself (mid 40's, 27+ year licence, no claims, no convictions and a "safe" area) on a Citroen estate I was thinking of getting.

Third party only consistently came out at between 50% - 100% MORE than comprehensive when it SHOULD be a far lower risk because they're not insuring for damage to my car, won't be replacing broken glass and won't care if it's stolen or burnt. The risk factors of the driver (me) were the same in all cases, except that I just might be less inclined to drive carefully if I know I have to cover my own damage. There's no actuarial justification for that whatsoever and it only serves to increase the cost of being legal".

Jamie_Carter

Wig wrote: »

Yes it does, CIE is only enforced by DVLA. and it would only be seized after a 21 day notice was issued by DVLA and the owner failed to pay up. After that the RK would be required to insure or SORN, or the whole process happens again.

Read the previous posts!!

If you have read the first few posts of this thread, you are either very brave or just trolling, when you admit to helping your friend who had their car seized for no insurance. Personally I think you are just trolling.

Jamie_Carter

Joe_Horner wrote: »

"All the insurance companies you've used" (though you still havent said who they are so their policies can be checked) may well have terms relating to MOTs, Tax etc in their policies but those terms are unenforceable because the Road Traffic Act specifically says that any such terms are invalid with regard to the legal minimum (third party) cover.

They can use such a clause to invalidate any cover for your own car, including fire or theft, and they can use them to sue you for repayment of any payments made by them, but they CANNOT use them to invalidate the cover required by law for third party liabilities.


eta: I have DOC cover which doesn't require the vehicle to have its own cover on my £80 per year classic policy and I use it at times to drive otherwise uninsured modern cars when I need to move or tow things that are too big for our Dafs. It's NOT my concern if the owner's breaking the CIE regs because I'm not his keeper.

If the Police decided to stop and (unlawfully) seize the car they'd be politely informed why they shouldn't and would be faced with a claim for every penny in costs, inconvenience and trauma that I suffered if they seized it anyway.

It would be entertaining

OK, so you have a policy that allows you to move vehicles from place to place. But you still wouldn't be able to use that cover to release a car from the police compound (which is what this thread is about).

Jamie_Carter

thenudeone wrote: »

No. I've already given a link which proves that that is not a condition of my policy. It may be for yours.

It's a condition of the law, not your policy.

Jamie_Carter

dacouch wrote: »

They're either wrong (Very common mistake for call center staff to make a lot use the same logic as you) or more likely they are talking about their own Employers product.

They cannot tell you whether another Insurer requires the other car to be insured as a) They would normally have no idea b) It differs from Insurer to Insurer c) It's not a legal requirement so they cannot make sweeping assertions as each company makes their own decision.

I'm guessing you go with the cheap and cheerful Insurers who tend to have this restriction. As I mentioned earlier the two largest (by a long way) car Insurers do not have this requirement.

It was actually a broker