Car insurance claim refused

b1gphil

InsideInsurance,

Just been on the One Call website and gone through most of their proposal form and its asks for both the name of the "Legal owner of the vehicle" and the "Registered Keeper".

Both of these fields default to "Proposer" and can only be changed via a pull down menu.

I'll check on the policy documents. I'm guessing that her partner has just left the defaults in place meaning that the proposal will be in my daughters name and the answers to these two questions will be :-

Legal owner = my daughter
Registered Keeper = my daughter

You could argue that she's been his partner long enough to be his common-law wife and hence the car is in joint ownership.

However she isn't the registered keeper, so technically the content isn't correct.

If my assumptions prove to be right, does this mean we don't have any chance of claiming on the One Call insurance policy ?

Thanks

vaio

Quentin wrote: »

As long as she can get the reg no.off the police, then whatever the insurer's decision, she will be able to make a claim via the MIB untraced driver scheme.

^^ what he said but even if they don't identify the car then I'd be confident that a complaint with maybe a referral to the FOS will get it sorted out with her company.

Have a read of http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/46/46_non_disclosure_insurance.htm

you need to be arguing (via a complaint & FOS if necessary) that your non disclosure was "innocent" in which case, assuming then would have offered cover in the first place, they must pay the claim with maybe a premium adjustment if it would have been more expensive had the true details been given. (run a couple of dummy quotes to find out the respective premiums)

The other argument I'd be pursuing (as well not instead) is the joint ownership as mentioned above

chanz4

I find putting registered owner as wife makes no diff to my quotes

rs65

b1gphil wrote: »

However she isn't the registered keeper, so technically the content isn't correct.

If my assumptions prove to be right, does this mean we don't have any chance of claiming on the One Call insurance policy ?

Am i correct in assuming that the policy is in her name with her as the main driver, owner and keeper?

Do a dummy quote with her as the policy holder, her as main driver, him as owner and him as keeper. See firstly if they would've quoted and secondly what the premium would be.

I've just done a dummy quote me as the policyholder and her as the owner and keeper. They quoted with either me or her as main driver (but we are a bit older than your daughter).

b1gphil

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to offer advice - we really appreciate your help.

I'm more than happy to go down the complaint route and we'll be asking tomorrow what that process is.

We'll also be looking to make a complaint to the financial ombudsman.

The police have saved some CCTV of one of the roads we believe the driver would have taken after he drove away from the crash scene.

The house where my daughter was visiting also has CCTV and we're trying to download this from the CCTV system they have to give to the police.

However they're not reviewing this until next week.

In the meantime the car is being stored at an extortionate rate in Sheffield - already £269 in a week and a half. I may have access to a car trailer at the weekend. Should I go and pay what by then will probably be over £300 and bring the car back ?

I'm just worried that if we don't bring it back and we're unsuccessful in recovering the costs, the timeline of the complaints may mean we'd face an enormous bill just for storage.

Thanks again

rs65

There should be a complaints procedure in the policy or on their website. It will certainly be available on request.

Reference to the FOS is part of the process once the insurers procedure has been exhausted. Their final response should include a leaflet and details of the FOS.

vaio

Process is easy, write a letter outlining your arguments and telling them what you would like done.

Mention the FOS rules on disclosure as a way of making them aware that if they don't resolve it then referral to FOS will follow.

If you can introduce a downside for the insurer then do so, something like increased travel costs/hire car or similar which will be more costly the longer they take to resolve your complaint.

You can't go to FOS formally until you have got a final decision from your insurer or eight weeks have elapsed. You can ring them informally for advice.

Due to volume of complaints FOS are very busy so any referral to them is going to take a long time so plan of dealing with it yourselves in the short term.

Getting the car back might be a good idea as then it is in your control and it limits your costs in what I think is the really unlikely event that this doesn't get sorted in your favour either via your insurer or by the car being identified.

Sally_A

You refer to it as your daughters car, however, state that the V5 is in his name, but he put your daughter down as the owner.

Who is the Policyholder? and why the muddle between the legal owner and the name on the V5?

If they think you manipulated quotes by swapping over the owner/keeper/user this could be an issue.

As an aside, these days, most insurers will reimburse co-habiting partners, as much as they would husband/wife when insurable interest was deemed to apply to both parties - so long as they are living together with proof, and both contributing to the family home.

Who is the insurer, and what is their take on property owned by co-habiting couples?

b1gphil

vaio wrote: »

^^ what he said but even if they don't identify the car then I'd be confident that a complaint with maybe a referral to the FOS will get it sorted out with her company.

Have a read of Viao's earlier post

you need to be arguing (via a complaint & FOS if necessary) that your non disclosure was "innocent" in which case, assuming then would have offered cover in the first place, they must pay the claim with maybe a premium adjustment if it would have been more expensive had the true details been given. (run a couple of dummy quotes to find out the respective premiums)

The other argument I'd be pursuing (as well not instead) is the joint ownership as mentioned above

Vaio,

I've read the info in the link you've kindly provided in your previous note (as a new user I can't add the link to my reply). This is really useful information and something I can really use in the complaint we'll be making and even more useful if this ends up with the Financial Ombudsman Service.

This has made me feel a lot more optimistic of the outcome as the catagories at the bottom of the document should reultin in the one mistake in the proposal details as either "innocent" or "inadvertant", both of which should result in the insurance company having to accept the claim.

Many thanks for adding this info.

Much appreciated.

vaio

good, but as mentioned above, run a couple of dummy quotes to see if

a. They would have offered cover at all with the correct details &
b. What, if any, difference in premium there is.

The results from those dummy quotes will guide you as to whether you need to go for innocent or innocent and/or inadvertent.

I think there is a more recent FOS paper on non disclosure too, might be worth having a read of that, from memory it expands rather than changes the one I linked to above