Direct Line cancels insurance, in fear of a big debt arising

bigjl

Sadly you have given an Insurance company a get out of jail free card.

Others on the forum that advocate not informing your insurance company of minor collisions that you are not claiming for need to take note.

I think you might have to swallow this one.

Have seen people lose out due to putting bigger wheels on a car.

No problem till they were involved in a very minor collision.

Your Insurance should pay for the third party damages though.

But your insured losses may need to be fought for.

fivetide

Sadly cocobrice the fact you see it as a safety upgrade doesn't matter. Insurers will put up premiums for upgraded brakes in many cases (common amongst Subaru owners etc). I think the argument used to be it might encourage you to go faster and brake later!

It is an oversight on your part, I can accept that sadly, Direct Line will not care.

It's a modification and undeclared. They will argue they have no idea how the car is driven. You could be using it for weekend track days for all they know. The fault element of the claim doesn't help this either.

Shame you forgot about it to the point of not whipping it off before the engineer saw it.

Quentin

bigjl wrote: »

Sadly you have given an Insurance company a get out of jail free card......I think you might have to swallow this one.

Your Insurance should pay for the third party damages though.

But your insured losses may need to be fought for.

This is a contradiction, and not the way it works.

When a policy is voided back to inception it means the insurer will not pay out for any "insured" losses, and although has to deal with third party claims whilst the insurer, they then chase the policyholder to refund them.

So unless the OP gets the policy reinstated, he does face a big debt arising from this!

So he needs to swallow the cost of any damage he has inflicted on his own car plus expect the insurer pursuing him to repay their outlay to any third party.

Spankey

The 3 times i have had to sue big companies in small claims court i would not have to pay the other partys costs if i lost as the total claim was for under £5,000.
I won all 3 luckily.

Aretnap

You need to read up on what the Financial Ombudsman says about non-disclosure.

You say "at the time the insurer did not acknowledge the part as a modification". What do you mean - that that particular insurer didn't raise the premium, or that they told you they didn't regard it as a modification at all? If it was the latter it might help you argue that the non-disclosure was inadvertent at worst, as you had a reasonable belief that an insurance company wouldn't regard it as a modification. That might not be much help though if Direct Line can prove that they would not have insured you at all had you declared it.

I don't think the fact that the product didn't come with a disclaimer will help you though. Halfords aren't insurance brokers and they're not required or even qualified to tell you how to deal with your insurer.

Quentin

Spankey wrote: »

The 3 times i have had to sue big companies in small claims court i would not have to pay the other partys costs if i lost as the total claim was for under £5,000.
I won all 3 luckily.

To get a claim to a hearing in the SCC, the claimant must pay all the court fees in advance (includes the cost of the initial summons as well as the hearing cost). If you lose the case, then you have also lost this money.

The loser always has to pay the winners allowable expenses and costs irrespective of how little the claim is for. (And the cap on an expert witness cost has risen from £200 to £750!)

Innocent defendants cannot be expected to have to pay their own expenses to attend the court as a result of a claimant's thrown out claim!

In insurance disputes it's far more MSE to initially use the free FOS scheme (the insurer has to pay, not the customer whatever the outcome) rather than risk the cost of a court case. This doesn't stop you subsequently using the court, as the FOS decision is only binding on the insurer, not the customer.

cocobrice

Quentin wrote: »

This is little consolation.
Assuming the voided policy decision is upheld, then although the third party claim will be dealt with, the insurer will then come after the OP to reimburse them.

Quentin wrote: »

In insurance disputes it's far more MSE to initially use the free FOS scheme (the insurer has to pay, not the customer whatever the outcome) rather than risk the cost of a court case.

Sorry Quentin, you seem to have a good understanding of the process, I am however struggling a bit to follow with the abbreviations.

Could you please confirm what you are referring to with OP and MSE. I assume OP is me in this case and FOS is the Financial Ombudsman Service, but MSE is new to me.

Quentin

OP = original poster (or original post)

FOS is the ombudsman service

MSE is where you are reading this!

(It isn't moneysaving to first go to the expense of a court case when you can use the FOS for free, then if you lose you can take advice on whether or not to embark on a court case, which would cost were you to lose that too)

So if you

rs65

cocobrice wrote: »

In a way, it could be considered to contribute to safety...

I think the difficulty you will have is that no-one fits a strut brace for safety reasons. Why did you fit it?

artbaron

cocobrice wrote: »

Since the time the part was, insurers have changed the rules and now saying that they would have not insured me in the first place had been aware of the existence of the part.

I don't believe them. Get someone else to ring them up and quote for the exact same model of car with a strut brace. If they refuse insurance I'll send you a coconut. If they don't refuse then it appears they're refusing to pay out on false pretences, so make of that what you will.