18 year old son had insurance cancelled following motoring offence and 28 day ban

Aretnap

Certainly if you're asked "have you ever been banned from driving" or "have you ever been jailed" you're allowed to answer "no" if the ban or jail term relates to a spent conviction.

On the subject of the ROA if the only punishment was a one year binding over order and a month's ban the conviction will be spent after a year rather than the usual five years and won't have to be declared after that.

tutti_2

Hi All

thanks for the responses some make interesting reading and at least one I'll ignore lol. To be fair to my son it was no sort of "car park meet" he was at college, they were both apprentice HGV fitters so a bit geeky about all things mechanical. He did say that he hadn't actually expected him to drive it, naive I know but he likened it to similar circumstances when at the same age we'd been camping in a family group and he has said to one of our friends go on then give us a go of your car. Said friend then threw him the keys knowing full well he wouldn't actually drive, but as my son said once the boy got into the car and actually did start it up he didn't stop it (I think he was right on that point as given that the boy hit the accelerator and not the brake things could have been worse).

I did ask him if he'd explained all this to the police but he said they'd asked if he'd given him the keys and told him that he had to give a yes or no answer or could be locked up, he's never been in any sort of trouble before and was very scared by it all.

As for the 16year old paying initially he and his father said they would cover the damage, the 16year old has his own car and they were going to take it off him. I presumed that they would take it off him to pay for the damage but presume that when they weren't legally liable they changed their minds. My son immediately gave his names to the owners of the damaged cars one was happy to take theirs to a garage of their choice and my son paid the bill (well his gran did n he's paying her back via a standing order and money he got for his 18th birthday), the other went through the insurance company but my son has paid the bill.

As for the multi car policy it was the insurance companies mistake that they cancelled for all (administration error) we are very careful and everything about the cancellation came in Luke's name and referred to his policy only. The frustration is that he was very upfront and informed the insurance company straight away, they advised all along that his insurance would continue till renewal and the cancellation came as a big surprise, when I made a request to the call recordings they immediately gave him £150.00 compensation for the incorrect advice. Looking back I should have perhaps pushed further as I've now checked with brokers and he will have to inform about the cancellation all his life and it is not linked to the charge at all just the act.

The boy that did crash the car turned 17 a month later and almost immediately past his test, despite his 6 points he's keeping his licence and his parents paid £4k for his insurance. I think that as a 16 year old his father used to take him out to "quiet" places to drive his car so he probably didn't understand the implications of driving my son's (lets face it neither of them did) but the main thing is no one was hurt and my son is very conscious of the fact that in that respect things could have been a lot worse.

Thank you for all the responses and the fact that in the whole they have been very non judgemental, he's still looking and despite being on NMW is preparing himself to pay around 5K he has today received a quote for £7.5K which I'm trying to convince him he can't afford. I don't want anyone to think we've let him off lightly I made him go to court, his car was £600 and I've reminded him about how nice of a car he could afford with the money he's paid out in damages but to be fair he's punished himself enough.

As for that tractor he has an agricultural qualification and knows how to cut grass so if the classic car insurance is a no goer he knows? Not sure his girlfriend will be impressed though lol .....

Joe_Horner

tutti wrote: »

Thank you for all the responses and the fact that in the whole they have been very non judgemental

I'd thought that as well. Nice for a change that it didn't degenerate into another "Won't somebody think of the childeren!" thread

tutti wrote: »

As for that tractor he has an agricultural qualification and knows how to cut grass so if the classic car insurance is a no goer he knows? Not sure his girlfriend will be impressed though lol .....

Depends how he spins it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAh_A7N3_mc

:rotfl:

Silentmemory

Hmmmm the 16 (now 17) year old and his family may not be legally responsible but morally?????

I know what I would've done.

vaio

Aretnap wrote: »

On a more useful note, can the insurers really require him to declare the cancellation for the rest of his life? If the policy was cancelled solely because he was convicted of an offence then the cancellation would seem to be a circumstance ancillary to the conviction and if so it would be subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and would become non-discolosable when the conviction becomes spent. Insurers can't require disclosure of spent convictions or increase premiums because of them, and using a cancellation as a proxy for a spent conviction strikes me as subverting that principle.

I'm not sure if there's any case law around this. Perhaps it's a question for te Financial Ombudsman.

Nice logic....be interesting to see how that pans out although my plan A would be to question the fairness/validity of the cancellation in the first place

tutti_2

vaio wrote: »

Nice logic....be interesting to see how that pans out although my plan A would be to question the fairness/validity of the cancellation in the first place

Have tried that one, the staff in the Indian Call centre are very nice and apologetic, even when I was getting hysterical when after days of promising they failed to send email to demonstrate that the cancellation of my insurance was a mistake (got a letter a day before my 7 days to pay my fine was up, the issuing officer has a scanned copy but he can't make the decision to quash the notice). I have put everything in an email had the automated response but two weeks down the line and a few calls later still no response :mad:. Now that I realise the implications of it all might try again, may be worth cc the local MP, I don't think my son should walk away blameless but it seems a bit unfair when he has been so upfront about everything and paid everything back (don't tell him I said that 'cos I'm still on the lines of you are the reason that insurance for new drivers is so expensive) so realistically Admiral have not lost out on this one.:cool:

vaio

not sure that your MP is worth involving...I'd be thinking about a formal complaint to the insurer (& maybe a FOS referral too) along the lines of a conviction/claim isn't a valid reason to cancel. Throw in the bits about the mistaken cancellation of your policy too

CFC

vaio wrote: »

not sure that your MP is worth involving...I'd be thinking about a formal complaint to the insurer (& maybe a FOS referral too) along the lines of a conviction/claim isn't a valid reason to cancel. Throw in the bits about the mistaken cancellation of your policy too

I think the insurance company cancelled quite legitimately. The lad allowed an underage child without a driving licence to drive. What insurer wants to cover someone who did that? Of course they canx the insurance!

vaio

I'm sure they (or any other insurer) won't be that enthusiastic about covering him but, given he had paid for a years insurance, I'm less sure that a conviction/claim is a valid/fair reason for cancelling the cover they had contracted to provide.

I suppose it depends on what the contract/policy (or FOS) says but on principle the idea of insurers cancelling policies because of a claim/conviction seems a bad one

tutti_2

:money:

CFC wrote: »

I think the insurance company cancelled quite legitimately. The lad allowed an underage child without a driving licence to drive. What insurer wants to cover someone who did that? Of course they canx the insurance!

You're right the charge itself wasn't the reason for cancellation the act was and understandably so, from their perspective he's done it once how can they be sure he won't do it again. For me the reason for cancellation was never an issue more the way it was done, we expected it to be done but were told it wasn't going to happen, if we'd known he wouldn't have repaired his car and the insurance would have been stopped by us. If that had been the case I wondered what the circumstances would be i.e. if we'd stopped the insurance immediately but we'll just have to get on with it!