Didn't Know Car Insurance Policy Had Been Cancelled

accidental.idiot?

The following has been taken from a letter I sent to my insurer and sums up my situation - I'm waiting for a response.

Any advice or suggestions?

I'm struggling at the moment as my car has been written off and I'm having difficulty finding a new insurer due to having to declare a cancelled policy.

I only found out that my policy had been cancelled after my stationary vehicle was hit by another driver - who luckily accepted liability.

_________________________________________


It recentlycame to my attention (on ******) that you had written to me on ****** on behalf of the underwriter, Sabre Insurance, requesting that I provide my V5 vehicle registration document to confirm ownership of the above vehicle - a *****. Due to a combination of life events I did not receive your letter until ***** and consequently failed to respond to this request. Additionally, I was not aware until ***** that my insurance policy had in fact been cancelled in ***** due to my failure to respond to a letter Iwas not even aware of.

Your letter dated ***** states that “Your insurer, Sabre, have advised that they have a duplicate policy for registration *****”. Can you please clarify what you mean by the term ‘duplicate policy’? The vehicle in question has been registered to me since the vehicles first registration on **/**/2001. At no time has anyone other than myself owned or used the vehicle and at no time have I ever had more than one insurance policy covering it.

I have no idea how Sabre could have any information implying that there was a duplicate policy for my vehicle and believe that my insurance policy was unfairly cancelled. I am concerned that someone else may have been fraudulently using my vehicle registration on another vehicle, as this is the only explanation I can think of. I would therefore like to request that Sabre be asked to provide any evidence of the duplicate policy so that I can make enquiries and inform the Police if necessary. I will take any failure to provide this information as evidence that it does not exist and that my insurance policy was therefore cancelled unfairly, and will seek advice.

I was informed during a telephone call to the Post Office on ***** that Sabre would reinstate my policy as soon as I was able to provide a V5 document, something I was not able to do as I was waiting for a new V5 to be sent to me by DVLA. I have since received the new V5C and have included photographs of it with this letter.

My main concern at this time is that I was unknowingly in breach of the new Continuous Insurance Enforcement laws that were introduced in 2011 as a consequence of my policy being cancelled for no valid reason. I was not in breach of the conditions of my policy and did not have any duplicate policies for this vehicle.

The cancellation of this policy will have adverse effects upon me due to the difficulty I will have in obtaining car insurance now and in the future. I would like this matter resolving and any records amended so that I do not have to make any future declaration regarding having had an insurance policy cancelled. I am willing to pay from the cancellation of the policy in March, up until I insured the vehicle with another company on Friday ****– something I was forced to do as you would not reinstate my policy without a V5, which I did not have for the reasons stated earlier.
____________________________

Regards,

Accidental.Idiot?

rs65

You mentioned that due to a 'combination of life events', you didn't receive the letter. That suggests you did receive them but didn't have access to them for some reason.

Also, you mentioned you didn't have the V5 for 'the reasons stated earlier' - what were they?

Sounds like they have done nothing wrong so you are appealing to their better nature.

accidental.idiot?

@rs65
Thanks for the response.

rs65 wrote: »

...That suggests you did receive them but didn't have access to them for some reason.

We could argue over my use of the English language - I'd prefer not to! Basically I had no knowlege of the insurance policy having been cancelled, although I accept that the insurers sent a letter and I am not completely blameless. I made an assumption (based on my previous experiences with nearly 12 years insuring the same vehicle) that my policy would continue until it expired in June. I don't particularly want to go into the life events I mentioned - it's been a difficult year and the one thing that I am definitely guilty of is not being very organised with my own affairs over the past few months - due to dealing with other peoples. The letter gave my only 7 days to respond to their request for a V5 to prove ownership of the vehicle. I could easily have been on holiday for longer than this period. Also a V5C does not prove ownership - as stated on the document!

rs65 wrote: »

Also, you mentioned you didn't have the V5 for 'the reasons stated earlier' - what were they?

As mentioned earlier in the same paragraph - the V5 had been sent to DVLA (for ammendments - three weeks earlier), and I was awaiting a replacement. As I was desperate to ensure that my vehicle be (re)insured immediately (due to the Continuous Insurance Enforcement requirements) , I was forced to use another company.

rs65 wrote: »

Sounds like they have done nothing wrong so you are appealing to their better nature.

Do they have a better nature? Have they done nothing wrong? They cancelled my policy for no good reason in terms of there not being any duplicate policy. With current insurance prices, I can barely afford one policy, let alone duplicate cover!

Regards,

Accidental.Idiot?

accidental.idiot?

There are policies out there, but my options are severly limited due to this situation and having had insurance cancelled. I have found a new quote based on a policy that makes the following assumption(s) -

• "...have not been refused insurance or had special terms imposed"

Does having a policy cancelled constitute "refused insurance" or "special terms imposed"?

Regards,

Accidental.Idiot?

rs65

accidental.idiot? wrote: »

We could argue over my use of the English language

I was not intending to argue over your use of the English language - merely trying to see if there was fault on insurers part.

dacouch

If you need advice, you need to answer the questions posed otherwise the advice people give will not be accurate

accidental.idiot?

rs65 wrote: »

I was not intending to argue over your use of the English language - merely trying to see if there was fault on insurers part.

I didn't mean to imply that you were - sorry. I'm new to this particular forum and just wanted to avoid my letter being dissected. As stated in my previous response, I accept that I am not blameless - although my only error was not reading what I assumed was junk mail and was subsequently overlooked by myself due to other issues I was dealing with. I am very naive when it comes to insurance and have never heard of a policy being cancelled before. I am very p!55ed off at the moment due to my policy being cancelled when I have always ensured that my car is taxed, MOT'd and insured on time. I know people that have missed these deadlines and couldn't really care less. I felt physically sick when I found out that I've not been insured for approximately two months. Their reason being that I had a duplicate policy is frankly [STRIKE]bullsh!t[/STRIKE] rubbish! My error was not responding to their request - and they are probably covered in terms of cancelling my policy for not doing so. I genuinely did not know about their request for information though. I suspect that the duplicate policy nonsense may be an administrative error on the insurers part. If this is the case, can I get the decision to cancel my insurance overturned? I believe that I'm being reasonable and have offered to pay for the period from the cancellation of my policy until a new policy started with another insurer.

dacouch wrote: »

If you need advice, you need to answer the questions posed otherwise the advice people give will not be accurate

What questions? I have tried my best to answer rs65's questions. I see no point laying on a sob story regarding my 'combination of life events' though.

My reason for starting this thread is for any advice on challenging this decision by my previous insurer. If I don't have a leg to stand on regarding any appeal against this decision then so be it - I'll drop the matter. It just feels wrong to me that I can be treated in this way as an honest, though disorganised, customer.

Regards,

Accidental.Idiot?

rs65

With the dates blanked out, its difficult to tell the timeline here.

It looks like they discovered that two policies were in force for one car. They wanted to establish who actually owned the car and asked for the V5 (I take your point about the V5 not proving ownership but the chances are that the owner can provide it whereas if a cloned car exists they are less likely to have one). They asked you to provide the V5 and you didn't comply or contact them so they cancelled the policy.

Does their policy wording allow them to cancel by giving so many days notice?

You also said that they were prepared to reinstate cover once you provided the V5 - that seems the best route here. Get them to confirm that reinstatement would override the cancellation.

accidental.idiot?

rs65 wrote: »

With the dates blanked out, its difficult to tell the timeline here.

I took the decision to redact everything to remain anonymous. In terms of the timeline, I found out about the policy cancellation approximately two weeks ago - the policy had been cancelled approximately two months before that.

rs65 wrote: »

...They asked you to provide the V5 and you didn't comply or contact them so they cancelled the policy.......Does their policy wording allow them to cancel by giving so many days notice?

I'll check the wording on the policy later. Thanks for the suggestion.

7 days is not long and, as I mentioned earlier, I could easily have been on holiday for longer than this - that's what makes this such a scary incident as even if I had been more organised it could still have happened. I know I wasn't on holiday however, and accept that I'm partially to blame for being disorganised. This has been an invaluable learning experience and could have been a lot worse - however if there is any way of overriding the cancellation I'd be foolish not to try. If not, I'll move on (but remain forever annoyed at my perceived injustice).

rs65 wrote: »

You also said that they were prepared to reinstate cover once you provided the V5 - that seems the best route here. Get them to confirm that reinstatement would override the cancellation.

Thanks. Will give this a try - depending on their response to my letter. I should hear back from them by the end of next week. I just wanted to get some advice first, so that I can respond promptly. I'm insured elsewhere in the meantime and although it's more expensive - at least I'm covered.

In terms of the question in my third post -

Does having a policy cancelled constitute "refused insurance" or "special terms imposed"?

Regards,

Accidential.Idiot?