Insurance policy cancelled following claim. In desperate need of legal advice

wealdroam

mountainofdebt wrote: »

Not wishing to kick someone when they're down but won't the OP's father have to admit when applying for future house / motor insurance that he's had insurance cancelled?

Your question has already been answered several times in this thread... most recently in post #47.

arcon5

Op -- where was the car parked overnight? If your fathers then you could potentially have it over turned, if yours, bearing in mind other factors it's highly unlikely you can persuade them otherwise.

You did it to get a cheaper premium, I do though believe you probably and genuinely didn't believe you was acting fraudulently but unfortunately ignorance isn't an excuse i'm afraid.

dacouch

arcon5 wrote: »

Op -- where was the car parked overnight? If your fathers then you could potentially have it over turned, if yours, bearing in mind other factors it's highly unlikely you can persuade them otherwise.

You did it to get a cheaper premium, I do though believe you probably and genuinely didn't believe you was acting fraudulently but unfortunately ignorance isn't an excuse i'm afraid.

Now days most Insurers will also have logged any other quotes performed on the car / drivers / address etc etc. What are the chances of the OP having also quoted the same car in his own name?

This is a fairly standard current method used as additional evidence to establish the intention of non disclosure. For instance joe bloggs runs a quote through with a speeding conviction and then without the conviction. If they then take out the quote without the speeding declared and the Insurer discovers it, the non disclosure is likely to be intentional.

dacouch

bris wrote: »

The general consensus is they have caught you fronting, it is fronting, no one here will tell you otherwise, it clear this was you intention.

Your insurer will pay out the 3rd party claims, this is their legal obligation and they can't do otherwise.

They will then sue your father as the policy holder and yourself as the driver in a joint claim to recover the third party claims they have paid out, this will be greatly inflated by legal cost and depending on the size of the third party claims could run into tens of thousands very easily.

It's now time to stop posting on here and get some proper legal advice for both yourself and your father.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/152

VitaK

yani2k9 wrote: »

So what is the general consensus? Will the insurer cover the 3rd party claims, or will they haunt us for years to come?

Contact the insurer and see what they say.

Optimist

yani2k9 wrote: »

Hi again guys. Thank you for all the input. I really appreciate all your feedback.

Vaio - Just to clarify, my father has 2 sets of no claims bonus as he's always had more than one vehicles. So nothing dodgy there with the NCB situation. For this policy, my dad was declared as the main driver.

Zenmaster - I can see how the insurance company may interpret it as fronting (although it was never mentioned in any of their correspondence), but it wasn't our intention. The car was to be used by both of us equally but we wanted to utilise my father's NCB.


I think it's important to emphasise that we received the new log book and the policy documents AFTER the accident, so we were unaware of the fact that the car was registered under my name beforehand. We did not do this purposely, and fraud was not our intention.

So what is the general consensus? Will the insurer cover the 3rd party claims, or will they haunt us for years to come?

I spoke to Citizens Advice Bureau this morning, and after explaining the situation to them they said that they're unable to help with this.

Peachyprice - No, that's not what we told the insurer. We explained that the 'new owner' part of the V5 document was filled out by the seller of the vehicle, who mistakenly entered my details for new owner, as I was the one handing over the cash to him. And because the insurance policy documents and the new log book arrived after the accident took place, we were unaware of these discrepancies. Which is all true.

There's no need to refer to us as fraudsters, we didn't intentionally commit a crime. We're just your average family, doing the 9-5 and trying to get by, and I'm pretty confident we have much better moral values in comparison with whoever was in charge of writing Eco Insurance's mission statement.

I've sent a few emails to various solicitors I found online and we're waiting to hear back from them. But does anybody know any good ones that you have previous experience with? And preferably ones that don't charge an absolute fortune? And do you reckon a competent solicitor would be able to achieve any results, considering this complexity of this situation?

Thanks again guys, and I'm sorry that I take so long to respond but I'm unable to use the internet whilst at work so I try to deal with everything when I get home in the evening.

I tend to agree with the general consensus.

The insurance company have voided your policy but under the RTA 1988 they should still have the obligation to cover the 3rd party liability up to certain limits. I would imagine they will probably act as a Article 75 insurer on behalf of the MIB. They can still pursue you and indeed your father for restitution of their costs, whether they would or not is moot.

I think going through the companies complaints process then on to the ombudsman is your best bet.

You could also try a solicitor who will give a free half hours initial consultation but don't expect too much as it is a complex area of law and a half hour isn't much but should give you a idea.. Citizens Advice should have a list of solicitors in your local area..

You wont get your premiums back it was always standard practice to retain the premium in such cases, and indeed the approach that was taken by the FOS prior to the Consumer Insurance Act which came into force earlier this year which gave it and many other standard practices the force of law.

mattyprice4004

Getting future insurance will be fun, as a cancellation added £400 to my £600 premium. Luckily my insurer were lenient and finally agreed not to cancel my policy.

Retrogamer

You state you didn't know your name was registered on the V5 until it arrived in the post, but surely when you bought the car you signed the V5 document? If so, didn't you check the information first?

dacouch

Retrogamer wrote: »

You state you didn't know your name was registered on the V5 until it arrived in the post, but surely when you bought the car you signed the V5 document? If so, didn't you check the information first?

The money for the car came from the OP, I'm guessing the father did not go to the car purchase so the seller just put the OP's name on the V5

timbstoke

arcon5 wrote: »

I think your missing my point.

If ops actions made the premium £1k for example, if the premium would have otherwise been £1,800, then £800 would be their damages (plus costs) as a result of the false disclosure. Whereas the accident and subsequent third party payouts (for examples sake say £5k) is not the result of the wrongdoing.

But consider it another way:

If OPs actions made the premium £1k, and the premium based on the correct information would have been £3k, OP may not have taken out the policy. If they hadn't taken the policy, they wouldn't have been allowed on the road, and the accident wouldn't have happened. In that sense, the accident IS a result of the wrongdoing, since only by taking out a fraudulent policy could the OP have afforded to have been on the road in the first place.