insurance not renewed

Old_Nick_2

I've had my car insurance with privilege since 2005, it automatically renews every year, which I'm fine with as every time I do a comparison they're pretty much the cheapest for me. A few weeks ago a couple of " your insurance documents are inside" envelopes turned up, so I popped them behind the clock where I keep such documents.
This morning on my drive to work I was pulled over and told I had no insurance. It turns out they didn't renew it (or my house insurance which I also have with privilege). I had to renew on the spot, which is fair enough, and the police man says it'll be a £300 fine and 6 points. I find that harsh as I'd had a system in place for 8 years which automatically renewed every year, and this year appeared no different (the letters claiming to contain my policies even turned up - I can't wait to get home to find out what is in them). Some folk have said that this is going to hammer my premium particularly hard as it's a driving offense that insurers don't like, but none of them can tell me how hard it'll hit my premiums. Does anyone have any idea what sort of percentage the add on for this, or is it just on a whim. I've been driving for 23 years and never had any points on my license or fines etc. Pretty miffed about this because I don't really feel I've done anything wrong other than not check that the contents of the letters which claimed to have my insurance documents inside actually contained them (I don't know that they didn't yet, that'll be the first thing I check when I get home tonight). Anyway, my insurance this year was £670, what's it likely to be next year with 6 point for driving without insurance.:(

Quentin

Do dummy quotes online with these points in your history to get an idea of what difference they make.

dacouch

Has the card you used to pay for the premium expired?

Old_Nick_2

No, they told me that their policy on automatic renewals had changed and they no longer do them. I asked about the letters I received which claimed to have the insurance documents inside, and was told they didn't know what was on the outside of the envelopes, but the last correspondence they'd sent me was asking me if I wanted to renew or not.
She also asked if they could hold onto my bank account details so they could automatically renew next year with the caveat that they wouldn't automatically do it as Id have penalty points by then. When I questioned why they'd be doing renewals next year but not this years, she didn't seem to understand what I was getting at and said they wouldn't do it for me as I'd have points next year and have to reapply. So it appears they changed the rules, but for this year only.
The policeman did say that this rule change was at the behest of the authorities, to stop folk renewing then canceling after they'd received their documents (which doesn't make much sense as you'd apply for a fresh policy if that was your intention instead of paying insurance for a year and then canceling), he also added that he thought they was an element of making more money out of fines, which he says they've increased from £200 - £300, although that's just his theory and not the official line.
I feel like I've been the victim of some sort of sting operation.

thenudeone

Old_Nick wrote: »

I feel like I've been the victim of some sort of sting operation.

If you can't be bothered to open and read the letters sent to you about a subject as important as car insurance, you really can't blame anyone else, can you?

Once you have opened and read the letters your insurer sent you. you will be in a better position to make a point.

At the moment it appears like your insurer probably informed you by letter that they weren't auto-renewing, and invited you to contact them to renew.

You never checked either that:
1) you'd received a new certificate or other confirmation
OR
2) that payment had been taken

You completely ignored their letters and now you're trying to blame THEM for your laziness.

Grow up and take responsibility for your own situation.

Old_Nick_2

thenudeone wrote: »

If you can't be bothered to open and read the letters sent to you about a subject as important as car insurance, you really can't blame anyone else, can you?

Once you have opened and read the letters your insurer sent you. you will be in a better position to make a point.

At the moment it appears like your insurer probably informed you by letter that they weren't auto-renewing, and invited you to contact them to renew.

You never checked either that:
1) you'd received a new certificate or other confirmation
OR
2) that payment had been taken

You completely ignored their letters and now you're trying to blame THEM for your laziness.

Grow up and take responsibility for your own situation.

That was a helpful comment. Do you feel better now?
I was going to write a long response to your misplaced and inaccurate diatribe, but what's the point. You appear to be an angry person who likes to attack/insult people to bolster your own self worth which is presumably low before you behave in such a manner. There's probably better places to do that than on here.

dunstonh

To be fair, you don't appear to have much scope on this one. You didn't open the post. Remove the emotional side to it for the moment and try to bring some balance in. If you were the judge and someone was in front of you and they said they had not opened their post, so they had no way of knowing whether the policy was being renewed or even if it contained a certificate of insurance, what would you do?

If you remove the emotion and your attachment to it and look at the cold, hard facts, you failed to make sure you were insured because you did not open your post. How can that be the fault of anyone else? We cant change what has happened and only a judge can rule you not guilty. However, unless you are prepared to pay legal fees and feel you have a good case, you are almost certainly going to have to suck this one up.

Aretnap

If you don't want to accept the fixed penalty you don;t have to and you can go to court and argue your case... but no insurance is a strict liability offence so the fact that you didn't realise you were uninsured isn't a defence, and if you just didn't bother to open the letters I can't see the magistrates accepting it as good mitigation either. They could fine you considerably more than £300, and give you more than 6 points so realistically the fixed penalty is the best offer you're likely to get.

As for the increase from £200 to £300 there may have been an element of revenue raising, but fixed penalties don;t actually bring in all that much money, and the level of most motoring fixed penalties hadn't changed since 2000 so an increase was long overdue. No insurance was a particular target because with car insurance costs going up in the last decade, especially for younger drivers, the risk of a £200 fine didn't look all that bad compared with the cost of insurance.

You're right that insurers don't like IN10 convictions - they put you in the same bracket as chavs who drive untaxed, uninsured, unroadworthy vehicles with no regard to any law. When I had a play on a comparison site I found that it would roughly double my premium, but that may well vary according to your own circumstances so the only way to find out is to get some quotes yourself. OTOH if you've been with the same insurer for 8 years you may well find out that you can get a much better deal elsewhere by now - which is another good reason not to let your insurance renew every year without thinking about it.

Aretnap

dunstonh wrote: »

We cant change what has happened and only a judge can rule you not guilty. However, unless you are prepared to pay legal fees and feel you have a good case, you are almost certainly going to have to suck this one up.

For no insurance it would more likely be magistrates than a judge. And he can't be found not guilty on the grounds that he thought he was insured as it's a strict liability offence. In spite of that there IS provision for the court to find him guilty but not to endorse his licence if he had an honest and reasonable belief that he was insured, but I suspect he'll struggle with the "reasonable" part if he didn't open the letters from his insurance company. It might be worth getting legal advice (from a specialist motoring solicitor, not a common or garden High Street solicitor), but I wouldn't hold out too much hope.

Old_Nick_2

I was just asking if folk knew what sort of increase I was looking at. I don't particularly want to fill in pretend quotes as from experience that results in several days of phone calls from insurers trying to sell me insurance which I've just bought.
The cold hard facts were that I didn't check that an envelope that claimed it contained my insurance documents actually did, it has done every year at the same time so far.
I wasn't asking about refusing/challenging it so I'm not sure where everyone is getting that from. I don't have the means or the time to fight it, and I don't think there'd be any point anyway as the people I thought I was insured with say they'd stopped insuring me. I do think in the circumstances the penalty is harsh. For what it's worth, I think that a bit of discretion could have been shown and a "oh, we see what's happened here get that renewed now and then be on your way don't let it happen again" type thing, of course if I'd caused an accident or something then that sort of discretion wouldn't be appropriate. I've been driving for 23 years without a blemish, I'm a careful driver -always have been (was never a boy racer, my first car was 1 litre metro), my insurance always renewed (automatically for the last decade or so), car always MOTd etc. but I'm probably going to be judged by insurers as a rouge/high risk as well as taking a sizeable financial hit I can't really afford for what amounts to, in the words of the policeman, an administrative error.

Old_Nick_2

I do have a look on comparison sites every now and again, but the insurer I'm with has always within a few pounds of being the cheapest so I was just happy to stay with them, even if it cost £10 more for the year. Work has me away from home 13 hours a day, 5 days a week so I have so little time to do these sorts of things. I probably am wasting a chunk of money a year taking every bill into consideration I suppose. I did open a new current account a couple of years back to get a free £200 gift and better interest, but they messed up my direct debit switchover and I ended up getting nasty letters from virgin and such as my DDs had been canceled by my new bank but they hadn't set up new ones. It was a fair bit of work to sort all that out and it has put me off switching stuff to an extent.