had accident,not my fault.now i find mot lapsed on my car

gillypoof

hi,i was involved in an accident .other driver drove into rear of my car. i had some whiplash and my car had dent.his new bmw was a bit of a mess.
insurance paid for me to have some treatment for whiplash,my car was taken and assessed as cat c.
i decided i didnt want it scrapped,was only a dent. all going well till i was asked to send docs to insurance....then i found that mt mot had run out that week i had had the accident.
what do i do now?

Quentin

All it will mean at worst is a reduction in the pre crash valuation of the car (assuming the mot expired prior to the crash). Cars without any mot usually are worth less than cars with mot.

Ignore any posts you get telling you your insurance will be void!

Aretnap

Even if your insurance was void, which it isn't, it wouldn't affect your right to make a claim against the at fault third party.

Even if your car was not in a roadworthy condition (NB an MOT which is a week out of date doesn't mean the car is unroadworthy) it would only be relevant if the condition of your car caused or contributed to the accident - unlikely for a rear end shunt.

As above, at worst it will mean a reduction in the payout you get for your car.

egyptiancotton

Excuse me if this seems a bit of a daft question... But I thought the policy would be void because of no MOT? Why is the policy not void when the car had no MOT?

I thought you need a valid MOT to insure a car?

I'm not at all badgering the OP. I'm after some education on this

worried_jim

lloydyyy wrote: »

Excuse me if this seems a bit of a daft question... But I thought the policy would be void because of no MOT? Why is the policy not void when the car had no MOT?

I thought you need a valid MOT to insure a car?

I'm not at all badgering the OP. I'm after some education on this

You need an MOT to tax the car, but the MOT could run out the next day- as long as it has an MOT the day you apply for the tax you are fine.

You don't need an MOT to insure a car, there are lots of people who have cars that are non runners but are still insured, you may have a car you are working on in your garage that has no wheels on it but you still want and need it insured in case the local chav tries to nick it or rob parts from it.

Quentin

lloydyyy wrote: »

Excuse me if this seems a bit of a daft question... But I thought the policy would be void because of no MOT? Why is the policy not void when the car had no MOT?

I thought you need a valid MOT to insure a car?

I'm not at all badgering the OP. I'm after some education on this

Irrespective of whatever your policy says, the fos has repeatedly ruled that no mot does not invalidate your policy.

Despite this some unscrupulous insurers include a condition along those lines in their policies but they cannot enforce them.

Do a search here to find a number of threads where mse members have been assisted when wrongly told their policy was void when no mot was available.

Aretnap

lloydyyy wrote: »

Excuse me if this seems a bit of a daft question... But I thought the policy would be void because of no MOT? Why is the policy not void when the car had no MOT?

If the customer breaches the terms and conditions of his policy, the insurer can only refuse a claim if the claim was directly related to the breach.

So, for example, if your home insurance had a term which required you to lock your doors when you left the house, your insurer could refuse to pay for a burglary which happened when you left the house unlocked. However they wouldn't be able to refuse a claim for storm damage just because they found out that you'd once gone out for the evening without locking the door.

Similarly, if your policy requires your car to be in a roadworthy condition, and you had no working headlights, your insurer could refuse to pay for an accident you caused by driving into something in the dark. However, they couldn't refuse a claim for an accident which happened in daylight.

In the case of an MOT, there are no circumstances in which an accident can be caused by the lack of a piece of paper, so an expired MOT can never, by itself, be grounds for refusing to pay a claim, whatever your policy might say about it.

Added: Just for completeness they probably could refuse to pay a claim if your MOT was out of date AND your car had a defect which would have been picked up by the MOT AND the defect caused or at least contributed to the accident - but that doesn't seem to apply here.