Insurance Company to pursue me for cost of claim

JC2014

Hi There,

My wife recently had a minor incident in our car, whereby she was struck by a motorist from behind as they were exiting a roundabout. The key piece of information is that she was travelling to a work event and not her usual place of work.

Our policy was for personal and commuting, The insurance company has said that she was not covered as business use was not stipiulated on the policy and she was not travelling to her usual place of work.

They have since recommended going for a 50/50 claim as there were no independant witnesses and the other party is also claiming for damage to their vehicle and whiplash. (Ridiculous.....it was their fault and the cars were travelling at about 15mph)

They have also advised that whatever the claim is settled for they will be reclaiming the cost from us due to the breach in policy.

To say I'm mortified is an understatement. Has anyone experienced this and what are my options.

We were not aware we were breaching the policy and have since added business use to the policy.

Any advice on options or where to take our query would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

InsideInsurance

If they are dealing with the matter as RTA insurer then they have the right of recovery from either the driver of your vehicle or the policyholder.

Why did you get SDPC rather than business? I am guessing you'll be logging a complaint because they were not sufficiently clear that commuting was only to a single site and that the selection of SDPC was not an attempt to defraud them but a simple mistake.

If you do an online quote and show its pennies/ no difference between SDPC and Business Class 2 then this will further strengthen your argument that this was an innocent error and not fraud

Herzlos

What sort of event was it? Could you argue it was a social event, or was it really working at a different location?

sh0597

I think you should still be insured unless you deliberately deceived them. They should charge you the difference between premiums plus an admin fee.

Retrogamer

Unless they specifically stated that they must know your works address i think they're in the wrong.

Social and commuting should cover this.
You were commuting to a work related event by the sounds of it rather than using the vehicle for business purposes.
It shouldn't mattter if it was the usual place of work or not

InsideInsurance

Retrogamer wrote: »

Unless they specifically stated that they must know your works address i think they're in the wrong.

Social and commuting should cover this.
You were commuting to a work related event by the sounds of it rather than using the vehicle for business purposes.
It shouldn't mattter if it was the usual place of work or not

Commuting, by the industry norm, is defined as to one place of work. If you ever go to other sites for meetings etc then you need Business, (class 1 for PH only, Class 2 for PH & NDs)

They dont need to know the place of work, these things generally come out in the conversation when you phone to register the claim as when describing what happened people throw in the extra details like they were on the way to a meeting or they werent sure of the area as they were going to a different office etc.

[Deleted User]

InsideInsurance wrote: »

I am guessing you'll be logging a complaint because they were not sufficiently clear that commuting was only to a single site

I don't think you can argue that, as the definition of commuting will be clearly set out in the policy.

arcon5

This is ridiculous. She had a meeting at a different place of work and was traveling there. That doesn't sound like business use in the slightest - it sounds like op was commuting. The fact it was to a different location is hardly foreseeable at policy inception.

Loads of companies hold meetings in different places. I worked for a company who would always rent out a room in a pub due to the convenience of parking and size. I certainly would never have thought this to be classed as anything other than commuting, I fail to see how this in 'business' travel!

None the less, if she wasn't at fault then don't let them accept joint liability!! If this gets messy it will do you no favors. If she was rear ended then there must be more to it if they recommended this, as rear end collisions are often an easy open/closed case.

You should certainly be assertive in fighting this all the way.

InsideInsurance

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

I don't think you can argue that, as the definition of commuting will be clearly set out in the policy.

As always, the more things you throw the more chance one of them will stick. Why do you think everyone that sues for unfair dismissal also adds sex, race, disability etc discrimination (everyone that they could possibly tick)

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

arcon5 wrote: »

This is ridiculous. She had a meeting at a different place of work and was traveling there. That doesn't sound like business use in the slightest - it sounds like op was commuting. The fact it was to a different location is hardly foreseeable at policy inception.

Loads of companies hold meetings in different places. I worked for a company who would always rent out a room in a pub due to the convenience of parking and size. I certainly would never have thought this to be classed as anything other than commuting, I fail to see how this in 'business' travel!

None the less, if she wasn't at fault then don't let them accept joint liability!! If this gets messy it will do you no favors. If she was rear ended then there must be more to it if they recommended this, as rear end collisions are often an easy open/closed case.

You should certainly be assertive in fighting this all the way.

I think the question really is was this location a site or location for her own company or for another company. So for example, if I work at Throbbing and Sons PLC who have a site in Solihull and a site in Redditch I would not consider it anything other than a commute if I sometimes travel to one or another.

However, if I regularly have to travel between them during the day then that is different.

However, I think these days I would have a conversation with the insurers so that it was clear and I had their discussion to fall back on.

If it was an after work event on works time which was exceptional then I'd be aggrieved at needing to insure for a one off and I would say that was against the spirit of insurance as it is clear that in the normal course of business there will be exceptional events.

If it was a works social, then arguably it was not commuting and it was not business travel but social domestic and pleasure - was she being paid to attend?