Accidental missed off 3 points on named driver, will insurance payout on claim??

grumpyoldman1

I have been involved in an accident which want my fault, and the car has been written off and a settlement figure offered.
I have accepted this however when I sent in photocopies of my and my wifes licenses i dsicovered 3 sp30 points on my wifes license that I didnt decalre by accident on the policy as a named driver.
I am now extremely worried that the policy is invalid and that they will not payout. Some have said the insurance may be lenient as she is a named driver and older than me and neither of us have claimed in ten or so years, but my expectation is that the insurance company will wriggle out and not pay.
If that is the case is there anything I can do about it? Can I contact any organisations/people for advice that may help me?
Anything to save these sleepless nights would be appreciated, and that can help me appeal to the 'lenient' nature of the insurer for what was a genuine oversight.

lisyloo

So just to clarify.

The accident wasn't your fault.
You were driving.
The points were your wife's.

Although the oversight is not good, I can't see how it has much bearing on the accident if she wasn't driving.

Is there a 3rd party involved? and are your insurance company trying to claim off the 3rd party?

grumpyoldman1

Hi, the accident was caused by joyriders running into my car with their unregistered car and driving off, never to be caught or seen again, unfortunately.
So the insurers have no-one to claim off.
I was driving, my wife wasnt in the car, and she has the 3 sp30 points.
It just strikes me as a get out for the insurers on the payout as I didnt disclose her points.
No-one was injured in my car either.

lisyloo

I think you should take a look at this.
http://www.mib.org.uk/Default.htm

To be honest I'm not sure where you stand legally becuase whilst this was an oversight you failed to reveal important facts about the risk faced by the insurer.

If they do try to stop your claim then you should make a formal complaint. If you cannot resolve it then you can take it to the insurance ombudsman although you need to get to the end of the insurers complaints process first. This won't cost you anything except stamps and time to write letters.

I'm afraid I don't know your legal posistion although it strikes me that whilst they were exposed to more risk, in this case it made no difference because your wife was not driving.
Common sense would tell me that you should be OK but I'm not a lawyer so can't give you a definitive answer.

shudder

It all depends on the insurer as they have varying ways of dealing with this type of non-disclosure.

If you have been with them for a while and it is your wives only conviction then the risk accepted by underwriters is minimal whether she had the conviction or not.

Hopefully they should just accept it if the above is correct if not maybe expect them to backdate to conviction/inception date and charge you the difference in premium.

grumpyoldman1

I think it is a wait and see job. The stark reality is that i havent disclosed, so worse case is that the insurer follows the letter of the law and refuses to payout.
I think the MIB may be worth a look, thanks for the help on that, although with no-one to claim off it may be difficult too.
A lesson learned if it goes badly for me, but perhaps there is an understanding underwriter out there!!:o

raskazz

shudder wrote: »

It all depends on the insurer as they have varying ways of dealing with this type of non-disclosure.

If you have been with them for a while and it is your wives only conviction then the risk accepted by underwriters is minimal whether she had the conviction or not.

Hopefully they should just accept it if the above is correct if not maybe expect them to backdate to conviction/inception date and charge you the difference in premium.

If you haven't already - get in touch with them and explain that it was a genuine oversight.

As shudder said - if all your other risk factors are good most underwriters worth their salt will agree to proceed with the claim subject to the difference in premium that would have accrued had they known about the SP30.

mattymoo

Many insurers will accept 1 SP30 without loading the premium.

Out of interest, did your wife tell you about the SP30. Same happened to a friend and his wife kept quiet about it to avoid an argument. His situation did not involve a claim though.

FlameCloud

lisyloo wrote: »

If they do try to stop your claim then you should make a formal complaint. If you cannot resolve it then you can take it to the insurance ombudsman although you need to get to the end of the insurers complaints process first. This won't cost you anything except stamps and time to write letters.

I'm sorry, this is rubbish. The insurance company has done nothing wrong. The POLICY HOLDER has made the mistake, nobody else. Regardless of whether it was a 'genuine' mistake it will look suspicious that you have failed to declare the points. The question about convictions when you take out the policy is pretty clear and you would have to deliberatly ignore it to bypass it. I fail to see how you could forget about it, sorry.

Underwriters are getting harsher now, as the amount of 'genuine' mistakes creeps up.

lisyloo

I'm sorry, this is rubbish. The insurance company has done nothing wrong.

Are you saying that they are legally allowed to refuse the claim and there is nothing that can be done (bearing in mind the non-disclosure was not a factor in this accident).

If you are a lawyer or know this as a fact, then please contribute (a link to the relevant law to back it up would be great).

I am not a lawyer and don't know the legal situation but I do know that the complaints route is free and works when companies try to "fobb you off".

Some legal facts would be a great addition for this discussion.

mattymoo

If this link works, it should list the Financial Ombudsman Services views on non-disclosure and various case studies. Insurers should follow these decisions.

http://213.121.208.42/query.html?qt=convictions&sp-a2=00011c9e-sp00000000&col=fospub

Edit - found this on the 6th link (titled issue 46)

inadvertent
A customer may also have acted in good faith if their non-disclosure is made inadvertently. These are the most difficult cases to determine and involve distinguishing between behaviour that is merely careless and that which amounts to recklessness. Both are forms of negligence.
Inadvertence occurs when the customer unintentionally misleads the insurer. This can occur just by failing to read and check the questions and answers thoroughly enough. When this happens there is no breach of the duty of utmost good faith.
For example, a policy application may contain a clear question about motoring convictions and penalty points. The customer discloses a careless-driving conviction but fails to disclose that they have three penalty points for speeding. In that situation, we might believe that the customer genuinely overlooked his conviction. The customer clearly did not intend to mislead the insurer because he disclosed the more serious offence; he simply failed to realise that penalty points were also part of the question. So the insurer should act as it would have done if it had been in possession of the full facts.
Where there has been inadvertent non-disclosure or misrepresentation, we expect insurers to rewrite the insurance. This should be done on the terms they would originally have offered if they had been aware of all the information. In some cases this may result in a proportionate payment; in others it may result in no payment at all. This is because the inadvertently-withheld information would, if disclosed, have led to the firm declining the application altogether.
Everything turns on the individual circumstances. Customers will find it more difficult to prove that they acted inadvertently if they answered several questions badly. To get one or two questions wrong may be regarded as inadvertent; to get several wrong starts to look like recklessness.

EDIT - Text highlighted in Bold for benefit of the OP.