Cancelled CAr insurance

namvet

Hi All,


I took out a car insurance policy at the end of April at the cost of £790 for my wife and myself as named drivers - this was a renewal with the same company as I had used the previous year with all the same details.


After I took out the policy, the insurance company asked for copies of the paper counterpart as well as scans of the photocard license for both my wife and I. I immediately sent mine through but we found out that my wife had never applied for a photocard. I told the insurance company that my wife needed to apply for the photocard and that I will send in the required documents as soon as it arrived from the DVLA.


My wife sent off all the documents and three weeks later after numerous calls to the DVLA, she was told that she had sent in the a cheque with the wrong amount and that she would be send the application form back so that she can resend it with the correct cheque amount. My wife asked the DVLA if she could pay the amount by card over the phone - she was informed that DVLA do not take payments over the phone.


We waited for the forms to be sent back to us and once we got this back we immediately resent it with the correct cheque - this was on the 1st of June. I emailed the insurance company explaining the situation and was it possible for them to contact DVLA direct to confirm my wife details and "no points" status. The insurance company wrote back saying that the will extend the date of cancellation till the 18th of June.


My wife must have rung the DVLA every other day and all she got from them was that new license was still being processed. On the 10th of June my wife checked her bank account and noticed that the cheque had cleared but DVLA could not still give us a date as to when the new license would turn up.


Finally the licence turned up on Friday (19th June) and I immediately sent an email with a scan of the photocard to the insurance company.


Come Monday, I checked my emails and noticed that the insurance company had emailed me back on Saturday afternoon requesting a copy of the counter part (a screenshot from the DVLA website) stating that there was no points against my wife's name. I emailed the insurance company stating that my wife will provide this as soon as she got home - this email was sent at 11am. I checked my email again at 17:30 and I see that the insurance company had cancelled the policy due to lack of documents at 14:40.


I rang them and they have completely washed their hands of it. I have ended up paying £390 for 2 months cover. They provided me with a new quote of £990 - it is higher now as I have a "cancelled policy" mark against me!


Where do I stand with this - is this, as the insurance company says, "all my fault"?


Thanks in advance

skivenov

Adrian Flux by any chance?

namvet

Company was Bewiser. To be fair they waited a long time, but I just cannot understand why they cancelled the policy after I had informed them that I we had received the photocard - if they had held off for 3 more hours they would have had all the paperwork. Now I am in the position where I have a "cancelled policy" in my name all because I could not provide documents which I didn't have in my possession as DVLA delayed the matter. Is they anything that I can do - somewhere I can go for advise or post an official complaint (apart from here)?

InsideInsurance

Full paper licenses are still perfectly valid if theres been no need to change it since the photocards were introduced. You could have just sent the original paper license and not bothered trying to get a photocard.

In fairness to the broker/ insurer in question, they have given you almost 2 months to resolve the matter and many would have cancelled the policy much quicker than that. The issue is the cancelled policy now has to be declared to all your insurers and "for life" in most cases.

namvet

They specifically asked for the photocard.


Does this mean that all drivers under the cancelled policy have to declare this from now on, even though I was the main driver on the policy?

InsideInsurance

Unless their pre-contract details stated you had to have a photocard they'd have no leg to stand on saying you must have a particular variant of full uk license. Their letter probably asked for it as 90%+ have a photocard but that doesnt mean if you have a traditional license that doesnt have one or need one that it isnt acceptable.

It is only the policyholder that would need to declare it going forward.

forgotmyname

I think i had a lucky escape with one of the budget companies A&A (not the AA).

The girl on the phone was puzzled as to why i did not have a photocard licence, I had to explain because i dont need one, My paper one is valid.
Then she said that i cannot get insurance with an expired licence, I had to explain that was my HGV category that expired my car licence is still valid.

I had to ask her when her HGV licence expired. I think she had to ask someone for assistance.

I thought if they were like that getting a quote what would be be like if i needed to claim?

InsideInsurance

If it was a claim its likely the insurer rather than the broker would deal with it.

Unfortunately insurance sales call centres are as low paid as any other call centre and so heavily skewed towards the school leavers and students. Most probably dont realise there was ever a time without photocards