Airport Meet and Greet Driver / Insurance Database Query

AdrianC

tintin218 wrote: »

We used a meet and greet airport parking at London Heathrow recently, and on our return the driver got stopped by a nearby police patrol car (ie not a camera....) for speeding in our vehicle.

Entirely the driver's problem. If this had been camera, rather than patrol car, then you would have simply returned the request to identify the driver with the MnG company named.

Once stopped, the police checked their database to see if the car was insured, and the Police Computer Network database had no record of insurance for the car so they impounded the vehicle.

That's entirely YOUR problem...

Given this was 11pm on a saturday night, the police were unable to check with the Motor Insurance Bureau who would otherwise have been able to verify that the car is of course insured with a current and valid policy with a well known company and had been for several months (ie not a new policy or recent renewal...)

This doesn't make a lot of sense. The driver could easily have proved he was covered by the MnG company's policy. If he'd done so, the car would not have been being driven whilst uninsured, so could not have been impounded.

The question is why it showed up as not being covered from the registration - why was it not on MID, as the insurer are legally bound to ensure it is within 14 days of policy inception? Would the MnG driver have known who your insurer was, to enable them to call the correct people to verify your policy?

The other question is why you've not been getting letters and penalties for breach of continuous insurance. This would suggest that the car HAD been on MID, but had been removed for some reason.

Now we've been landed with a £50 taxi fare home and £150 fee for releasing the car from the pound the following morning.

If the insurer have GENUINELY made an error, then you should be hassling them for recompense of those expenses.

What i'm not clear on here is who is really at fault for the car being impounded specifically

You are the registered keeper, therefore it's your responsibility to ensure the car is kept in compliance with all applicable legislation. It's easy to check that a car is on MID - https://www.askmid.co.uk

Joe_Horner

I suspect that people are getting it wrong because of a misunderstanding or careless wording in the OP.

After stopping the car, the police will have checked for appropriate insurance for the driver, not the car.

If the company doesn't have insurance, or the driver isn't covered by it for any reason (possibly new, possibly undeclared points, possibly lots of other things) then the OP having insurance for themselves would make no difference and the car would be seized.

loskie

we all know these meet and greet companies are shoddy, parking in streets, fields, using cars etc etc so likelyhood is they also did not bother with insurance.
Why folks use these companies is beyond me.

tintin218

Thanks to all those who have posted here, and apologies for this late reply.

To clarify, it was our insurance policy on the car that the police were not able to find on their own police database (PCN i think its called). I was told by the police that the Motor Insurance Bureau (MIB), ie the official car insurance industry database, was not available them out of hours. Whether the driver had suitable insurance or not is another matter that the police were investigating separately with him.

The problem here really is that the MIB was not available to the Police at the time of the offence. Our insurance policy was recorded on the MIB, and it was on that basis that they were happy to release the car the following day, when it was available for them to interrogate in 'normal office hours'.

So - the insurers had updated the MIB, and the police did what they could at the time. So why does the police database not match the MIB database? That is the key here I think.

I'm off to write some letters...

Warwick_Hunt

tintin218 wrote: »

Thanks to all those who have posted here, and apologies for this late reply.

To clarify, it was our insurance policy on the car that the police were not able to find on their own police database (PCN i think its called). I was told by the police that the Motor Insurance Bureau (MIB), ie the official car insurance industry database, was not available them out of hours. Whether the driver had suitable insurance or not is another matter that the police were investigating separately with him.

The problem here really is that the MIB was not available to the Police at the time of the offence. Our insurance policy was recorded on the MIB, and it was on that basis that they were happy to release the car the following day, when it was available for them to interrogate in 'normal office hours'.

So - the insurers had updated the MIB, and the police did what they could at the time. So why does the police database not match the MIB database? That is the key here I think.

I'm off to write some letters...

If your car was showing as insured on the MIB database then the PNC would be showing insurance. If the link between the two were down then they had no evidence it wasn't insured so something isn't adding up.

rudekid48

It's a database, it doesn't have office hours.

AdrianC

rudekid48 wrote: »

It's a database, it doesn't have office hours.

It's easy for Joe Public to see what's on MID, 24x7
askmid.com

Guest101

tintin218 wrote: »

Thanks to all those who have posted here, and apologies for this late reply.

To clarify, it was our insurance policy on the car that the police were not able to find on their own police database (PCN i think its called). I was told by the police that the Motor Insurance Bureau (MIB), ie the official car insurance industry database, was not available them out of hours. Whether the driver had suitable insurance or not is another matter that the police were investigating separately with him.

The problem here really is that the MIB was not available to the Police at the time of the offence. Our insurance policy was recorded on the MIB, and it was on that basis that they were happy to release the car the following day, when it was available for them to interrogate in 'normal office hours'.

So - the insurers had updated the MIB, and the police did what they could at the time. So why does the police database not match the MIB database? That is the key here I think.

I'm off to write some letters...

If your vehicle wasn't insured, would the police seize it if the driver at the time had adequate insurance? I'd suspect not, but happy to be corrected