Car insurance Cancelled after non-disclosure

essex_zx7r

Hi
My daughter recently renewed her insurance policy and when asked if she had any accidents in the last 5 years she replied no, she has not had her insurance cancelled as it turns out she had an accident 4 years and 9 months ago, she believed it was earlier in the year and so over the 5 years, she now has to disclose every year for the rest of her life that she had insurance cancelled/refused . this seems rather harsh for a genuine error. I can't remember what I done last week let alone almost 5 years ago.

Does anyone know if there is a right to appeal to have this removed from her records ?

Thanks

Quentin

Whenever you are unhappy with your insurer the route to take is a complaint in line with their complaints procedure.

Then if you are unhappy with the response or they ignore you for 8 weeks you can escalate to the FOS for their adjudication at no cost to you

But insurers are hot on non disclosure like this so she shouldn't hope too highly this will be revoked. (Though as this does have to be disclosed for evermore it's worth trying everything to get it reversed)

glentoran99

essex_zx7r wrote: »

Hi
My daughter recently renewed her insurance policy and when asked if she had any accidents in the last 5 years she replied no, she has not had her insurance cancelled as it turns out she had an accident 4 years and 9 months ago, she believed it was earlier in the year and so over the 5 years, she now has to disclose every year for the rest of her life that she had insurance cancelled/refused . this seems rather harsh for a genuine error. I can't remember what I done last week let alone almost 5 years ago.

Does anyone know if there is a right to appeal to have this removed from her records ?

Thanks

when you say renewed did she stick with same insurer as previous?

essex_zx7r

No unfortunately she went on a comparison site and got a cheaper quote, although not a massive difference to alert her that maybe something wasn't right with the quote

glentoran99

essex_zx7r wrote: »

No unfortunately she went on a comparison site and got a cheaper quote, although not a massive difference to alert her that maybe something wasn't right with the quote

ah was hoping you might have had a possible get out that they should have been aware

Sea_Shell

Did they not ring you or anything...did they just cancel, straight off the bat. That seems a bit harsh, for a genuine oversight. Did it not flag up at application stage?

I nearly did this once, again, miss-remembered dates, and the site flagged up as I was trying to buy the policy, that they had miss-matched information and couldn't proceed with the on-line application.

I rang them, at which point I discovered my error....they amended the details their end, the quote was unaffected, and they processed the application.

FutureGirl

It seems to me that the insurer has taken the view that it was mere carelessness on your part (and not deliberate), however they wouldn't have offered a policy had the claim been disclosed, hence the cancellation.

If they thought it was done deliberately etc, then the policy would have been voided.

When the policy was taken out your daughter did say that that all the information she had given was correct, when it clearly wasn't. Hence the carelessness part.

kelevraz

If her incident was LITERALLY 4 years, and 9 months from the inception of the policy, and they have asked for the last 5 years

i would 100% take it to complaint..

That being said, the usual line is - had you told us, we would not have offered you cover. And theres nothing that a complaint will do that will change her having to declare the policy being cancelled, once its off cover, by legal definition, it has been 'cancelled'

You cant actually have a 'cancelled' policy re-instated, even if your put onto a new scheme with the same insurer, so she will always have to declare that

If her policy had actually been VOIDED however, she could've taken the case to the FOS and possibly had the voidance 'revoked' if the complaint went her way.

Ironically, getting your policy voided is way worse than getting it 'cancelled', even though you have to declare both and its pretty much the same effect, but the more harsh of the two outcomes - if your lucky, you can actually get away with not having to declare at all.

Its abit crap

ValiantSon

essex_zx7r wrote: »

Hi
My daughter recently renewed her insurance policy and when asked if she had any accidents in the last 5 years she replied no, she has not had her insurance cancelled as it turns out she had an accident 4 years and 9 months ago, she believed it was earlier in the year and so over the 5 years, she now has to disclose every year for the rest of her life that she had insurance cancelled/refused . this seems rather harsh for a genuine error. I can't remember what I done last week let alone almost 5 years ago.

Does anyone know if there is a right to appeal to have this removed from her records ?

Thanks

For an event like a car accident it is not unreasonable of the insurer to expect you to have kept records (especially as it is a known fact that you will have to declare accidents on insurance applications). While it might seem unfair it is the consequence of providing false information to the insurer.

While it may have been a genuine mistake the insurer cannot know that. They simply see that an applicant provided false information and therefore attempted to gain a reduced premium by misrepresentation. It is a tough lesson to learn, but it is entirely reasonable to expect an applicant to keep records of accidents.

ValiantSon

kelevraz wrote: »

If her incident was LITERALLY 4 years, and 9 months from the inception of the policy, and they have asked for the last 5 years

i would 100% take it to complaint..

Why? Four years and nine months is still within the five years asked about. What possible grounds are there for such a complaint?

kelevraz

ValiantSon wrote: »

Why? Four years and nine months is still within the five years asked about. What possible grounds are there for such a complaint?

Genuine human error id say, the company i work for has tolerances for dates because people do get things wrong when taking out policies, no insurer (That i know of) cares about claims outside of 5 years, and MOST insurers that i know of - will have 3-4 months tolerance as their maximum allowed tollerance, for instance, if OP had been insured with us and we discovered a claim that was over 4 years ago and under 5, we give a four month tolerance

Im just so used to seeing honest people getting screwed out of their policies that im quite a big advocate of making complaints against them, especially when or if they've been extremely rigid in cases that any reasonable person can see was an innocent mistake.. People's insurance is a big thing, not something that should be treated robotically when the consequences of cancelling policies can be so big

BUT, TO BE FAIR... maybe my post is a bit useless in the sense that like i said - once the policy has been 'cancelled', it must always be declared - if it had been 'voided', then a complaint could've seen the voidance 'revoked', and you wouldn't need to declare it - a complaint in this case probably wouldn't 'change' anything