Drink driving and insurance

Bigjim1785

Just asking for a friend, they were involved in a road traffic accident whilst under the influence of drugs and alcohol. They had to give a blood test and the results were to take 8 weeks so in that time they got paid out for the their car being written off and I imagine the third party got paid out for the damage to theirs. Since being paid out the blood tests have come back to show he was twice over the limit of both drink and drugs. He is in court in 3 weeks time, my question is will the court get in touch with his insurance company at all? Because when he first claimed nothing was mentioned about driving under the influence because he was only under investigation till the blood tests came back.
Thanks

Nasqueron

He either tells them or gets his insurance cancelled and becomes uninsurable for years even after he gets his license back when they find out

glentoran99

Nasqueron wrote: »

He either tells them or gets his insurance cancelled and becomes uninsurable for years even after he gets his license back when they find out

His insurance has already paid out on a write off so is no longer in effect to be cancelled

Bigjim1785

Just curious to how his insurance will find out, whether the court will contact them. Seems like a loophole to me for drink drivers to get paid out on their own vehicles.

Car_54

Are you sure your friend is telling you the whole story? I can't imagine how it can take 8 weeks to do a blood test for alcohol. 8 hours maybe.

dacouch

The court are very unlikely to tell them.

However there is a small chance that the police officer will inform them, they take a dim view of drink driving and will often ring Insurers. Although after this amount of time I think it is very unlikely they will.

Some Insurers have no restrictions in their policy about drink driving and accidents

wgl2014

Presumably your 'friend' was arrested and subsequently had blood taken which has come back showing positive for drink and drugs.....

They go to court and get banned unless found not guilty and are then required to tell their insurers. So yes they will find out unless your 'friend' decided to keep digging.

onomatopoeia99

wgl2014 wrote: »

They go to court and get banned unless found not guilty and are then required to tell their insurers.

The car is written off and paid out, so the policy is cancelled unless have changed the way write-offs work nowadays. Therefore, they have no insurer to tell, and they won't be getting more insurance for a while with that level of blood alcohol, never mind the drugs, because they won't have a licence.


They must tell a future insurer about the conviction when they take out new insurance after the ban ends, unless they wait until the conviction is spent under the ROA

AndyMc.....

Car_54 wrote: »

Are you sure your friend is telling you the whole story? I can't imagine how it can take 8 weeks to do a blood test for alcohol. 8 hours maybe.

It’s not uncommon to be bailed for that long.

angrycrow

This could get messy for your friend. Most (but not yet all) insurers include a drink and drugs exclusion on the policy. This means that if an accident occurs whilst under the influence the own damage claim is not paid and whilst they will pay any third party claims under their Road Traffic Act obligations they can recover these sums from the driver.

When reporting the claim your friend has almost certainly been asked if he had any driving convictions or pending convictions. As bloods were taken and he had been drinking he should have answered that he was under investigation for drink driving which would have resulted in his own claim being placed on hold until the outcome of the conviction was known. If he has lied and the insurers find out they can recover the full sums paid due to your friends false declaration.

If there is third party damage to property or vehicles they will almost certainly find out about the drink drive conviction.

In terms of notifying the insurers of the conviction what do his policy conditions say. At the end of the day if I am reading this correctly and it was drink AND drugs I would hope your friend received a long driving ban making insurance unnecessary for the foreseeable future.

GothicStirling

What would be the point of hiding it from an insurer? After the ban/points it will be recorded on his driving license by the DVLA. Every time I've renewed my insurance, they've run a check with the DVLA. It would be negligent on their part not to!