Elderly lady misremembered accident details

PatGL4

Dear MSE Forum Members

Please could I have your advice re car insurance for an old lady. She is 70 and is able to drive quite well, but historically her paperwork was handled by her husband, who has now passed on.

She has recently bought a new automatic for driving comfort. While getting insurance for her new car, she advised her insurer (Coop) that she had an accident in 2015 (whilst insured with another provider) which she believed was no-fault of hers. Coop's inquiries with the Claims and Underwriting Exchange Register (CUE) led them to find that that claim was her fault and led to a payout of under £1000 by the insurer at the time. She has been "clean" before this incident and since. However, given her driving history they can no longer insure her and she has 10 days to find herself another policy.

I would like some advice on what her options are here. Should she try again at another insurer (I'm wondering if she'll be rejected there too). Are there any specialist insurers or people we can talk to for people in her situation. She's obviously a bit distressed and unsure about how to proceed.

Any pointers would be appreciated.

Many thanks
Pat

Quentin

She has a cancelled policy on her record now to disclose to all future Insurers

It will be hard to find any online mainstream insurers prepared to quote.

She could try a local broker (not Swinton) or Google for car insurance with a cancellation

She has nothing to lose by trying to get this cancelled policy reinstated and have the cancellation expunged if she can persuade them this was an unintentional act rather than a deliberate fraudulent application

Nasqueron

Complain to the insurer with any medical evidence you can supply that proves her poor memory or confusion or whatever. At the least they should reconsider cancelling the policy due to the long term impact based on an error. That said, if she can't remember simple details is she really safe to drive given how long ago she would have done her test (if she did one at all)

Quentin

Proving she have confusion/memory loss could result in more severe actions.

Severe memory problems/Alzheimer's etc need to be reported to DVLA and can result in licence being withdrawn.

Much better to plead an honest mistake and take it from their response.

After all she did disclose it, and many don't understand that fault doesn't mean blame when reporting motor claims