Cancelled Insurance, Please Advice

Kazkdp

Hi All,

Looking for some advice please.
I made mistakes... But didn't know how bad and how much these would cost me.

So I had my licence since 03-2017. I'm 30 but was late on the driving bandwagon.

I applied for insurance after my first year on a price comparison website.

Mistake one. When it asked how long I had the licence for I put 2 years or more. This was an error as I later found out that it had to be complete two years. And I haven't completed two years, it was more like one year and 7 months.

After I accepted an insurer and the paperwork was sent, because of this error they said they will have to cancel my insurance. I was little !!!!ed as I explained it was a mistake and not like I actually thought by lying ill get the insurance cheaper since I had to send them a copy of the driving licence number anyway...

So I through whatever went back on the site. Changed the mistake and selected the right amount of years (all the previous details where saved) and selected the cheapest one again and got insurance. It was Tesco.

Then I had to call them about the paperwork and they asked if I had insurance cancelled before. I said well yeah the last guys did cancel because I made a mistake with the length of licence held.

Then tesco said, i breached their terms of contract because I didn't notify them when I requested the new quote about the cancellation.... So they cancelled my insurance!

Again, I was just irritated and wanted to get on the road so just searched online again and made sure I out the right length and say that insurance was cancelled. I got a quite for £130 a month. And j went with them.

Now about 7 months later I wanted to change the car so called the insurance up, they said they can't sure a 2010 Zafira 1.9... So j searched online and the cheapest that comes is £500 payment and £215 a month. The car is only worth 2k.

I realise the grave consequences of my actions...

What are my options and what can i do? There must be something. Please.

Quentin

Having a cancelled policy your record is bad news

Having 2 is disastrous as you have discovered

Not a lot you can do as from what you say both look unchallengeable

You will have these to disclose for evermore unless you can find Insurers who only ask for a limited history. Most ask if you ever had any.cancellations

Finding cover will be expensive

See if a local broker (not, Swinton) can help

Otherwise a serious option may.be to give up and use taxi or public transport

(You have the same problems if you were to get added to another policy as a named driver as soon as the revelation of 2 cancelled policies is disclosed)

Kazkdp

Thank You.

Condemning someone never to drive or paying a very hefty sum to do so seems like a harsh life long penalty.

I fully understand I was the idiot here.

My son has autism and classes and therapy class, as well as nursery and days out, can not be avoided. So I have no choice but to drive. I was hoping there was a way to challenge these.

garth549

Sorry to hear this. I've been arguing for years that something like this is grossly unfair and completely disproportionate. It could have happened to me as I once put my mum as a named driver but selected she was my "spouse". Completely accidental but could have had the same result. Luckily my insurers (Directline) weren't bothered and just corrected and amended the premium when I informed then a few months later.

There are some that only ask for cancelled policies in the last 5 years (Directline did, unsure if they still do), so at least you should be able to get reasonable car insurance again at some point.

Unfortunately regarding other insurance (home etc), I'm yet to find any insurer where you don't have to declare cancellations forever.

[Deleted User]

The reality of the situation is that records of insurance cancellations are only held for FIVE years on an industry-wide database. Individual insurers may, of course, keep incriminating data against you in their own systems for longer, but this information cannot be shared after five years. OP, make of this what you will …...

Kazkdp

Oh man,

I was hoping some way of getting around this, but I guess if you make a mistake you go to live with the outcomes.

God knows how I'll get my son and shi electric wheelchair into a hatchback.

Dangermac

Kazkdp wrote: »

Hi All,

Looking for some advice please.
I made mistakes... But didn't know how bad and how much these would cost me.

So I had my licence since 03-2017. I'm 30 but was late on the driving bandwagon.

I applied for insurance after my first year on a price comparison website.

Mistake one. When it asked how long I had the licence for I put 2 years or more. This was an error as I later found out that it had to be complete two years. And I haven't completed two years, it was more like one year and 7 months.

After I accepted an insurer and the paperwork was sent, because of this error they said they will have to cancel my insurance. I was little !!!!ed as I explained it was a mistake and not like I actually thought by lying ill get the insurance cheaper since I had to send them a copy of the driving licence number anyway...

So I through whatever went back on the site. Changed the mistake and selected the right amount of years (all the previous details where saved) and selected the cheapest one again and got insurance. It was Tesco.

Then I had to call them about the paperwork and they asked if I had insurance cancelled before. I said well yeah the last guys did cancel because I made a mistake with the length of licence held.

Then tesco said, i breached their terms of contract because I didn't notify them when I requested the new quote about the cancellation.... So they cancelled my insurance!

Again, I was just irritated and wanted to get on the road so just searched online again and made sure I out the right length and say that insurance was cancelled. I got a quite for £130 a month. And j went with them.

Now about 7 months later I wanted to change the car so called the insurance up, they said they can't sure a 2010 Zafira 1.9... So j searched online and the cheapest that comes is £500 payment and £215 a month. The car is only worth 2k.

I realise the grave consequences of my actions...

What are my options and what can i do? There must be something. Please.

I completely sympathise with your situation.

I have raised this matter before, with both the FOS and FCA, as I feel that unintentional innocent errors have far-reaching consequences, way beyond the scope of the error.

The only way of unpicking this, is to try and get the original insurer to agree that the policy was not cancelled as such (due to innocent mistake), but I think that you may be too far gone for this to happen.

Unfortunately, unless any subsequent insurer does not request cancellation information, or only for a specific length of time, these cancellations will need to be declared forever, for any insurances that you take out.

I would recommend a letter to your MP. Your mistake was pretty silly, but I agree that the consequences are severe.

DM

Kazkdp

I didn't actually realise that this will affect all insurance... I was under the impression it was just car insurance.
Thank you very much, I will then contact my local MP. Who by the way is Mr Boris Johnson. So yeah I'm ducked.

garth549

Your best bet might be to ring around and try and find a sympathetic insurer. If you explain to them clearly what happened, that it was an innocent mistake that escalated out of proportion, then you might get lucky. I have heard that Aviva can be sympathetic to this sort of thing but this is only hearsay.

[Deleted User]

It's worth asking the two insurers who cancelled your insurance to reconsider. Often if it was cancelled before the policy commenced or they can find some other get-out they say you don't have to report it as cancelled.

If they refuse the next step is to lodge an official complaint with them, and then if that fails try the FOS. This all takes a lot of time of course, months and months.

uk1

DELETED USER wrote:

It's worth asking the two insurers who cancelled your insurance to reconsider. Often if it was cancelled before the policy commenced or they can find some other get-out they say you don't have to report it as cancelled.

If they refuse the next step is to lodge an official complaint with them, and then if that fails try the FOS. This all takes a lot of time of course, months and months.

Your suggestion of finding out whether they had actually started is a smart suggestion. The is a difference between cancelling an existing insurance policy and cancelling an application for a policy not yet started.