License to be Revoked. Advice sought please

Jules2310

My daughter passed her test last July and has been driving since and her dad (we're separated) paid for her insurance which was conditional based on mileage.  It transpired that her insurance was revoked in February 2020 as she'd exceeded the mileage she'd been insured to drive for.  All notification emails were sent to her dad but he says they went to his junkmail folder which he never checks.  We only found out she had been driving without insurance in May when she got stopped by police. We now have received a letter advising us to either pay £300 and she gets 6 points (which revokes her license) or apply to appeal.  We are thinking of writing to the police to ask that this is waived on the basis that we didn't know her insurance had been revoked.  Has anyone ever had to go through this?  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.  She's a good driver, has a blackbox in her car and never exceeds any speed limits.  She also has a job now and needs her car for work.  
Thank you for reading this so far, and I look forward to any advice.

shaun_from_Africa

Jules2310 said:

We only found out she had been driving without insurance in May when she got stopped by police. We now have received a letter advising us to either pay £300 and she gets 6 points (which revokes her license) or apply to appeal.  We are thinking of writing to the police to ask that this is waived on the basis that we didn't know her insurance had been revoked.  

In all honesty, I can't see that there are any valid grounds for an appeal as it's a drivers obligation to ensure that they have valid insurance in place before getting behind the wheel.
If the insurer failed to send notification of the issue then there may be a case but as they were sent and received, they have done everything that they need to do.
Another problem with an appeal is that the only way to do this is for your daughter to opt to go to court and plead her case and there is a possibility of more points and a higher fine. This may not happen but you never know.

Car_54

If your daughter goes to court, it is almost certain that she will be found guilty. This is an absolute offence- you either have insurance or you don't. The fine will be income related, so probably higher. She will also face a victim surcharge, and costs, for which the guideline is £630.

On the other hand, if she accepts the fixed penalty her licence will be revoked soon afterwards, but as soon as it has been she can apply for a new provisional and take her tests again ASAP.

Either way, her dad should be paying!

shaun_from_Africa

I'm sure that it's something you've already discussed but when your daughter gets insured again, ask her to make sure that it is her contact details that are used in order to prevent something like this happening again.

lordmountararat

Unbelievable that people apparently don't check their junk folder!

Jules2310

shaun_from_Africa said:

I'm sure that it's something you've already discussed but when your daughter gets insured again, ask her to make sure that it is her contact details that are used in order to prevent something like this happening again.

Yes, we got insurance immediately, with her name, her email address 

George_Michael

Car_54 said:

Either way, her dad should be paying!

I think it would be fair to split the cost.
Dad screwed up by not checking their junk mail folder and the daughter screwed up by driving over the agreed mileage limit.
As the policy was cancelled in Feb, then allowing for the time for the notification e-mails to be sent, it could have been January when the limit was reached and as she was still driving 3 months later, she may well have been well in excess of the mileage she agreed to.

facade

lordmountararat said:

Unbelievable that people apparently don't check their junk folder!

I never check mine, unless I'm expecting something that has gone missing....

shaun_from_Africa

Jules2310 said:

shaun_from_Africa said:

I'm sure that it's something you've already discussed but when your daughter gets insured again, ask her to make sure that it is her contact details that are used in order to prevent something like this happening again.

Yes, we got insurance immediately, with her name, her email address 

I hope that she made sure that the new insurers were aware that she had a pending offence and that she had a previous policy cancelled.

Dr_Crypto

I can't see any grounds for special reasons here. It is the driver's responsibility to ensure she is insured. Courts are not going to buy stories about junk mail folders as they are too open to abuse. 
It occurs to me you could complain to the insurer that they did not use a more recognised method of communication (post or phone) to advise of the cancellation of the policy but I can't see them doing anything. 

AdrianC

Jules2310 said:

My daughter passed her test last July and has been driving since and her dad (we're separated) paid for her insurance which was conditional based on mileage.  It transpired that her insurance was revoked in February 2020 as she'd exceeded the mileage she'd been insured to drive for.  All notification emails were sent to her dad but he says they went to his junkmail folder which he never checks.  We only found out she had been driving without insurance in May when she got stopped by police. We now have received a letter advising us to either pay £300 and she gets 6 points (which revokes her license) or apply to appeal.  We are thinking of writing to the police to ask that this is waived on the basis that we didn't know her insurance had been revoked.

Not a hope.

 Apart from the minor detail that surely she was the policyholder, so should have been receiving the mails herself, your partner's failure to check for false-positive spambinning in his email is not exactly anybody else's fault, is it?

And surely she knew what mileage she was insured for, and what mileage she was covering...? She'd exceeded her annual mileage in six months, after all. Not just a little bit over in the full year.

Yes, it's harsh on her that she's losing her job and licence and having to take a permanent insurance hit because of his incompetence, but this is one of the problems of "protecting" your kids by shielding them from taking even the most basic of their own responsibilities in adult life.

But look on the bright side - it's just as well she found out this way, not after a collision. 

Dr_Crypto said:

It occurs to me you could complain to the insurer that they did not use a more recognised method of communication (post or phone) to advise of the cancellation of the policy but I can't see them doing anything. 

Ten to one the insurance was searched for online, bought online, with "online please" given as the preferred communication method. To then try and complain at them only communicating in the preferred method is... optimistic.