Car Insurance - No cover except essential travel?

Annemos

And I still have the doubt in my mind anyway, on any type of insurance policy. Do the ABI rules and pronouncements, have to be followed by any insurance company, who is not a member of the ABI? Or can they simply ignore them? Do we all have much more protection, if we take out insurance policies with ABI members? 

Jumblebumble

I wonder why John Neill does not use "or" rather than "and"
All he states here applies Covid or no Covid , lockdown or no lockdown.
Scaremongering nonsense

John Neill, of Castle Insurance Services, said: “If it’s a non-­essential journey and being used ­outside the terms of the policy then there may be grounds for an insurer to reject a claim.”

Aretnap

Annemos said:

And I still have the doubt in my mind anyway, on any type of insurance policy. Do the ABI rules and pronouncements, have to be followed by any insurance company, who is not a member of the ABI? Or can they simply ignore them? Do we all have much more protection, if we take out insurance policies with ABI members? 

The ABI is not a regulator and its FAQ is merely the opinion of people who know what they are talking about. 

What your insurer does have to follow however are actual terms and conditions of your policy. If your policy says that it only covers you for essential travel then it only covers you for essential travel. If it says that it covers you for social, domestic, pleasure and commuting then it covers you for social, domestic, pleasure and commuting (whether essential or not). The terms of your contract are not affected by the fact that the government has banned travel without reasonable excuse, any more than they are affected by the fact that you might be exceeding the speed limit or not paying enough attention to the road ahead (both of which are also illegal, but don't mean that your insurance ceases to be valid). 

Annemos

Subsidence, for example. The industry-wide agreement is that once a homeowner has experienced a Subsidence claim, then the Insurer who did the repairs, should continue ongoing insurance cover (with Subsidence cover). And that applies, even after the Subsidence Claim is closed. 
The ABI also says that. So do several Ombudman's cases. 
But can the non-ABI members, still try to get out of all this? (The one I am referring to, is even a signatory to the Domestic Subsidence Agreement.) 
I am taking this insurance company to the Ombudsman over this issue. 

TELLIT01

Presumably, if insurance companies did want to do this they would have to contact every policy holder and provide massive refunds based on reduced mileage and reduced risk.

Annemos

This just came out....

https://www.biba.org.uk/latest-news/biba-refutes-inaccurate-motor-insurance-story/

BIBA AND ABI STRONGLY REFUTE INACCURATE MOTOR INSURANCE STORY IN THIS WEEK’S CONSUMER PRESS

11TH NOVEMBER 2020

(Sorry that is in such large letters....can't find a way to make it more normal!) 

Aretnap

Ah, sounds like it originated as search engine optimisation text on a price comparison website, knocked out by the intern on his lunch break.

Journalists should really know better than to take that sort of thing seriously, but I suppose they need the clicks as badly as the price comparison site so maybe it's best not to check these things before they publish. 

Jumblebumble

Aretnap said:

Ah, sounds like it originated as search engine optimisation text on a price comparison website, knocked out by the intern on his lunch break.

Journalists should really know better than to take that sort of thing seriously, but I suppose they need the clicks as badly as the price comparison site so maybe it's best not to check these things before they publish. 

I don't believe you
Florence Codjoe who concocted this story is an insurance expert at Uswitch
We must assume that she knows better than the ABI because she is an expert LOL

Barny1979

What is the definition of an essential journey though? It's all a bit wooly isn't it?

Aretnap

Barny1979 said:

What is the definition of an essential journey though? It's all a bit wooly isn't it?

Not that it's really relevant to car insurance anyway but...

There's no definition of "essential journey" or "essential travel" - those terms do not appear in any law. The current Coronavirus legislation does make it illegal to leave your home "without reasonable excuse", and then gives a (non-exhaustive) list of reasons which do qualify as a reasonable excuse. If for some reason a car insurer did try to devise a policy which covered "essential journeys" only then the list of reasons would presumably follow the list in the legislation - but no car insurer has done that and it's not obvious why they'd want to,