Issue with Mistaken Identity on a car accident

chinwoman

I am really hoping some one can help. Sorry it is a bit of a long read  In Oct 2018 my husbands car Insurance company contacted him stating he had been involved in a multi car accident . This was not him nor his car and was eventually shown to be mistaken identity . He received 2 letters from the insurance company stating this . Now he has changed insurance companies and they gave him a monthly payment amount then emailed to say  that the policy was doubling as he had not declared an accident. He sent the letters that show that this would be removed from the underwriters database. Yet clearly this has not happened . However the previous insuraers say it isnt showing and yet the new insurance company say it is . Can anyone suggest where or who we complain to . We have contacted the ombudsman but they say this could take weeks to resolve , meanwhile he is expected to pay a large preiu on a policy for an incident he was never involved in . Any help would be much appreciated

Sandtree

What are your new insurer's treating it as? A fault or non-fault claim?

There is an argument that its still a claim even if its a case of mistaken identity but it is certainly "non-fault" in insurance parlance and your letters exonerating you should confirm that... out of curiosity, what did your renewal invite state about claims history?

It would be highly unusual for a non-fault incident to double premiums, many insurers wont impact premiums at all for a single one, but it may be the non-disclosure aspect that is also impacting the premium.

The Ombudsman will not get involved until you have received a final response from your complaint with the insurer or 8 weeks have passed. All they do before that, if anything, is send a stock letter which they can add up to 3 lines of what your complaint is (and having seen plenty of these over time, their synopsis is not always great) and ask that the company deals with the complaint in a timely fashion. 

TELLIT01

I suppose you could ask the new insurer where they are seeing this information and then ask the previous insurer to remove the information.  Until that happens there would seem only to be two options (1) Pay the increased premiums on the written understanding that the additional costs will be refunded once the required systems are updated (2) stay with the previous insurer.