Parked Car with no MOT hit by the Lorry

AdrianC

Go straight to the truck insurer. No argument about liability.

If they write it off, they may pay less out, since it is clearly worth less without an MOT than with - and that may also feed into the decision as to whether to write off or repair.

No, it shouldn't have been parked on the road. But that doesn't give him carte blanche to hit it or change the liability for driving into stationary objects...

Flight3287462

OK OP you have a post accident MOT done and it passed except for the accident damage, that has to be worth something when negotiating.  The third party insurer will obviously try and knock something off for lack of MOT.

Car_54

Hunyani_Flight_825 said:

OK OP you have a post accident MOT done and it passed except for the accident damage, that has to be worth something when negotiating.  The third party insurer will obviously try and knock something off for lack of MOT.

I don't think they'll "try and knock something off". They'll reduce the valuation to reflect the reality that a car without an MOT is worth significantly less. Whether it would have passed is irrelevant, but it will do no harm for the OP to try.

lemondrops69

clive0510 said:

even so, I dont think the insurance company would be to impressed. and if the police get involved, they will want to know why you had a car on the public highway with no mot. all though admittedly you were not driving the vehicle at the time of the incident, in your defence.

Maybe so, but it doesnt make the insurance null and void as you said it would

TooManyPoints

I don't know why people keep suggesting that No MoT = Void insurance. It patently does not. If it did, anybody convicted of no MoT would also be charged with the far more serious offence of No Insurance. And they are not.

Aretnap

Car_54 said:

Hunyani_Flight_825 said:

OK OP you have a post accident MOT done and it passed except for the accident damage, that has to be worth something when negotiating.  The third party insurer will obviously try and knock something off for lack of MOT.

I don't think they'll "try and knock something off". They'll reduce the valuation to reflect the reality that a car without an MOT is worth significantly less. Whether it would have passed is irrelevant, but it will do no harm for the OP to try.

The last time the Financial Ombudsman had detailed guidelines on its website, they suggested that a deduction for the lack of an MOT was only reasonable if it was likely that the car would have failed one.

https://web.archive.org/web/20140628144925/https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/motor-valuation.html#13

I'm not sure if this is still current, but generally speaking the guidance has got more pro-consumer over time, so would I imagine that it is.

If the OP makes the claim through the third party insurer then the Ombudsman's guidance is not strictly speaking binding on them (as he is not their customer), but still worth bringing up. Or he can put the claim through his own insurance if the third party insurer is awkward, which would give him the option of complaining to the Ombudsman,

George_Michael

Aretnap said:

The last time the Financial Ombudsman had detailed guidelines on its website, they suggested that a deduction for the lack of an MOT was only reasonable if it was likely that the car would have failed one.

https://web.archive.org/web/20140628144925/https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/motor-valuation.html#13

Personally, I would take the figure that they give as a starting figure and not a definitive one:

If the vehicle did not have a current MOT certificate, we will consider how likely it was that the vehicle would have passed an MOT test. If we decide – on the balance of probabilities – that the vehicle would have failed the test, we are likely to say that a deduction of up to 10% is reasonable

as an awful lot would depend on the age of the vehicle and exactly what it would likely have failed the test for.
If it's a reasonably new car in good condition then a deduction of up to 10% of the book value might be fair if it would have failed because one or more tyres were below the legal limit but then again, a 12 year old motor with extensive chassis corrosion may effectively be worthless so a deduction of 70% or 80% might be more realistic.

TooManyPoints

If the vehicle did not have a current MOT certificate, we will consider how likely it was that the vehicle would have passed an MOT test. If we decide – on the balance of probabilities – that the vehicle would have failed the test, we are likely to say that a deduction of up to 10% is reasonable

All a bit academic really:

 I checked my cars MOT report - it was a fail obviously and the reason for failing the MOT was due to the damaged cause by the lorry, nothing else.

Aretnap

Scl46 said:

greyteam1959 said:

Contact your car insurance company & let them deal with it.
Stop all contact with the other party.

I checked my insurance policy online and it says it won't be insured if loss of or damage to the car if it is not covered by a valid Department of Transport test certificate (MOT), if one is needed by law. 

Other posters have already pointed out that this clause is essentially unenforceable, but just to explain the reason why... 

The basic rule is that if you breach the terms and conditions of your insurance policy, the insurer can only refuse to pay a claim if the loss that led to the claim is a result of the breach. This has been pay of various industry regulations and codes of practice for years, and was formally incorporated into law by the Insurance Act 2015

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/4/section/11/enacted

So if your home insurance had a clause that said you had to lock your doors while the house was unoccupied they could refuse to pay a claim for a burglary which happened while you left the house unlocked. However they would not be able to refuse, say, a subsidence claim just because they found out that you didn't always lock your front door when you went out. Which is fair enough, really.

Or, if your car insurance said that your car had to be roadworthy and you had no working headlights, they would be able to decline a claim for an accident you caused by driving into something in the dark, but not for an accident that happened in daylight.

In the case of an MOT, there are no circumstances where the lack of a piece of paper can cause an accident, so the lack of an MOT certificate could never on its own be grounds to decline a claim. They might be able to decline a claim if your car had a defect which would have been picked up by an MOT and that defect was a significant factor in causing the accident, but that obviously wasn't the case here. 

Aretnap

George_Michael said:

Aretnap said:

The last time the Financial Ombudsman had detailed guidelines on its website, they suggested that a deduction for the lack of an MOT was only reasonable if it was likely that the car would have failed one.

https://web.archive.org/web/20140628144925/https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/motor-valuation.html#13

Personally, I would take the figure that they give as a starting figure and not a definitive one:

If the vehicle did not have a current MOT certificate, we will consider how likely it was that the vehicle would have passed an MOT test. If we decide – on the balance of probabilities – that the vehicle would have failed the test, we are likely to say that a deduction of up to 10% is reasonable

as an awful lot would depend on the age of the vehicle and exactly what it would likely have failed the test for.
If it's a reasonably new car in good condition then a deduction of up to 10% of the book value might be fair if it would have failed because one or more tyres were below the legal limit but then again, a 12 year old motor with extensive chassis corrosion may effectively be worthless so a deduction of 70% or 80% might be more realistic.

Obviously if the car was a rusty pile of junk, the insurer can value it as a rusty pile of junk - that's rather covered by the paragraph above the one you quote. 

I read the guidance as saying that it might be reasonable to make a deduction for the lack of an MOT, over and above any deductions for the condition of the car in general, but only if the condition was such that it would not have passed an MOT. 

In any event though it's not especially relevant to the OP as it sounds like he has good evidence that his car would have passed but for the accident.