Wrong registration on car insurance

MAEM

I recently got a new car, which I insured I transferred my old registration number onto it with DVLA a couple of weeks after purchasing it and I forgot to tell my insurance company.  I was then in a no fault accident.  The police mentioned at the scene that my car was coming up as uninsured, I brought up my policy to show them and realised I had forgot to change the registration with the insurance company!  The police took my details and did a search on both registration etc and were content that I was insured so didn't pursue anything further.  I have contacted my insurance company about the claim and was initially told it would still be covered and they would make a note of the new registration, I have had several conversations with them now and they keep giving me different information with one person telling me the insurance is linked to the car and not the registration, another has said they will wait until they get a report from the repair centre verifying that the VIN is correct to ensure it is the same car which is fair enough.  I've just bought the car for £30k and suspect damage will be around £10k if it is repairable.  I'm just wondering if anyone else has been in this situation or knows what the likelihood that the insurance company will cover the cost of repair is.  They have also booked me a courtesy car and i'm reluctant to pick it up if there's a possibility I might be liable to pay for it if the insurance company refuses my claim.

DullGreyGuy

As has been said, you are insuring the vehicle not the registration, the registration is just a very easy way of identifying the vehicle.

More commonly this comes up in the context of police/driving without insurance and for that you just need to get your insurers to issue a letter of indemnity. Most report no problems getting one, a few it takes a bit more effort but eventually they get what they need to avoid the charge/points.

The principle however is ultimately the same, they will want to ensure it is indeed the same vehicle and will then indemnify. At the end of the day if you are having problems then as a non0fault party you typically will also have the option of claiming directly from the third party insurer therefore bypassing your policy and not having to pay an excess etc (excess is recoverable)

MAEM

DullGreyGuy said:

As has been said, you are insuring the vehicle not the registration, the registration is just a very easy way of identifying the vehicle.

More commonly this comes up in the context of police/driving without insurance and for that you just need to get your insurers to issue a letter of indemnity. Most report no problems getting one, a few it takes a bit more effort but eventually they get what they need to avoid the charge/points.

The principle however is ultimately the same, they will want to ensure it is indeed the same vehicle and will then indemnify. At the end of the day if you are having problems then as a non0fault party you typically will also have the option of claiming directly from the third party insurer therefore bypassing your policy and not having to pay an excess etc (excess is recoverable)

Thank you. So in your experience, do you think the insurance company won't use this as a reason to not pay out on my claim - or indeed the responsible party's insurance company if they know that the registration number was incorrect on my policy at the time of the accident?

DullGreyGuy

MAEM said:

DullGreyGuy said:

As has been said, you are insuring the vehicle not the registration, the registration is just a very easy way of identifying the vehicle.

More commonly this comes up in the context of police/driving without insurance and for that you just need to get your insurers to issue a letter of indemnity. Most report no problems getting one, a few it takes a bit more effort but eventually they get what they need to avoid the charge/points.

The principle however is ultimately the same, they will want to ensure it is indeed the same vehicle and will then indemnify. At the end of the day if you are having problems then as a non0fault party you typically will also have the option of claiming directly from the third party insurer therefore bypassing your policy and not having to pay an excess etc (excess is recoverable)

Thank you. So in your experience, do you think the insurance company won't use this as a reason to not pay out on my claim - or indeed the responsible party's insurance company if they know that the registration number was incorrect on my policy at the time of the accident?

Its likely to slow the claim a little against your insurers and thats it.

For the third party insurers its totally irrelevant... you could have been blind drunk passed out at the wheel of a vehicle at traffic lights with no insurance, no MOT and not tax but if the TP hit your static vehicle then they'd have to pay the damage. In that scenario the only difference would be a vehicle without an MOT is less valuable and so more likely to be a total loss and a lower payout. 

MAEM

DullGreyGuy said:

MAEM said:

DullGreyGuy said:

As has been said, you are insuring the vehicle not the registration, the registration is just a very easy way of identifying the vehicle.

More commonly this comes up in the context of police/driving without insurance and for that you just need to get your insurers to issue a letter of indemnity. Most report no problems getting one, a few it takes a bit more effort but eventually they get what they need to avoid the charge/points.

The principle however is ultimately the same, they will want to ensure it is indeed the same vehicle and will then indemnify. At the end of the day if you are having problems then as a non0fault party you typically will also have the option of claiming directly from the third party insurer therefore bypassing your policy and not having to pay an excess etc (excess is recoverable)

Thank you. So in your experience, do you think the insurance company won't use this as a reason to not pay out on my claim - or indeed the responsible party's insurance company if they know that the registration number was incorrect on my policy at the time of the accident?

Its likely to slow the claim a little against your insurers and thats it.

For the third party insurers its totally irrelevant... you could have been blind drunk passed out at the wheel of a vehicle at traffic lights with no insurance, no MOT and not tax but if the TP hit your static vehicle then they'd have to pay the damage. In that scenario the only difference would be a vehicle without an MOT is less valuable and so more likely to be a total loss and a lower payout. 

Thank you so much for your advice.  I'm just wondering if it would be more beneficial to go through an accident management company - I'd never heard of these before and assumed I had to go through my insurance company.  My car is a jaguar and jaguar have advised that for my warranty to remain valid I have to get it repaired at one of their garages, my insurance provider says that the jaguar garages are not on their list of accident repair centers.  Have you any advice on this and are there any recommendations on reputable accident management companies to use?

DullGreyGuy

MAEM said:

DullGreyGuy said:

MAEM said:

DullGreyGuy said:

As has been said, you are insuring the vehicle not the registration, the registration is just a very easy way of identifying the vehicle.

More commonly this comes up in the context of police/driving without insurance and for that you just need to get your insurers to issue a letter of indemnity. Most report no problems getting one, a few it takes a bit more effort but eventually they get what they need to avoid the charge/points.

The principle however is ultimately the same, they will want to ensure it is indeed the same vehicle and will then indemnify. At the end of the day if you are having problems then as a non0fault party you typically will also have the option of claiming directly from the third party insurer therefore bypassing your policy and not having to pay an excess etc (excess is recoverable)

Thank you. So in your experience, do you think the insurance company won't use this as a reason to not pay out on my claim - or indeed the responsible party's insurance company if they know that the registration number was incorrect on my policy at the time of the accident?

Its likely to slow the claim a little against your insurers and thats it.

For the third party insurers its totally irrelevant... you could have been blind drunk passed out at the wheel of a vehicle at traffic lights with no insurance, no MOT and not tax but if the TP hit your static vehicle then they'd have to pay the damage. In that scenario the only difference would be a vehicle without an MOT is less valuable and so more likely to be a total loss and a lower payout. 

Thank you so much for your advice.  I'm just wondering if it would be more beneficial to go through an accident management company - I'd never heard of these before and assumed I had to go through my insurance company.  My car is a jaguar and jaguar have advised that for my warranty to remain valid I have to get it repaired at one of their garages, my insurance provider says that the jaguar garages are not on their list of accident repair centers.  Have you any advice on this and are there any recommendations on reputable accident management companies to use?

Accident management companies basically repair your car and give you a hire car on credit. They then attempt to recover that money from the third party insurer. On the repairs they normally make an inflated engineers fee and a 10% uplift on the repair bill but the real money comes from the hire car which is often double the cost you could get it for shopping around and even more than that for an insurer's buying power.

You will see a lot of horror stories on here (eg https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/contempt-case-against-pi-claimant-given-green-light-by-court/5114659.article) where credit hire becomes disproportionate to the claim (in the linked case they claimed £25,000 in hire for a damaged vehicle worth £1,700). At that point you have to provide unredacted bank statements to show you couldnt have afforded to hire a car, justify why you had the car you did, potentially go to court etc. The good point is do all that and you wont have to pay a penny even if you lose but many find it intrusive, tiresome and often bordering on lying to the court as credit hire companies are poor at checking these things before you get given the keys. In reality most cases go through without issue otherwise these companies wouldnt survive but not all do.

Dealerships are very good at not telling the whole truth about warranties, I'd read your own as most are about mechanical work and less about bodywork and similarly most focus on parts used not who puts them on. 

Most insurers will allow you to use your own garage, though some charge an extra excess, but it does slow the claim down as they need to agree costs with the garage whereas their approved repairers either have delegated authority or have ways to digitally submit images/estimates etc rather than needing a site visit. 

If you know who the third party insurer is, and assuming the TP has reported the incident and admitted liability, then another option is claiming from them directly. No excess to pay, they'll provide hire and no risk of a dispute on charges at a later date unless you fail to return the car when instructed. The only downside is if things do go wrong you cannot go to the Financial Ombudsman as you arent their customer.