Need Help With Car Insurance Company Cancelling My Insurance

SyedN15890

A few months ago I bought a second car which was a lot more economical than my primary car, and it was going to be used for small errands like the weekly shop or local commute and I wanted to add my son, who has a full licence, as the additional driver on the car with me being the main driver.

I used Money Supermarket to compare quotes and got a really cheap quote from Marshmallow Insurance (around £850 ish), I did put I was only going to be driving around 1,000 miles in the year and did declare I own another car because as I mentioned this car wasn't going to get as much use as my main car which only does 5,000 miles a year anyways.

My son would not be driving the car much, as he is at university in another city and only comes back during the Christmas, Easter and Summer holidays and I thought it would be good to have him insured as well as he could run some errands when he's back for the holidays. Again, he doesn't drive much and doesn't have another car so we would have still done less than 1,000 miles for the entire year for both of us combined. 

I booked the policy 3 weeks in advance as it was quite cheap and I was in no rush to drive the car as I already had a car that I could use. A week after I bought the policy I got informed from Marshmallow that they have cancelled my insurance and will refund me the money, I was of course very confused and tried to seek answers from them but the best I got was that they thought I was trying to use a fronting scam on them and I wrote a lengthy email back explaining everything about how I was going to be the main driver and would not be driving much etc, basically what I have summed up above, and how my son would not be driving much either as he won't be home most of the time regardless. I also mentioned that I do not believe I made a mistake when filling in the form but if I had it was not out of malice but human error and would be willing to pay the additional charge to rectify that information and pay the extra needed if the quote goes up a bit.

Sadly, they just replied again that they can't do anything and they insisted that I had been flagged for trying to front and would not be allowed to ever buy insurance from Marshmallow again and would have to declare I have had a policy cancelled. The biggest issue for me was having that mark against my record, bare in mind I have only had 1 parking ticket in the 15 years since I moved to the UK and started driving, and this made car insurance significantly more expensive as the cheapest quote I could find was £1,300 after that.

My question is, is there anything I can do to help sort this issue out and get the mark removed? I don't mind not being able to get insurance from Marshmallow but having that mark has increased the insurance on my first car as well.

Also when my son does get a car does my son need to declare that he has had a policy cancelled as well since he was the additional driver not the primary driver?

Any help would be appreciated! 

DullGreyGuy

Log a formal complaint, escalate to the ombudsman if you arent happy with their response.

Whilst generally I think people's complaints are typically terribly written and go into so much unnecessary detail (I once received a complaint over 20 pages long) on this one you do want to be clear on why it wasnt fronting and any evidence you have to support the fact that you'd have been the main driver (eg any evidence he lives in another city etc or if you have an employers work car park permit for the vehicle etc). 

SyedN15890

DullGreyGuy said:

Log a formal complaint, escalate to the ombudsman if you arent happy with their response.

Whilst generally I think people's complaints are typically terribly written and go into so much unnecessary detail (I once received a complaint over 20 pages long) on this one you do want to be clear on why it wasnt fronting and any evidence you have to support the fact that you'd have been the main driver (eg any evidence he lives in another city etc or if you have an employers work car park permit for the vehicle etc). 

I did log a formal complaint and basically only heard back that there's nothing they can do 2 or 3 months later. I guess Ombudsman is the way to go now.

I did explain to them how I would be the one driving mainly but I guess I did forget to attach proof my son won't be in the city. I have got his university acceptance letter as well as the tenancy agreement for his studio in the other city showing he indeed doesn't live here. I'm guessing it would be good to definitely attach those in my complaint to the Ombudsman.

I can't really prove I would be driving 1000 miles in the year till I get its MOT done but I did explain how I have another car which I did declare when buying that policy and how they can check MOT and everything on that and it would show I have driven around 5000 miles a year.

I am hoping that the University acceptance letter as well as the tenancy agreement showing my son would not be living at home, plus the car being registered under the home address would be fine.

Just a quick question: I was initially going to have the car under my name and when getting insurance declared as much but after it got cancelled, out of fear I put the car under my son's name and put him the main driver on the next policy I got to make sure it did not get cancelled due to fronting again, would this be an issue?

DullGreyGuy

The ombudsman allows them 8 weeks to give a response, are you sure they arent just telling you this? Just because they have up to 8 weeks doesnt mean the average complaint is anywhere near this long but a fair few posters on here seem to get that impression when the 8 weeks is mentioned. 

SyedN15890

DullGreyGuy said:

The ombudsman allows them 8 weeks to give a response, are you sure they arent just telling you this? Just because they have up to 8 weeks doesnt mean the average complaint is anywhere near this long but a fair few posters on here seem to get that impression when the 8 weeks is mentioned. 

So they did reply to the initial complaint and basically said the decision is final and how sorry they are to bring this bad news. Then a few weeks later they sent another email explaining that I could appeal the decision of the complaint within 30 days so I did try but the email address they provided was wrong and took me 2 months of chasing up different people on the phone and email to get the right email address.

I wrote to them in November explaining why my appeal to the complaint was late (I have documentation showing they sent the wrong email address and them apologising for it and giving me the right email address after 2 months) and why I was appealing and a few days later I got an email that was acknowledging that they will look into my complaint with a "full review" and will contact me once a senior manager has had a look. 

And I never heard back from them again regarding this issue and as I mentioned above out of fear for getting cancelled again I put the car in my son's name and got the next policy under his name. 

DullGreyGuy

In their "final decision" communication did they mention your right to go to the Ombudsman?

SyedN15890

DullGreyGuy said:

In their "final decision" communication did they mention your right to go to the Ombudsman?

Nope, never even heard of Ombudsman till today.

None of their emails, including the final decision email and any other follow up emails, had any mention of Ombudsman.

This is what they said after I had been emailing and calling after they sent the final decision email:

"Dear Syed,

I am writing to you in relation to your email on 28/07/2022. Thank you for your patience while we investigated the matters you have raised. I have now fully investigated your complaint.

My understanding of your complaint is as follows:

• You are unhappy that Marshmallow has cancelled your policy as you feel that you have provided all the correct details during sign up as you are the main driver.
• You would like to reinstate the policy.

I will now take each of your points in turn, and would like to begin with the cancellation of your policy with Marshmallow. Your policy MM000185717 was cancelled for misrepresenting the main driver of the vehicle. In the UK, it is the customer’s responsibility to ensure the details provided when completing an insurance quote are accurate. Before processing to payment, you were presented with a list of Statements about yourself, with which you confirmed having provided accurate information. The item reads: “You have provided accurate information: You ensure that we have the necessary facts to assess your insurance risk, verify your identity, and help prevent fraud. You allow us to access further information about you from third parties in the future.”

Hence, it was clear before purchase that we would verify the details provided at sign up using third party databases. You successfully signed up with Marshmallow on 27/07/2022 after completing the ID verification stage and payment. We then ran additional checks to ensure that the information that you had declared to us at the quoting stage was accurate. To do so, we used credit, fraud, claims and quotes databases to confirm your details. Your cover with Marshmallow was due to begin on 09/08/2022.

As a result of these checks, we then undertook a standard manual review of your policy on 28/07/2022. As part of this review, our verification team reviewed the information provided in our preliminary checks, and found that there were several inconsistencies across quoting in regards to the intended main driver of the vehicle on cover with us. Regrettably, our verification agent believed that there was sufficient evidence that incorrect information had been provided at sign up in relation to the intended main driver of the vehicle on cover with us and that we could no longer provide you with cover as per our underwriting guidelines. Please note that this decision was not solely based on who the registered keeper or vehicle owner was as our underwriters have strict requirements relating to the vehicle on cover, and require that the policyholder should be the main driver of the vehicle, regardless of who owns it.

Therefore, on that basis we were obliged to issue a cancellation notice on 28/07/2022 before the policy began. This is according to our policy wording which states “We can cancel this policy where there is valid reason for doing so.” One of the reasons listed is when a customer provides incorrect information (page 6- Cancellation by us).

Regrettably, following a thorough review of your policy and the communication provided, I have decided to uphold Marshmallow’s decision to cancel your policy, as this was in accordance with our underwriting guidelines around occupation. Therefore, we would not be able to reinstate the policy again.

Yours Sincerely,

Harry"

As I had mentioned before to them, if I had made any mistakes I was willing to pay for it as it was out of human error not malice and looking at the policy documents I did not see any mistakes. The only mistake I could see, which I would have rectified but didn't have an opportunity to, was I had accidentally said my son had had his licence for 1 year and 2 months instead of 1 year 1 month, as his licence would have been 1 year 2 months when the policy would have started. However, I feel that is a bit extreme to cancel a policy fully without being given an opportunity to fix it.