Does no MOT invalidate insurance?

diystarter7

DullGreyGuy said:

diystarter7 said:

Aretnap said:

diystarter7 said:

DullGreyGuy said:

The answer is... it depends on their policy wordings. 

Most mainstream insurers dont even mention MOT in their policywordings and so the only impact it can have is the devaluation of their own vehicle when considering a total loss.

Some budget providers do have clauses in the Own Damage section saying that no MOT means that section is void however that doesn't impact your claim against them as that's the Liability/Third Party section.

There are some bottle of the barrel providers who say that they can use no MOT to cancel or void the whole policy... https://quote.onecallinsurance.co.uk/existing_customers/website-documents/getDocument.php?doc_name=1652090033ERS.pdf&_ga=2.106959554.1994661735.1679829765-1759926225.1679829765 for example

Others will point out that the Financial Ombudsman does fairly often uphold complaints about claims being rejected for no MOT even if that's what the policy states as long as there wasn't a defect with the vehicle that caused the claim and that an MOT would have spotted however that is rather moot as a third party cannot go to the Ombudsman.

Even if the policy was cancelled the person still had a valid certificate of insurance at the time of the accident which would make that insurer the RTA insurer. Some insurers admit their RTA obligations straight away and deal with the claim, others make you go through the whole process of establishing them as such. At the end of the day as long as you are letting your insurers deal with it and not attempting to claim directly it's just a matter of duration. 

Hi

Polite heads up

From the AA site

Is car insurance valid without an MOT?

No, not having a valid MOT certificate invalidates your car insurance. So if you drive without an MOT, you're driving without insurance too.The penalties for driving while uninsured include a £300 fine and up to 6 points on your licence.The police also have the power to seize, and in some cases destroy, a vehicle that's being driven uninsured. And if the case goes to court you could get an unlimited fine and also be disqualified from driving.
https://www.theaa.com/mot/advice/driving-without-an-mot#insurance


Thanks

You will no doubt be shocked to learn that search engine optimisation text written by the intern and dumped on websites purely for the purpose of attracting Google clicks doesn't always tell the whole story.

Hi

So the AA wesite inc the full link I posted is total rubbish, is it?

I thought the AA was a highly respected motroing organsation that is trusted by millions

Tnaks

Its worst case scenario focused on the first party.

The OP isnt the first party in this situation and you have to understand the motivation of promoting the worst case scenario to drive positive outcome rather than saying "buy from the likes of DL or Aviva and no MOT is barely an issue" 

Hi

I'm very aware of that and even stated it in an earlier post ie OP does not need to worry

The info from a respected source the AA  plus link was posted because a few of you were arguing about the mot status "invalidating" insyrance

As we both know, worst case scenario, thankfully OP is covered assuming they have at least car and or house insurance

Thnaks

DullGreyGuy

diystarter7 said:

DullGreyGuy said:

diystarter7 said:

Aretnap said:

diystarter7 said:

DullGreyGuy said:

The answer is... it depends on their policy wordings. 

Most mainstream insurers dont even mention MOT in their policywordings and so the only impact it can have is the devaluation of their own vehicle when considering a total loss.

Some budget providers do have clauses in the Own Damage section saying that no MOT means that section is void however that doesn't impact your claim against them as that's the Liability/Third Party section.

There are some bottle of the barrel providers who say that they can use no MOT to cancel or void the whole policy... https://quote.onecallinsurance.co.uk/existing_customers/website-documents/getDocument.php?doc_name=1652090033ERS.pdf&_ga=2.106959554.1994661735.1679829765-1759926225.1679829765 for example

Others will point out that the Financial Ombudsman does fairly often uphold complaints about claims being rejected for no MOT even if that's what the policy states as long as there wasn't a defect with the vehicle that caused the claim and that an MOT would have spotted however that is rather moot as a third party cannot go to the Ombudsman.

Even if the policy was cancelled the person still had a valid certificate of insurance at the time of the accident which would make that insurer the RTA insurer. Some insurers admit their RTA obligations straight away and deal with the claim, others make you go through the whole process of establishing them as such. At the end of the day as long as you are letting your insurers deal with it and not attempting to claim directly it's just a matter of duration. 

Hi

Polite heads up

From the AA site

Is car insurance valid without an MOT?

No, not having a valid MOT certificate invalidates your car insurance. So if you drive without an MOT, you're driving without insurance too.The penalties for driving while uninsured include a £300 fine and up to 6 points on your licence.The police also have the power to seize, and in some cases destroy, a vehicle that's being driven uninsured. And if the case goes to court you could get an unlimited fine and also be disqualified from driving.
https://www.theaa.com/mot/advice/driving-without-an-mot#insurance


Thanks

You will no doubt be shocked to learn that search engine optimisation text written by the intern and dumped on websites purely for the purpose of attracting Google clicks doesn't always tell the whole story.

Hi

So the AA wesite inc the full link I posted is total rubbish, is it?

I thought the AA was a highly respected motroing organsation that is trusted by millions

Tnaks

Its worst case scenario focused on the first party.

The OP isnt the first party in this situation and you have to understand the motivation of promoting the worst case scenario to drive positive outcome rather than saying "buy from the likes of DL or Aviva and no MOT is barely an issue" 

Hi

I'm very aware of that and even stated it in an earlier post ie OP does not need to worry

The info from a respected source the AA  plus link was posted because a few of you were arguing about the mot status "invalidating" insyrance

As we both know, worst case scenario, thankfully OP is covered assuming they have at least car and or house insurance

Thnaks

Just look at the Financial Ombudsman https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/decision/DRN-3783510.pdf

Here they tried to decline a £84,500 because of no MOT (the claim mainly being third party losses that had already been paid as RTA Insurer). The Ombudsman ruled that this was unfair despite the terms, instructed them to pay compensation for distress and so it ended up costing the insurer almost £85,000

It's not dependent on them having their own insurance, the TP had a certificate of insurance at the time so is RTA insurer irrespective. 

Car_54

diystarter7 said:

Aretnap said:

diystarter7 said:

DullGreyGuy said:

The answer is... it depends on their policy wordings. 

Most mainstream insurers dont even mention MOT in their policywordings and so the only impact it can have is the devaluation of their own vehicle when considering a total loss.

Some budget providers do have clauses in the Own Damage section saying that no MOT means that section is void however that doesn't impact your claim against them as that's the Liability/Third Party section.

There are some bottle of the barrel providers who say that they can use no MOT to cancel or void the whole policy... https://quote.onecallinsurance.co.uk/existing_customers/website-documents/getDocument.php?doc_name=1652090033ERS.pdf&_ga=2.106959554.1994661735.1679829765-1759926225.1679829765 for example

Others will point out that the Financial Ombudsman does fairly often uphold complaints about claims being rejected for no MOT even if that's what the policy states as long as there wasn't a defect with the vehicle that caused the claim and that an MOT would have spotted however that is rather moot as a third party cannot go to the Ombudsman.

Even if the policy was cancelled the person still had a valid certificate of insurance at the time of the accident which would make that insurer the RTA insurer. Some insurers admit their RTA obligations straight away and deal with the claim, others make you go through the whole process of establishing them as such. At the end of the day as long as you are letting your insurers deal with it and not attempting to claim directly it's just a matter of duration. 

Hi

Polite heads up

From the AA site

Is car insurance valid without an MOT?

No, not having a valid MOT certificate invalidates your car insurance. So if you drive without an MOT, you're driving without insurance too.The penalties for driving while uninsured include a £300 fine and up to 6 points on your licence.The police also have the power to seize, and in some cases destroy, a vehicle that's being driven uninsured. And if the case goes to court you could get an unlimited fine and also be disqualified from driving.
https://www.theaa.com/mot/advice/driving-without-an-mot#insurance


Thanks

You will no doubt be shocked to learn that search engine optimisation text written by the intern and dumped on websites purely for the purpose of attracting Google clicks doesn't always tell the whole story.

I thought the AA was a highly respected motroing organsation that is trusted by millions

It was, once upon a time. But a quarter of a century ago its members sold it off, and it’s now owned by various investment companies purely as a money-making entity.

diystarter7

Hi

@DullGreyGuy
@Car_54

Cheers to both, must sign off as I don't drink and post.



PS: I will look up the RAC site next time

DullGreyGuy

diystarter7 said:

Hi

@DullGreyGuy
@Car_54

Cheers to both, must sign off as I don't drink and post.



PS: I will look up the RAC site next time

Drink posting is the best... frees you to say what you really think without risking your job -v- drink replying to work emails.

There are loopholes in the law left, right and centre. Almost all mainstream outlets provide information based on a mix of the lawful and the moral. You wont find any mainstream with headline news saying "dont worry about your MOT, your insurers will still have to cover you" as that broadly encourages people to break the law about needing an MOT. Not all will go to the other extremes of saying insurance "will not" cover you... most are more reasonable and either say "may not" or are simply silent on the matter.

Aretnap

The basic rule is that if you breach the terms of your insurance policy, your insurer can only use that as a reason to reject a claim if the breach was actually relevant to the claim. This has been part of insurance industry codes of practice (eg ICBOS) for donkey's years, and was formally incorporated into law by the Insurance Act 2014 (which overrides any term you might find in your insurance policy, and definitely overrides anything you find on a website).

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

So if your home insurance policy had a term that said you had to lock your doors when the house was unoccupied, your insurer could refuse a claim for a burglary that happened while the house was unlocked. However they could not reject, say, a subsidence claim just because they found out that you didn't always lock your front door when you went out. Because, of course they couldn't.

Or if your car insurance had a clause that said your car had to be roadworthy and you had four bald tyres, your insurer could potentially reject a claim for an accident you caused by skidding into the back of another car in the rain. However they couldn't reject a claim for an accident that you caused by pulling out of a side street into traffic without looking properly - the state of your tyres would not have been a factor in an accident like that.

So in the case of an MOT, even if your policy did say that you had to have a valid MOT certificate, there are no circumstances in which the lack of a piece of paper can cause an accident. And so the insurer could never actually reject a claim purely because you didn't have an MOT. They might be able to reject a claim if they could show that your car had a defect which would have been picked up by an MOT, and that defect was a significant factor in causing an accident. Even in that case though as it's essentially a roadworthiness clause I would imagine that s148 of the Road Traffic Act would apply, and therefore that any prosecution for driving without insurance would fail.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/148

But that's probably a bit complicated for the intern who writes the search engine optimisation text, and anyway no company is going to say "actually you are insured if you drive without an MOT" prominently on its website in case they get accused of encouraging people to drive without MOTs. So you end up with demonstrably incorrect statements appearing in Google searches on apparently respectable websites. Moral: don't believe everything you find on the internet with a 10 second Google search.

jimjames

diystarter7 said:

Aretnap said:

diystarter7 said:

DullGreyGuy said:

The answer is... it depends on their policy wordings. 

Most mainstream insurers dont even mention MOT in their policywordings and so the only impact it can have is the devaluation of their own vehicle when considering a total loss.

Some budget providers do have clauses in the Own Damage section saying that no MOT means that section is void however that doesn't impact your claim against them as that's the Liability/Third Party section.

There are some bottle of the barrel providers who say that they can use no MOT to cancel or void the whole policy... https://quote.onecallinsurance.co.uk/existing_customers/website-documents/getDocument.php?doc_name=1652090033ERS.pdf&_ga=2.106959554.1994661735.1679829765-1759926225.1679829765 for example

Others will point out that the Financial Ombudsman does fairly often uphold complaints about claims being rejected for no MOT even if that's what the policy states as long as there wasn't a defect with the vehicle that caused the claim and that an MOT would have spotted however that is rather moot as a third party cannot go to the Ombudsman.

Even if the policy was cancelled the person still had a valid certificate of insurance at the time of the accident which would make that insurer the RTA insurer. Some insurers admit their RTA obligations straight away and deal with the claim, others make you go through the whole process of establishing them as such. At the end of the day as long as you are letting your insurers deal with it and not attempting to claim directly it's just a matter of duration. 

Hi

Polite heads up

From the AA site

Is car insurance valid without an MOT?

No, not having a valid MOT certificate invalidates your car insurance. So if you drive without an MOT, you're driving without insurance too.The penalties for driving while uninsured include a £300 fine and up to 6 points on your licence.The police also have the power to seize, and in some cases destroy, a vehicle that's being driven uninsured. And if the case goes to court you could get an unlimited fine and also be disqualified from driving.
https://www.theaa.com/mot/advice/driving-without-an-mot#insurance


Thanks

You will no doubt be shocked to learn that search engine optimisation text written by the intern and dumped on websites purely for the purpose of attracting Google clicks doesn't always tell the whole story.

So the AA wesite inc the full link I posted is total rubbish, is it?

Yes it is nonsense for exactly the reasons I outlined in my earlier post. It makes no exceptions and gives a blanket answer which is untrue.

TooManyPoints

Just look at the Ombudsman

And there's this one as well:

Decision Reference DRN-3123029 (financial-ombudsman.org.uk)

There is no doubt that the AA's advice is wrong. It's not just misleading, it is wrong. If not exactly covered by the RTA (though I suggest it is by virtue of the "condition of the vehicle" exception) for insurers to include a condition that a car must be MOT'd for cover to be in place would clearly be deemed unfair (as the two cases cited here confirm). As well as that, as I said, the police would also take action for the far more serious offence of having no insurance every time they found a vehicle with no MoT. But they don't.

Why the AA publish incorrect advice is anybody's guess, but incorrect it most certainly is..

MalMonroe

J66998821 said:

Oh dear I’ve checked compare the market website and it pretty much says that we are unlikely to be able to claim from the other drivers insurance. Their insurance would be invalid without an MOT. And we might need to claim from the driver directly. But what if they don’t have any money? Unfortunately we are talking extensive damages. What a nightmare. 

Is there any way that the dvla site to check for valid MOT could be incorrect? Eg if the person had a personalised number plate and the MoT was listed under the original rather than the personalised plate? (clutching at straws here!) 

Hi, I've also just checked the Compare the Market website and it says - 

"If you’re in an accident that wasn’t your fault and the other car involved doesn’t have a valid MOT, then your insurance provider may still be able to claim damages through the other driver’s car insurance. It’s going to be trickier if their policy is invalidated by not having an MOT but it would be inappropriate for their insurance provider to refuse to pay out for third party damage in this case.  If the insurance provider doesn’t pay, the driver will be responsible for paying for the damage."

https://www.comparethemarket.com/car-insurance/content/car-insurance-claims-against-uninsured-drivers/

It doesn't say you'll be unlikely to be able to claim from the other driver's insurance, nor that all is lost - and that's from 2023. It just says it's going to be trickier. 

As some others have said, and I agree, leave it to the respective insurance companies to sort out. Especially as it seems that, with the best will in the world, nobody here is able to provide the perfect/correct answer. Including me.

Car_54

MalMonroe said:

J66998821 said:

Oh dear I’ve checked compare the market website and it pretty much says that we are unlikely to be able to claim from the other drivers insurance. Their insurance would be invalid without an MOT. And we might need to claim from the driver directly. But what if they don’t have any money? Unfortunately we are talking extensive damages. What a nightmare. 

Is there any way that the dvla site to check for valid MOT could be incorrect? Eg if the person had a personalised number plate and the MoT was listed under the original rather than the personalised plate? (clutching at straws here!) 

Hi, I've also just checked the Compare the Market website and it says - 

"If you’re in an accident that wasn’t your fault and the other car involved doesn’t have a valid MOT, then your insurance provider may still be able to claim damages through the other driver’s car insurance. It’s going to be trickier if their policy is invalidated by not having an MOT but it would be inappropriate for their insurance provider to refuse to pay out for third party damage in this case.  If the insurance provider doesn’t pay, the driver will be responsible for paying for the damage."

https://www.comparethemarket.com/car-insurance/content/car-insurance-claims-against-uninsured-drivers/

It doesn't say you'll be unlikely to be able to claim from the other driver's insurance, nor that all is lost - and that's from 2023. It just says it's going to be trickier. 

As some others have said, and I agree, leave it to the respective insurance companies to sort out. Especially as it seems that, with the best will in the world, nobody here is able to provide the perfect/correct answer. Including me.

"Inappropriate"? No, it would be illegal.