Car Insurance/Invalid Driving Licence

Paul_DC

One of my children suffers with serious mental health issues and at the moment her driving licence is suspended as a result of that illness. She still owns a car and is hopeful that her licence will be reinstated when her condition improves.
The insurance on the car recently became due but the insurance company said they had to cancel her insurance as she no longer had a valid driving licence. 
The DVLA state you must insure your car unless it's SORN'd, which she can't do, but the insurance company says they can't, not won't, insure her. 
Are the insurance company right? Would this be the same if you were suspended for speeding, say. Are they forcing you to sell your car?

born_again

Can anyone else in the family insure the car?

MattMattMattUK

Paul_DC said:

One of my children suffers with serious mental health issues and at the moment her driving licence is suspended as a result of that illness. She still owns a car and is hopeful that her licence will be reinstated when her condition improves.
The insurance on the car recently became due but the insurance company said they had to cancel her insurance as she no longer had a valid driving licence. 
The DVLA state you must insure your car unless it's SORN'd, which she can't do, but the insurance company says they can't, not won't, insure her. 
Are the insurance company right? Would this be the same if you were suspended for speeding, say. Are they forcing you to sell your car?

They are right, the policy holder needs to hold a valid driving license (or in some cases valid provisional license) for them to be able to insure a car. However I am not sure if that only presents an issue at renewal rather than just with an ongoing policy. 

When you say suspended just to check, do you mean actually suspended by a court/police officer, surrendered to the DVLA, revoked by the DVLA, advised not to drive on medical grounds or something different, they all have slightly different implications. 

DullGreyGuy

Paul_DC said:

One of my children suffers with serious mental health issues and at the moment her driving licence is suspended as a result of that illness. She still owns a car and is hopeful that her licence will be reinstated when her condition improves.
The insurance on the car recently became due but the insurance company said they had to cancel her insurance as she no longer had a valid driving licence. 
The DVLA state you must insure your car unless it's SORN'd, which she can't do, but the insurance company says they can't, not won't, insure her. 
Are the insurance company right? Would this be the same if you were suspended for speeding, say. Are they forcing you to sell your car?

You are in the world of non-standard requirements and many insurers have cut premiums to the bone by not dealing with any of the exceptions and weird stuff around the edges which would require a disporportionate amount of IT development and staff training for the volume of customers with those needs up for grabs.

Whilst the insurer you spoke to doesn't offer this other insurers do, you may be better off speaking to specialist brokers like Adrian Flux who target the non-standard  

Car_54

As Dull GreyGuy has said, try a broler.

Also consider, is it sensible to keep the car, costing her in depreciation, insurance, etc. for what could be quite a long time? The DVLA are notoriously slow to reinstate licences in medical cases.

MattMattMattUK

Car_54 said:

As Dull GreyGuy has said, try a broler.

Also consider, is it sensible to keep the car, costing her in depreciation, insurance, etc. for what could be quite a long time? The DVLA are notoriously slow to reinstate licences in medical cases.

They are fairly quick if one voluntarily surrendered one's license, they are incredibly slow if they revoked it. 

If one surrendered one's license one can also start driving again after meeting the medical criteria and reapplying using Section 88 of the RTA, not sure how that sits with insurance though. 

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64edcf3a13ae1500116e2f5d/inf1886-can-i-drive-while-my-application-is-with-dvla.pdf

Stateofart

Why in the world would you tell the DVLA/insurance company if you have mental issues?

born_again

Stateofart said:

Why in the world would you tell the DVLA/insurance company if you have mental issues?

Because not telling them is going to open a world of pain should anything happen...

Read your T/C.

Aretnap

MattMattMattUK said:

Paul_DC said:

One of my children suffers with serious mental health issues and at the moment her driving licence is suspended as a result of that illness. She still owns a car and is hopeful that her licence will be reinstated when her condition improves.
The insurance on the car recently became due but the insurance company said they had to cancel her insurance as she no longer had a valid driving licence. 
The DVLA state you must insure your car unless it's SORN'd, which she can't do, but the insurance company says they can't, not won't, insure her. 
Are the insurance company right? Would this be the same if you were suspended for speeding, say. Are they forcing you to sell your car?

They are right, the policy holder needs to hold a valid driving license (or in some cases valid provisional license) for them to be able to insure a car.

There's no reason in principle why the policyholder needs to hold a valid licence. It is very common, for example, for a company to insure its cars, and a company clearly cannot hold a driving licence.

It's less common for someone who can't drive to own a car and insure it for someone else to drive, but in theory it's perfectly possible. The problem is that as it's an unusual situation many mass market insurers will simply not have systems which are designed to cope with it.

The options would seem to be:

Find a broker or insurer who covers non-standard requirements
See if a family member or friend can insure it with a standard policy
Fund somewhere to store it off road (any friends or relations have space on a driveway?), SORN it, and consider insuring it for fire and theft only if it's valuable enough for those to be a worry.

DullGreyGuy

Stateofart said:

Why in the world would you tell the DVLA/insurance company if you have mental issues?

As you are legally required to inform the DVLA of certain medical conditions.
Similarly you are contractually required to inform your insurers.

Find yourself in a lot of problems on both sides should you be caught not telling them. 

Car_54

Stateofart said:

Why in the world would you tell the DVLA/insurance company if you have mental issues?

You'd be mad not to.