Car Dealer 5 day drive away Insurance cover

Mr.Generous

I've had new car cover because until you pick up a new car you can't insure it without a reg number and I didn't have one until day of collection. I Believe the dealer has the same issue with taxing the car - they have to provide insurance details. I got email confirmation and the handover guy wouldn't let me take the car until he confirmed it was covered. Was it a new or a used car? Who taxed it and how, if no insurance cover?

user1977

Mr.Generous said:

I've had new car cover because until you pick up a new car you can't insure it without a reg number and I didn't have one until day of collection. I Believe the dealer has the same issue with taxing the car - they have to provide insurance details. I got email confirmation and the handover guy wouldn't let me take the car until he confirmed it was covered. Was it a new or a used car? Who taxed it and how, if no insurance cover?

These days you can sort out the tax and insurance online while you're in the showroom, no real need to rely on cover notes etc.

Mildly_Miffed

Mr.Generous said:

I've had new car cover because until you pick up a new car you can't insure it without a reg number and I didn't have one until day of collection. I Believe the dealer has the same issue with taxing the car - they have to provide insurance details. I got email confirmation and the handover guy wouldn't let me take the car until he confirmed it was covered. Was it a new or a used car? Who taxed it and how, if no insurance cover?

The supplier in question were an online-led "supermarket" style outlet owned by a main dealer chain, in former Homebase premises.

https://www.am-online.com/news/dealer-news/2020/12/07/sytner-opens-its-largest-carshop-used-car-supermarket-in-nottingham

It would have been a used car.

Arunmor

sheslookinhot said:

henry24 said:

Why after a couple of days didn't you get your own insurance?

What has that got to do with the OP’s question ?

 Additionally, it’s no business of yours.

For reasons the OP is now facing.  Jeez your dealing with the sharks in the motor industry.  Belt and braces at all times and trust no one!

jimjames

Ansziya said:

. I called and emailed the dealer for the '5-day drive away' insurance policy to be sent to me but they didn't send it instead said they would take care of it. They sent us an Aviva claim form which we completed and sent back. the husband of the lady driving the car called my daughter and threatened her. We gave CarShop the contact details for the other party. They arranged for the damage to be repaired on our car and said they tried to contact the other driver but were not able to.

Did you find out if the claim for damage on your car was paid by Aviva or by Car Shop? If Aviva paid for your car to be repaired then it would appear they did have cover in force at the time. Can you check your emails to find out details of the Aviva claim that was submitted?

The only query is (as raised already) who was the registered keeper of the car? Generally these sort of policies don't cover everyone to drive and you refer to "we" and also "your daughter" in the post. So if the car wasn't in her name then she probably wasn't covered.

DullGreyGuy

The MID should hold whoever, if anyone, was insuring the vehicle at the time including the policy number. 

The correct way to do it would be to do a DSAR to ask them about the data they hold on you, if you arent sure who's name it was in etc then do seperate ones for each of the possibilities https://www.mib.org.uk/media/422618/data-subject-access-request-mid_v20.pdf or https://mib.service-now.com/cab?id=dsar_html_form 

If you wanted to be naughty then you could claim that your daughters vehicle was involved in an incident with you on the date of the other accidents and pay £2.50 to get the details of her insurer, if there was one, at https://www.askmid.com/askmidenquiry.aspx 


Aviva used to be exceptionally fragmented with lots of branch based systems etc. In principle they were supposed to have an overarching customer finding system which covered all customers and gives basic details and where to find the full details, in practice it used to be far from complete. As a former claims handler my heart sank when the policyholder said Aviva was the other party's insurer because you could spend months wasted sending letters to different branches with "no one" being able to trace the policy but then at the 11th attempt Nottingham, or wherever, suddenly writes back saying its one of their policies and they accept liability etc. 

Id hope that their systems had improved over time but dont have any first hand experience to say for certain.

Grumpy_chap

Ansziya said:

We bought a car from a car dealer called CarShop Ltd in Nottingham in Dec 21. We were told that we have the '5 day drive away' insurance cover. The car was bought from a dealer in Nottingham and was delivered to us in London. A couple of days after it was delivered my daughter excitedly drove it to work

I have had these "drive away insurance" offers and they have always been on cars from the big warehouse dealerships that have masses of cars and shift them through in a conveyor belt style.  The "drive away" insurance just helps to get you (and the car) off their premises quickly.  When we've had it, the "drive away" insurance has always had a larger excess and been only for the new RK to drive the car.  Really just a policy to get you home and then you swap your own policy over.

Aretnap

DullGreyGuy said:

The correct way to do it would be to do a DSAR to ask them about the data they hold on you, if you arent sure who's name it was in etc then do seperate ones for each of the possibilities https://www.mib.org.uk/media/422618/data-subject-access-request-mid_v20.pdf or https://mib.service-now.com/cab?id=dsar_html_form 

If you wanted to be naughty then you could claim that your daughters vehicle was involved in an incident with you on the date of the other accidents and pay £2.50 to get the details of her insurer, if there was one, at https://www.askmid.com/askmidenquiry.aspx 

The second route £10 these days. Inflation's a shocker.

It would certainly be quicker than a DSAR. You have to tick a box acknowledging the serious offences you could bet committing if you make a false declaration to improperly obtain someone's data. I'm unsure whether you can commit an offence under the Data Protection Act by improperly obtaining what's essentially your own data.

DullGreyGuy

Aretnap said:

DullGreyGuy said:

The correct way to do it would be to do a DSAR to ask them about the data they hold on you, if you arent sure who's name it was in etc then do seperate ones for each of the possibilities https://www.mib.org.uk/media/422618/data-subject-access-request-mid_v20.pdf or https://mib.service-now.com/cab?id=dsar_html_form 

If you wanted to be naughty then you could claim that your daughters vehicle was involved in an incident with you on the date of the other accidents and pay £2.50 to get the details of her insurer, if there was one, at https://www.askmid.com/askmidenquiry.aspx 

The second route £10 these days. Inflation's a shocker.

It would certainly be quicker than a DSAR. You have to tick a box acknowledging the serious offences you could bet committing if you make a false declaration to improperly obtain someone's data. I'm unsure whether you can commit an offence under the Data Protection Act by improperly obtaining what's essentially your own data.

You're right, it is more, think I was thinking of the DVLA £2.50 charge for registered keepers. 

Looking back it was £4 for years, then went to £4.50 for a couple of years then jumped to £10 in 2022

Goudy

There is some good advise regarding searches to see who or if it was insured.

As for the legality of it, it's the drivers responsibility to check if the car is insured for them to drive it.
Unfortunately, "I was told it was insured"  isn't really accepted if it wasn't.

As already mentioned, you usually get confirmation of the drive away policy, either a paper cover note or an email PDF of the cover note (might be worth checking your email accounts, even the junk folders).

It might be worth making contact with the other party's solicitor while you are making these checks* explain what happened and see what the damage is, cost wise.

If it comes to it, a final settlement of this now, before court would hopefully be cheaper than going to court and save a lot of stress.
You might even be able to negotiate, they'll almost certainly ask for more to start with but leave the negotiations until later, if you really do find out you have no insurance. 

* I would think the chances are really high that the other party's insurance company and/or solicitors have already done these checks as well. With a friendly approach they might even tell you what they found.