Wife is scared because of incorrect details

Steve6666

My wife has just come to me in a panic as she has noticed that my details as a named driver are incorrect on her policy document. It states that I have been in the country (UK) since birth when in fact I was born in an army base in Germany. I spent the next 10 years moving between there and England before my parents final posting to the UK in 1979. She has always used Compare the market to find her provider and is fully aware that I was born abroad. My details have now been updated on Compare. We had a claim paid out about 5 years ago from a previous provider for an accident on holiday. The car was written off. I was driving. She thinks that because of this mistake she has committed insurance fraud and that the provider at the time is now going to come after her for the payout and also send her to prison for fraud. Can anyone in the know put this in perspective for me? Do we have an issue here?

Thanks in advance

Annemos

Me not a Legal Expert here. But the question of the Place of Birth. (Ignoring the Insurance Question aspect for this reply.)

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Could it come under this SOFA agreement?

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1116923/Supplementary_Agreement_to_the_NATO-SOFA_Germany..pdf



Article 15 1.   The obligation under German law to report births and deaths to a German registrar shall not apply either with respect to a child born to, or with respect to the death of, a member of a force or of a civilian component or a dependent; where, however, such birth or death is reported to a German registrar, registration shall take place in accordance with the provisions of German law. 2. The obligation to report births and deaths remains unaffected in cases where the child is, or the deceased was, a German,

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So I am pondering, if the Birth was never even registered with the German Registrar, then maybe you were definitely "not born in Germany"??

Aretnap

She is certainly not going to prison for fraud. To convict her of fraud the prosecution would have to prove that she acted with dishonest intent, as opposed to merely making a mistake. That is virtually impossible unless eg the insurer has a record of you entering the correct details, then changing them for incorrect ones when you don't like the quote that emerges. (Even then actual prosecutions are rare, a cancelled policy and a declined claim would be the usual outcome).

It's rather unlikely that any insurer is going to dig up a claim from 5 years ago at all because of something like this. But even if they did, the Consumer Insurance Act limits what they could do. Unless they can prove that the incorrect information was provided deliberately or recklessly as opposed to carelessly (again, this is usually difficult), they can only deduct a percentage of the claim equal to the percentage of the premium that you saved by providing the wrong information. (So if the premium would have been £100 had you declared everything correctly, and you actually paid £90 due to the incorrect information, they could withold 10% of the amount due for the written off car).

It feels unlikely that having only lived in the UK for 45 years rather than 55 years would have made a massive difference to your premium, so the worst case scenario is probably having to pay back a small percentage of whatever the write-off settlement was - and even that seems rather unlikely 5 years on.

DullGreyGuy

The correct course of action would be to tell her current insurers of the error and have them correct it. It's likely to make a modest difference because it's a mid term amendment and these things are always more expensive than buying with the correct details in the first place. 

Agree with others, she's not going to prison, nothing is going to happen with the prior claim. 

jimbo6977

After 5 years the claims office will have moved on to more gainful uses of their time. They're not about to reopen that file. 

Personally I was resident in France for very short period and my wife was, similarly to you, born on an RAF base in Germany and lived there for 3 months. We declare all this and it seems to make no difference whatsoever.