Urgent Advice Needed!

eskimomama

This is my first thread so you will need to be forgiving :
Basically we bought a new car 31/1/8, and took an insurance policy out with Esure. The policy was in my husbands name, with me as a named driver - as he is the registered keeper and also main driver.
We also have another car which he owns and also has a policy on as he is the registered keeper (we should have bought the new car in my name but my husband inadvertantly signed for it, as he didn't think it would matter).
The problem is that we had a letter asking for proof of my husbands no-claims, which I sent off. Then we had another letter saying they wanted proof of the cancellation of the other policy - which we didn't have as the policy is still in force. This letter arrived yesterday.
The problem is that we had an accident in the new car last Friday, and it has been written off, but now Esure are trying to say that we are not insured because we can't have no claims discount on two cars. We have argued that this was not at all asked about when taking the policy out, and in the subsequent telephone conversation when my husband put the policy in place. In fact we have answered every question openly and honestly, and until today we thought that "having no-claims" meant that we haven't claimed or had an accident. We thought "no claims" was a fact rather than a single tangible entity.
I have asked to speak to a supervisor at Esure and am still waiting for that call, but in the mean time I am terrified that we will lose our money. Also, does this mean we weren't insured - as there was a third party (totally innocent) who's van was written off. We presumably would be responsible for his loss, would we be also be open for prosecution??
Any help or advice would be welcomed, we have a terrible run of luck lately, and frankly we are finding it difficult to cope!

N79

My post is based on taking the information in your post at face value. If any of it is not quite true then none of this applies.

Firstly, you are in trouble. You have definately breached the terms of your insurance. This is going to take time to fix and there is no guarentee which way it will go. All correspondance from now on must be in writing using recorded delivery.

You need to escalate the complaint through the company's complaints procedure and then, if unsuccessful, to the Financial Services Ombudsman. If your husband made a genuine inadvertant error when he took out the policy then the Obudsman guidelines state that the insurer should re-write the policy with the correct details and charge any excess premium. In your case this will mean you paying the full cost of the policy without the no claims discount. This amount would be deducted from any settlement but you would be insured.

However, I must warn you that I think you will be hard pushed to make the case that this was all inadvertant. Your husband has declared that he is the main driver on both cars in the house. While I suppose this is not impossible it seems unlikely. You also need to check exactly what the policy wording, proposal documentation etc states about no claims as if these clearly state that no claims can apply only to one policy then I am afraid it is likely game over! Not reading the paperwork is unlikely to be a defence. I am not suggesting that your situation is not genuine and I am sorry for the negative tone but I do believe you are going to struggle to prove it.

If you turn out to be uninsured then obviously the insurance company will not pay out the damage to your car, you could be sued for the damage to the van and the police can prosecute the driver for driving without insurance.

I hope this helps and I'm sorry that I can not offer any quick fix.

N79

TAG

The other alternative is that the insurance company will want you to pay what the premium should have been with no 'no claims'. Might be worth considering.

eskimomama

Thanks N79.
I agree with all that you have said, that's my thoughts exactly( hence the fear!)
However under the terms of the policy there is a case for "error"on both sides at the very start of the policy (have to give leeway to give time to rectify inaccuracies on both sides). Otherwise we would have been driving around illegally and uninsured( and so would other people frequently).
Turns out that Esure have conceeded that this was a genuine mistake and have recalculated the premium (another £571.14- ouch), but at least they have agreed that we were insured.
The policy wording does state about the no-claims, so we should have spotted it, however the process of finding it had already begun, and we would have found out this week had we not had the accident.
If the accident hadn't happened Esure would not have written to say we weren't insured,though; they would have offered us a policy without no-claims discount, so for the finacial ombudsman this has to be the same rule. (Thank god!)
As for the main driver thing, it is absolutely true, we live in a beautiful lake disrtict valley miles from anywhere, so to travel anywhere is a real treck, and as a mother of a two year old and housewife, I rarely go out except to walk the fells, go to playgroup or to the tiny local shop. As such I rarely drive, so my husband is definitly the main driver for both cars - we use the little car for economy, but use the (LPG!) 4x4 for safety in bad weather conditions.
I must say my opinion of Esure has gone up by 100% this afternoon.

raskazz

I hate to say I'm not too optimistic for you on this one either.

esure's website makes it fairly clear in both the FAQs and the "?" link next to the NCD question that

"We will need you to provide us with proof of your no claim discount. This can either be your last renewal notice or a letter from your current or a previous insurer confirming your discount entitlement. Please note you cannot use the same no claim discount on more than one policy at the same time. We will only accept original documents from a UK insurer, relating to no claim discount earned on a private car insurance policy and the expiry date of the last insurance must be no more than two years ago."

Your misunderstanding of the term 'No Claims Discount' is unfortunate however the insurer gives you all the relevant information on it's website. The question is also worded in a pretty clear and unambiguous way - it states

"No claim discount years"

not

"Years you have been free of claims"

esure is a company that only accepts business from customers with 4 or more years of No Claims Discount. This makes things worse, as if your insurer accepted any level of NCD it could merely rewrite the premium (i.e. charge you the difference between the premium you paid and what would have been payable, if they had known you had no applicable NCD). Esure would never have accepted your business if you had answered the questions correctly, so it is likely that the policy is void.

This is why it is improbable that they will offer to do what TAG has suggested.

Edited because you posted the update whilst I was writing: Looks like esure have a very generous attitude to these matters, they have been far more lenient than others would have been. Thankfully you can ignore the rest of my post now. I'm quite impressed with how they've handled this from the consumer's point of view, quite reassuring as my father is insured through them.

losgiganteskid

Raskazz hasn't quite told it as it is -

raskazz wrote: »

esure's website makes it fairly clear in both the FAQs and the "?" link next to the NCD question that

"We will need you to provide us with proof of your no claim discount. This can either be your last renewal notice or a letter from your current or a previous insurer confirming your discount entitlement. Please note you cannot use the same no claim discount on more than one policy at the same time. We will only accept original documents from a UK insurer, relating to no claim discount earned on a private car insurance policy and the expiry date of the last insurance must be no more than two years ago."

- BUT they go on to say........" If you do NOT provide evidence of your declared no claim discount we will either charge you for the additional premium or cancel your policy".

They have clearly done the correct thing.

Furthermore for them to tell you "....we are not insured because we can't have no claims discount on two cars" is clearly erroneous. You most certainly CAN have NCD on two cars provided you have earned NCD on two cars.

Good old e sure !

raskazz

losgiganteskid wrote: »

Raskazz hasn't quite told it as it is - - BUT they go on to say........" If you do NOT provide evidence of your declared no claim discount we will either charge you for the additional premium or cancel your policy".

Ah, didn't read that bit. Still, I wouldn't have thought they would have gone down the rewriting route as they advertise as only accepting those with 4 or more years applicable NCD. Bit odd that they didn't take the option of saying 'OK, we accept that you were on cover but we will deal with the claim and then cancel with no refund'. I'm also quite surprised that they gave over a month to sort the NCD out. But for the OP it's a result.