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Dad had car accident but he'd failed to renew insurance
Can anyone help with advice, my dad who is suspected to be suffering from early signs of dementia has had a car accident outside his home hitting a neighbour's vehicle. He was taken to hospital but in the meantime Police have impounded his car for no insurance. After the dust has settled today it appears he thought the insurance was automatically renewing but it wasn't and ran out 5 weeks ago. He now has a situation where he is liable for driving an uninsured car and the costs for repairs and hire car of his neighbour, any advice on a way forward? Repairs costs will run into thousands so no easy way to solve that.
His impounded car was heavily damaged so he's happy to leave that at the pound, can he just do that? Also what are the police likely to do about this incident? I've read a fine and points though it's unlikely he'll drive again.
His impounded car was heavily damaged so he's happy to leave that at the pound, can he just do that? Also what are the police likely to do about this incident? I've read a fine and points though it's unlikely he'll drive again.
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As to the general issue - the Motor Insurer's Bureau will probably come into effect for the 3rd party's claim, but your dad may still have a claim against him filed to recover costs. I think you (he) need to get proper legal advice ... does he have legal cover on his home insurance? (Although they may not assist with motoring-related advice).
The MIB is unlikely to come into effect unless the TP is also uninsured as your father has been identified. Their insurers are likely to settle the claim and then pursue your father for their outlay and as you've already identified, uninsured losses like car hire may also be involved.
Depending on your fathers relationship with his neighbours it may be worth a friendly conversation with them about the situation. You have no right to ask for them to do anything different but if they know he is going to be personally funding it all they may decide they can make do with a little courtesy car from the garage rather than the like for like car from a credit hire company.
There's no real point in taking legal advice. It's all been outlined on here. The TP's insurers will almost pursue him for their outlay and the police will pursue him for the offence. He doesn't have a case to defend either.
There are some Financial Ombudsman decisions to the effect that if an insurer is switching from auto-renewal to non-auto-renewal, it has to take significant steps to make sure that the customer is aware of this fact. Simply sending a renewal quote which says "call xxxx if you want to renew" may not be enough. I summarised a few cases in this post a while ago in this post - unfortunately the OP in that thread never came back to say how his claim had ended up.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78333332/#Comment_78333332
If you (or your dad) can persuade the Ombudsman that it was reasonable for him to think that his insurance would automatically renew, the insurer may have to cover his costs regardless of the fact that it didn't.