1) Prosecution

Least of his worries, he doesn’t need his driving license for work etc so loosing it would be a minor inconvience; his wife can just drive for visiting relatives etc.

A friend at uni was pulled driving his friends mums car. He had been insured for 5 years on this car.
He went to pals mum to ask for certificate, and she informed him she had changed insurance a week before and forgotten to tell him that he was no longer insured, to save money.
Court heard the evidence, including from pals mum.

He was still hit with 6 points and huge fine.

20 years later he still has to declare he was convicted of driving with no insurance, and it still costs each year.

Check the policy wording carefully – I know ours used to have an “anybody who can legally drive” is covered third party section.

20 years later he still has to declare he was convicted of driving with no insurance, and it still costs each year.

Are you sure?

Since April 2013, you no longer have to declare any ‘spent criminal convictions’ when applying for insurance.

https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/getting-insurance-if-you-have-a-criminal-conviction

Once upon a time I worked in complaints for Direct Line – these were always very messy, but only really in that the company stood fast.

How long had the policy been active for? Does he have the documents?if it’s all very recent and he hasn’t had a chance to check them yet then there is some comeback (possibly). If he has the docs then is on the hook for not checking them as instructed.

This isn’t correct, the vehicle itself was insured, so the insurers of the car have RTA liability to deal with the injury claims as above.

It’s not a self driving car though, so the fact it being being driven by an uninsured driver isn’t going to help. OTOH, the uninsured fund thing might help the 3rd party out.

The IN10 is gonna happen. Not even worth thinking about that tbh

A few years ago I rang my insurance company to tell them I needed to change the vehicle on my policy only it turned out I didn’t actually have a policy with them and hadn’t done for several months. Considering I’d been driving all over the country in this time I was pretty lucky not to have been pulled.

After a lot of arguing the insurance company point blank said I had no insurance since it expired months ago, no records or call recordings etc to the contrary. Had I been pulled then no amount of arguing on my part would have convinced the police and even if they’d rang the company themselves I still wouldn’t have been any better off.

However I was fairly certain I was insured so using a combination of my phone bills and data protection requests to the insurance company I was able to say that at x minutes past five I was put through to a particular extension for however many minutes. Strangely, once this info was provided they were able to find my call in which I asked for the insurance policy to be extended and the call handler confirming it was all done, sorted etc etc.

So once the mystery was resolved I asked what would have happened had I been pulled and they confirmed that at first I would have been shit out of luck but had I subsequently proven their mistake to the police and themselves they have their own insurance policy which covers them against admin errors at their end and any charges would have been dropped. Obviously this isn’t their decision to make on the spur of the moment so it sounded like it was something which had happened in the past.

So basically, be prepared to do your own legwork.

Was he previously on the policy in years gone by?
Yes, although possibly not with this company.

I would be collecting evidence that he’s always been named on all previous policies

It may not help, but it can’t hurt to have evidence that supports it being a “genuine mistake”

Unless he has a bad record (speeding etc) then it would probably be cheaper* with him named than without..this would also support the genuine mistake defence.

* (mine always is when I name the Mrs on the policy rather than leave her off it, even though she literally never drives my vehicle)

Since April 2013,

It is probably 2011 when I spoke to him last about insurance.

We have deeper conversations these days – kids, wives, what river to paddle next, if SLX is worth it over Deore etc..

I have nothing to add but, if this is a genuine mistake, I hope it works out as well as possible for your brother – I can imagine he’s feeling very crap right now.

[goes off to check my policy docs]

+1 Sharkbait.

I got done about 25 years ago. Was test driving a car and the owner thought his insurance covered me. He wrote a letter to the court advising the same and stating I was under the impression I was insured.

6 points and £100 fine. It’s treated as an absolute offence. But that seems like the least of his worried.

As all that’s being posted is conjecture based on half the story, I’ll submit my 2p.

He’ll be prosecuted for driving without insurance and get whatever is the standard fine and points for that offence.

The insurance company will pay out to the third party but not for the brothers car. He may even struggle with getting the payment from the Gap insurer as I wouldn’t be surprised if it has a clause that the car must be insured fully comp for their cover to be valid.

Finally, I doubt the insurer will pursue him to reclaim the third party losses. I think they’ll wash their hands of the situation to avoid potential liability for both cars. However, if they do come after him, he needs to lawyer up.

The insurance company will pay out to the third party but not for the brothers car. He may even struggle with getting the payment from the Gap insurer as I wouldn’t be surprised if it has a clause that the car must be insured fully comp for their cover to be valid.

Absolutely this, GAP is there to pay the difference between an insurance write-off and the finance settlement figure or original value depending on the type of policy.

They’re not going to pay the full whack just because it was insured, and they not going to estimate what the insurance payment should have been and then hand over the rest.

My only experience is knowing of someone causing criminal damage to 2 vehicles which the insurer paid c£8k to repair. They accepted a caution from the Police but the insurer didn’t pursue collection after they told them they had limited spare income. They owned their own home, car and a couple of rented houses with a net capital worth of c£200k and earned c£40k pa as a financial adviser.

Sympathies to the OP’s brother for a genuine error. If the insurance company are not to blame I see no logical reason why they ought not to pursue recovery, painful though that will be.

IANAL but I’d have thought the only chance would be to get the insurer to admit they made a mistake and cover him for the financial side of things. Once that’s done hopefully you get the driving without insurance charge dropped.

I’m assuming the Insurance company wouldn’t just admit their mistake though so as others have said you’d like need to go back to recordings etc. which may need the financial ombudsman to be involved.

Sympathies to your brother OP – this is a messy one and I’ve been in a similar position myself. Friend borrowed my car and said he was covered 3rd party because of his own policy on his car.

Ended up going into the back of someone. He wasn’t insured because it turned out his partner was the principle named driver and the 3rd party cover only applied to her. My insurance company paid out on the 3rd party claim as noted above because of the RTA liability thing where they are the insurers of the car (even though I wasn’t driving).

They didn’t pay out for my car and then sought to claim back the amount paid to the third party from me (not my friend). Extremely tricky. We ended up having to get a solicitor because it was clear they’d taken the piss with the amount of time the other car was off the road, hire cars, etc. etc. The solicitor got the amount down but we had to pay. Legally it was me that was liable but we split it. Expensive mistake for the pair of us…

My advice – get a solicitor NOW. We didn’t and that was a mistake.. Insurance companies are an absolute nightmare to communicate with and you need a legal expert doing this on your behalf to limit the damage.

This was 10 years ago.. I don’t know if things have changed much. Just my experience.

then sought to claim back the amount paid to the third party from me (not my friend).

Seems odd as you weren’t driving, so had zero liability?

Legally it was me that was liable but we split it

Unless your friend would have been left homeless paying the full whack that sounds extremely generous of you given the circumstances

so had zero liability?

Except giving someone permission to drive his car uninsured. If the friend/anyone had stolen the car it’d be different, obviously.

Liable because they allowed uninsured driver to use your car – exactly why you need to cancel any motor insurance the instant you sell a vehicle.

Edit – beaten by zilog

Bingo Zilog – If he’d TWOC’d it I’d have been off the hook. I should have checked insurance details or said no.

But I give my permission so my insurance company came after me for the lot

I hope this story has a happy ending but I don’t see one.

Does he have insurance on another car? May be covered third party by them?

Everyone saying he will definitely get six points and fine is not necessarily right. Whilst it is a strict liability offence and he will be found guilty – the court can if convinced on the balance of probabilities that the driver genuinely believed he was insured AND that belief was reasonably held choose no points and usually no fine. The exact circumstances and supporting information will make a big difference in that.

If he has RAC or AA cover it may be worth seeing if he has legal helpline cover with them. I found them reassuringly level headed and no nonsense for a chat to find out how things stood when I had a vehicle related legal question.

Can you work out who was covered from the cost of the policy? (Apologies if this is a stupid suggestion).

Update…..

The insurance company have admitted they were at fault* and coughed up £50k.

The charge, of driving without insurance, has been dropped as they now say he was insured and have paid up in full for all claims.

So, amazingly everything has worked out OK.

* They have since changed their website design so any additional driver is automatically added to the policy and the ‘purgatory’ state of being declared but not insured no longer exists.

Result

😯

Cripes.

Good one 🙂

Wanders off to check policy…

Mate got pulled on the m1. Mate had insurance for his Porsche, his motorbike, his Mrs’ car and as he thought his work motor which was his Mondeo. Went in front of the beak with all the evidence of previous years policies etc, it just hadn’t auto renewed this time. Tough titty, 6 points 650 fine.
I wouldn’t hold out much hope.

I wouldn’t hold out much hope.

Police have dropped the charge.

Always check to see if your car is insured using this Askmid

As me work colleague once explained to me that the police use the same database to check if your car is insured.

Unfortunately, it is not helpful for OP at the moment, because it will only show if the car is insured or not rather than who is insured.

Also if you get your car insurance from the broker/agent etc, then the problem could be that the broker forgot to pay the insurer as I found out recently I was not insured for 8 hours.

I checked Askmid and I was not insured even when my car insurance company (broker) has already sent me document to confirm I was insured. I insured about 3 weeks earlier.

In the end after two phone calls my car insurer scrambled to pay the insurance company as I told him the council was going to tow my car away if I was not insured.

Therefore, the mistake can be done at the insurance company (broker/agent) late payment to the Insurer … 🙂

Must read post before commenting. That’s a result and a royal **** up by the insurers. After my recent dealings with them I’ve lusted them up there with estate agents and no win no fee companies for being shysters.

That’s a result, I’m really surprised they coughed for that.

Always check to see if your car is insured using this Askmid

No use here, the car was insured. Just not for the person driving it.

Great result though OP.

Good result, not always the case, mate of mines insurance got cancelled due to a failed direct debit, says he was never informed by the company, no crash but he got pulled over for speeding and hit with no insurance at the same time.

His insurance company didn’t budge on the matter.

It’s difficult, but the onus is on the driver, legally speaking.

The annoying thing is it just enocarges scroats to not even bother with insurance.

That’s not the same, that’s unequivocally his fault, surely? Unless the insurer cancelled the Direct Debit mandate?

The annoying thing is it just enocarges scroats to not even bother with insurance.

Getting done for having no insurance makes people not bother with insurance…? Eh?