right, a friend of mine had a car crash on thursday. She drove into the back of a third party (slowly, minor damage, no injuries, both cars drove away).

upon inspection of her documents, it turns out her car tax had expired (by 4 days), and her MOT expired (by 1 day).

insurance fully paid and up to date.

She is now, this moment, now, having kittens at the prospect of going to prison or whatever for having invalid insurance.

what’s the deal? – will her insurance company leave her high and dry for the sake of a couple of days? – or can she expect / hope for a little understanding?

what does STW have to say?

Unless the police got involved I can’t imagine theyd check the tax/MOT on her car. Mine was written off by someone else and they didn’t check any of my documents despite my claiming off my insurance and them claiming it back.

TBH I have absolutely no sympathy for a dozy sod that’s forgotten some very important procedures for car ownership – what else has she forgotten, to check tyres etc etc.

get it MOT’d and taxed asap. Tax disc will be back dated, ask “friendly local garage” to do the same.

minor damage

She pays for it herself ?

BTW how would her insurance company know about her tax and MOT ?

My mate crashed his van into somebody, wrote it off. Insurance paid out in full, only when digging out the documents to send to them did he realise the tax and MOT had expired a month before. nothing was ever mentioned and the payment cleared fine.

So long as the car is in roadworthy condition here insurance remains valid. Teh insurance co might have a go at wriggling out of paying up but they are on dodgy ground.

ask “friendly local garage” to do the same.

I didn’t think that was possible any more, since they all went computerised?

Sorry but(without seeing her terms and conditions) her insurance will be invalid as she will have breached her contractual terms and as such they can refuse (and often do) indemnity.

They will still pay the third party claim as Article 75 insurers and then can excercise an option of then claiming the payments made to the thid party back from the policyholder.

However, She may hear nothing more about it ………

The insurance will pay out to the other party regardless of MOT, they have to by law. Remmember the MOT is only a snapshot in time of the vehicles condition and doesnt mean its safe for a year, its just required once per year. If theres any doubt as to the vehicles condition they will probably check and come after her personally for the money owed to the other side.

If its just a bumper respray and replacement of the bumper bar with no personal injury (~£300-500) then it might be wise just to pay the other party to have their car repaired.

Road tax is a seperate issue and can land her a big fine. MOT is a small fine.

When you have no MOT you are allowed to drive the car to a pre-booked appointment and back again to a place of repair if it fails, this may be your home.

BTW how would her insurance company know about her tax and MOT ?

Same way ANYBODY can find out if your car is taxed –
dvla lookup

MOT may be a different matter, but in either case I doubt anything would come of it. Taxed or not I find it unlikely that they would repudiate a claim.