A pleasant letter from the Police
A pleasant letter from the Police
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DickyC

Original Poster:

54,419 posts

214 months

Tuesday
quotequote all
My wife received a letter from the Police calmly pointing out her car didn't appear to have any insurance. They thought this was probably an oversight or a clerical error and they were sure she would sort it out soon, before she used the car again.

With a view to selling the car, I had replaced her plate with the original and forgotten to tell the insurance. The MoT and Road Fund swapped over the moment I clicked the button but I forgot about the insurance.

I was impressed they took such a pragmatic view. 'This letter is NOT a notice of intended prosecution. '

The plates were swapped in May.

paperbag

Top marks from me to Hampshire and Thames Valley Joint Operations.

Simpo Two

89,289 posts

281 months

Tuesday
quotequote all
Agreed, very Dixon of Dock Green smile

trails

5,442 posts

165 months

Tuesday
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My wife had a similar letter a couple of years ago, she thought she had auto-renewed her insurance...from Essex Police smile

Southerner

2,129 posts

68 months

Tuesday
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Well that’s….. very surprising!

Fair play to them, nicely done smile

jurbie

2,407 posts

217 months

Tuesday
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I had a similar experience just recently. My car was due to go off to WBAC but was throwing up some warning lights on the dash which obviously WBAC wouldn't be keen on. I dropped it off at a garage and transferred my insurance to my replacement car. I only expected it to be off the road for a couple of days so the plan was to get some temporary cover to move it around as and when needed.

Unfortunately the problem with the car was proving difficult to diagnose and it ended up staying at the garage for nearly 2 months. After about a month, I got a letter from MID advising me that there was no insurance on my car and I should get it sorted within the next 28 days, after which they would check again and then perhaps advise the police.

A few days later a letter from the police arrived, I assume it had been pinged on ANPR whilst the garage was out test driving it, and it was the same as OP described. No action would be taken but they were going to put a marker on it and if it was pinged again then they'd escalate things.




LosingGrip

8,354 posts

175 months

DickyC

Original Poster:

54,419 posts

214 months

Tuesday
quotequote all
LosingGrip said:
All round cooperation. Genius.

We're in the 57% who take positive action.

bowtie

It took me all day, though. The insurers kept saying they'd sent a verification email and I kept telling them they hadn't. It turned out, as I do the car stuff, I had given my email address and, unfortunately, at a different time, my wife's. The two addresses were stored in different parts of the insurer's system which squabbled when instructed to send emails and sent nothing. Eventually I spoke to a young lady whose abilities were streets ahead of her colleagues and she sorted it out.

Simpo Two

89,289 posts

281 months

Tuesday
quotequote all
DickyC said:
It took me all day, though. The insurers kept saying they'd sent a verification email and I kept telling them they hadn't. It turned out, as I do the car stuff, I had given my email address and, unfortunately, at a different time, my wife's. The two addresses were stored in different parts of the insurer's system which squabbled when instructed to send emails and sent nothing. Eventually I spoke to a young lady whose abilities were streets ahead of her colleagues and she sorted it out.
And that's how people can end up uninsured without knowing. E-mails are just not reliable enough for critical information.

carreauchompeur

18,202 posts

220 months

Tuesday
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This is definitely a good initiative. Cuts out the reasonable percentage of ‘genuine error’ uninsured cars and leaves Police free to deal with the remainder who deliberately avoid it.

Insurance isn’t the biggest issue to deal with, but it’s surprising hw much other criminality it throws up.