Can insurance companies find out if points are not declared?

Can insurance companies find out if points are not declared?

Author
Discussion

Mark-hmvi7

Original Poster:

3 posts

72 months

Thursday 20th September 2018
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Hello,

I already have 3 points my insurers know about (Liverpoool & Victoria)

I've just got another 3 points which is going to affect my premium.

If these additional 3 points are not declared will it totally invalidate my insurance?

If I don't declare can they find out themselves about them?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Mark

Zor600

47 posts

98 months

Thursday 20th September 2018
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If you ever make a claim they will find out, but if not you’ll probably be ok. Not a good idea though

Drumroll

3,737 posts

119 months

Thursday 20th September 2018
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They are likely to find out. Failure to declare is likely to cost you more in the long-term than any increase in premium.

randlemarcus

13,507 posts

230 months

Thursday 20th September 2018
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Read your policy for the specifics about when you need to declare points. Its either immediately or at renewal. Go with what the contract says.

If your insurer or broker has asked for your DL number etc, they CAN look, but probably wont until they need to. Which is at claim time, and they then heave a sigh of relief, and cancel the policy from inception, which is a Bad Thing for you.

Be honest, take the premium rise, and learn from it.

otolith

55,899 posts

203 months

Thursday 20th September 2018
quotequote all
Insurance dishonestly obtained is a waste of money.

davek_964

8,795 posts

174 months

Thursday 20th September 2018
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Why not just lie about the kind of car you drive too? I'm sure you could tell them it's something cheaper to insure and it will only matter when you make a claim. In fact - why bother with insurance at all?

6 months ago, you had enough spare cash to pay the increase in premiums :

Mark-hmvi7 said:
I too have £20k sitting in my business bank account doing nothing....
Don't be dishonest. If you think the increased premium is expensive, wait until they find out you lied and you have insurance cancelled.

S11Steve

6,374 posts

183 months

Thursday 20th September 2018
quotequote all
As above it depends on your policy, and it may affect any payout as I am finding out today.

The driver of one of my vehicles has lied on his proposal, and as the vehicle has now been written off, the insurers are reducing the payout because of the "inconsistencies" in his declaration.
He didn't declare 6 points for a previous non-insurance penalty, gave a false address (he lives in a sink hole estate, but used the address of a relative in a rural area), and didn't declare a previous claim despite being non-fault. The insurers are only settling 30% of the value of the vehicle ....

I'm not entirely sure they can legitimately do this, but that is todays crap for me to deal with.


roadsmash

2,622 posts

69 months

Thursday 20th September 2018
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otolith said:
Insurance dishonestly obtained is a waste of money.
What a brilliant statement.

OP, what’s the point? Just declare them and pay extra. You’re not special compared to everyone else.

Try slowing down if you can’t hack it.

Well I Never

26 posts

66 months

Thursday 20th September 2018
quotequote all
S11Steve said:
The insurers are only settling 30% of the value of the vehicle ....

I'm not entirely sure they can legitimately do this, but that is todays crap for me to deal with.
You're fortunate they are paying you the 30%. They could have retrospectively cancelled the policy due to a false declaration that would materially effect (a) whether they provided cover and (b) what the level of premium would be.

Which is a warning for the OP. If your insurers do find out they may, too, retrospectively cancel your policy. Whilst they would still be liable to meet any Third Party claims (under the Road Traffic Act) you would have effectively been driving uninsured. A conviction for that really would affect your future premiums. You should bear in mind that motor insurance cover is not necessary simply so that you can drive your car on the road. Its principle function is to provide cover to Third Parties and yourself in the event of an accident. To deliberately jeopardise that cover is incredibly selfish (towards Third Parties) and stupid (towards yourself). Just declare the points, pay any increased premium and try to avoid committing any further offences.

Graveworm

8,476 posts

70 months

Thursday 20th September 2018
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otolith said:
Insurance dishonestly obtained is a waste of money.
And a crime but the insurance companies seldom report it.

Stoofa

958 posts

167 months

Thursday 20th September 2018
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A friend of mine ticked the "no" box when asked if he had any unspent criminal convictions for his car insurance. Mainly because if he ticked the "yes" box his choice of insurers was reduced to more or less none.
He's actually a safe driver, he's been a driver for 20 years, never had a point on his license, never been in an accident - but due to stupidity in another aspect of his life, he was finding it incredibly difficult to get insured, so he could drive to the job he'd actually managed to get with an unspent conviction.

His thinking was that he's never heard of anyone being asked to prove they don't have a criminal record after a car accident. I can see his theory, not as if an insurance company has ever asked anyone to provide, for example, a DBS to show no record.
He didn't have an accident during the 3 years he "told fibs" on his insurance and now he's all legal again.

Thankfully there are a few more insurance companies around now that don't actually ask about non-motoring convictions, but I can understand why he did it.
I don't think I could understand who someone whose just gone from 3 to 6 pts on their license would do it.

Dog Star

16,079 posts

167 months

Thursday 20th September 2018
quotequote all
Stoofa said:
A friend of mine ticked the "no" box when asked if he had any unspent criminal convictions for his car insurance. Mainly because if he ticked the "yes" box his choice of insurers was reduced to more or less none.
He's actually a safe driver, he's been a driver for 20 years, never had a point on his license, never been in an accident - but due to stupidity in another aspect of his life, he was finding it incredibly difficult to get insured, so he could drive to the job he'd actually managed to get with an unspent conviction.

His thinking was that he's never heard of anyone being asked to prove they don't have a criminal record after a car accident. I can see his theory, not as if an insurance company has ever asked anyone to provide, for example, a DBS to show no record.
He didn't have an accident during the 3 years he "told fibs" on his insurance and now he's all legal again.

Thankfully there are a few more insurance companies around now that don't actually ask about non-motoring convictions, but I can understand why he did it.
I don't think I could understand who someone whose just gone from 3 to 6 pts on their license would do it.
That is a question that does irritate me on insurance proposals; I can see that in some cases that insurers could be interested in non-motoring convictions (eg. fraud) but in many other cases I think that this is something that they shouldn't be allowed to penalise people for; all they are doing is pushing people with non-motoring convictions into driving without insurance.

Can they actually check, either?
It's like SACs - they can't actually check.

(BTW I have neither motoring, non-motoring or and SAC; I am just thinking from a legalities of obtaining this information point of view)

Ninja59

3,691 posts

111 months

Thursday 20th September 2018
quotequote all
Stoofa said:
A friend of mine ticked the "no" box when asked if he had any unspent criminal convictions for his car insurance. Mainly because if he ticked the "yes" box his choice of insurers was reduced to more or less none.
He's actually a safe driver, he's been a driver for 20 years, never had a point on his license, never been in an accident - but due to stupidity in another aspect of his life, he was finding it incredibly difficult to get insured, so he could drive to the job he'd actually managed to get with an unspent conviction.

His thinking was that he's never heard of anyone being asked to prove they don't have a criminal record after a car accident. I can see his theory, not as if an insurance company has ever asked anyone to provide, for example, a DBS to show no record.
He didn't have an accident during the 3 years he "told fibs" on his insurance and now he's all legal again.

Thankfully there are a few more insurance companies around now that don't actually ask about non-motoring convictions, but I can understand why he did it.
I don't think I could understand who someone whose just gone from 3 to 6 pts on their license would do it.
A fair few still ask in relation to home insurance though (and equally IVA/Bankrupt type questions).

ZOLLAR

19,908 posts

172 months

Thursday 20th September 2018
quotequote all
S11Steve said:
As above it depends on your policy, and it may affect any payout as I am finding out today.

The driver of one of my vehicles has lied on his proposal, and as the vehicle has now been written off, the insurers are reducing the payout because of the "inconsistencies" in his declaration.
He didn't declare 6 points for a previous non-insurance penalty, gave a false address (he lives in a sink hole estate, but used the address of a relative in a rural area), and didn't declare a previous claim despite being non-fault. The insurers are only settling 30% of the value of the vehicle ....

I'm not entirely sure they can legitimately do this, but that is todays crap for me to deal with.
FYI that line of action was brought in with the consumer protection law changes, the method was recommended by regulators so it most certainly is the right course of action by the insurer.

Previously they could have voided the policy from inception (this does still happen but mostly in cases of major misrepresentation), you're lucky it happened now and not a few years ago as they may not have even given the 30%.

Based on the misrep you've explained I'm very surprised they haven't gone for the void as the discrepancies consist of more than one issue.

ZOLLAR

19,908 posts

172 months

Thursday 20th September 2018
quotequote all
Stoofa said:
A friend of mine ticked the "no" box when asked if he had any unspent criminal convictions for his car insurance. Mainly because if he ticked the "yes" box his choice of insurers was reduced to more or less none.
He's actually a safe driver, he's been a driver for 20 years, never had a point on his license, never been in an accident - but due to stupidity in another aspect of his life, he was finding it incredibly difficult to get insured, so he could drive to the job he'd actually managed to get with an unspent conviction.

His thinking was that he's never heard of anyone being asked to prove they don't have a criminal record after a car accident. I can see his theory, not as if an insurance company has ever asked anyone to provide, for example, a DBS to show no record.
He didn't have an accident during the 3 years he "told fibs" on his insurance and now he's all legal again.

Thankfully there are a few more insurance companies around now that don't actually ask about non-motoring convictions, but I can understand why he did it.
I don't think I could understand who someone whose just gone from 3 to 6 pts on their license would do it.
It's interesting people think in this manner, something I hear often.

When you consider on average how many people an individual will know during their driving life (probably no more than a couple thousand at most) compared to how many accidents occur in the UK over the same period (tens of millions) they're highly unlikely to ever hear of such an incident but make a decision on something that financially can have a huge effect when they only have access to the smallest percentage of information, seems bizarre.



shep1001

4,599 posts

188 months

Thursday 20th September 2018
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I thought the schools were back for the new year now?

iDrive

409 posts

112 months

Thursday 20th September 2018
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I recently spent a day with the Insurance Fraud Bureau.

Sound advice to answer all questions honestly at point of taking out the Policy and to declare any changes during the life of the Policy.


Sebring440

1,926 posts

95 months

Thursday 20th September 2018
quotequote all
iDrive said:
I recently spent a day with the Insurance Fraud Bureau.
Bloody hell! Must've have been some fraud! Did they call the police or just let you go home?



Durzel

12,232 posts

167 months

Thursday 20th September 2018
quotequote all
otolith said:
Insurance dishonestly obtained is a waste of money.
+1

You might as well say it's garaged in the grounds of Buckingham Palace while you're at it.

dacouch

1,172 posts

128 months

Thursday 20th September 2018
quotequote all
Dog Star said:
That is a question that does irritate me on insurance proposals; I can see that in some cases that insurers could be interested in non-motoring convictions (eg. fraud) but in many other cases I think that this is something that they shouldn't be allowed to penalise people for; all they are doing is pushing people with non-motoring convictions into driving without insurance.

Can they actually check, either?
It's like SACs - they can't actually check.

(BTW I have neither motoring, non-motoring or and SAC; I am just thinking from a legalities of obtaining this information point of view)
A simple google of someones name and the area they live will normally through up court reports in the local areas, especially if it's not a major city