Charged for no insurance due to admin error

[Gooly]

Just wanted to gain a second opinion, from what I understand my case is pretty clear cut but here is the full story.

In August, I had a Micra as a runaround and I was thinking of getting another E36. I had a look around for some 325is but couldnt find any for sale; I figured I'd get a quote anyway, so I phoned up my insurance company (Big company, Navy related name). By sheer chance, I got through to a lad who was also into his cars and we talked a bit about car stuff. The conversation probably lasted about 30min, which is 20min longer than it normally would take. Throughout the conversation I made it clear that I was only getting a quote and he was not to put it through; this is a conversation I have had many times before and it has never been an issue. The guy also quoted me on various modifications, each time stating that if I *were* to buy the car and add x and x modification, it would cost x much.

We end the phone conversation with him telling me to ring up if I do want to take the quote. The car I had given him was an old 325i I had which had been scrapped in 2015; however my mate bought it off me before scrapping it and he did not get a scrappage certificate when he did get rid of it. The car is currently registered as SORN on the database.

Fast forward a week; I'm driving my Micra through Leatherhead, following my friends in a recovery truck having just purchased a Silvia. We pull into a petrol station to reconvence and refuel; a traffic police car arrives and parks up, with the officers looking at us. We get in our cars to leave, and upon trying to pull out the trafpol races up behind and pulls me over.

The officer explains that I am being pulled over as my car is not showing as insured. I explained that I had purchased a policy for the Micra and I didnt see any reason for it not to be insured. I showed the officer the confirmation email from the policy being purchased; he then checked the database again and it showed that my Micra was showing as insured from the date of purchase but the cover had ended a week ago, the date I made that phonecall. A check on my old 325i showed it being currently insured. I explained the situation, the fact that the BMW was scrapped etc but the officer explained that as no insurance is a strict liability offence, he will have to charge me and seize the vehicle. I understood and agreed.

I phoned my insurance company the next day, explaining the situation; they were very helpful and amicable. The person I spoke to offered to re-listen to the conversation, and later rang me to confirm that the policy had been mistakenly transferred due to no fault of my own. After a week or so of correspondence, I received the following:

A signed letter stating they would indemnify me for the offence of not having insurance
A signed letter stating that I was insured over the period that the alleged offence happened
Full coverage of the impound charges on the micra, my costs of travel in getting it and a days wage.


This all happened in 08/16; I received the plea forms yesterday, which I have filled out and returned stating not guilty and explaining that my insurance company provided the above. Personally, from a logical point of view I see no reason why my day in court should not go smoothly with the charges being dismissed; I just wanted to gain a second opinion as to whether or not they would still have a case against me.

Sorry for the long drawn out post, I didnt want to leave any details out haha

[SonicShadow]

You'll be fine.

[Bristol spark]

Why is it even going to court? Surely the fact you have a letter stating you were insured means no offence committed, and they should just cancel the charge?

What a waste of time going to court when they know no offence was committed....

[Sheepshanks]

Gooly said:

A signed letter stating they would indemnify me for the offence of not having insurance

Can they really do that?


My daughter had a policy issued for the wrong year, so when the Certificate arrived it had already expired. Nothing happened, thankfully, but I understood if caught she's have to plead guilty but go for a "special reasons" defence and ask for an absolute discharge.

[Rick101]

I'm amazed they changed this over without sending you a new certificate. They usually, rather bizarrely, ask for the old one back now too. I'm more amazed that there was no change in premium from a Micra to a BMW or and admin charge to change vehicle.

I'm less surprised Admiral are involved.

[Fastpedeller]

I guess they could take the heavy hand as the offence has been committed strictly speaking but IMNAL. Common sense would tell me you had no intention to drive without insurance, and indeed it was a mistake by a 3rd party which created the situation. Common sense would also say it would be unrealistic for you to be required to make further 'phone calls to the insurance company to confirm the insurance was still in place in case they'd made an error. Good luck, and top marks for pleading not guilty as some would just accept the situation and roll over, which would be absolutely the wrong thing to do.

[Gooly]

Sheepshanks said:

Can they really do that?


My daughter had a policy issued for the wrong year, so when the Certificate arrived it had already expired. Nothing happened, thankfully, but I understood if caught she's have to plead guilty but go for a "special reasons" defence and ask for an absolute discharge.

I thought this as well; when I received it I rang up and explained that I didn't feel it was enough to knock it out of court, and I questioned how much power they really had to be able to say that. After some lengthy phonecalls I managed to get the second letter from them which stated that I was insured over the time that the alleged offence occurred.

Bristol spark said:

Why is it even going to court? Surely the fact you have a letter stating you were insured means no offence committed, and they should just cancel the charge?

What a waste of time going to court when they know no offence was committed....

My thoughts exactly, its frustrating as I imagine whatever court date they give me will be April or May by the earliest, by which point this whole thing will have dragged on for 8/9 months.

[Gooly]

Rick101 said:

I'm amazed they changed this over without sending you a new certificate. They usually, rather bizarrely, ask for the old one back now too. I'm more amazed that there was no change in premium from a Micra to a BMW or and admin charge to change vehicle.

I'm less surprised Admiral are involved.

The certificate arrived after I was pulled over, and the charge was cancelled before it left my account which normally takes them around two weeks in my experience. I have however never been asked to send certificates back in my time with them.

In fairness, my experience with them has usually been good; I gone through a fair few cars in the few years I've been driving, and they have always been easy to deal with when it comes to switching policies over etc and the customer service I received in relation to this whole incident was generally pretty good; I could imagine alot of other companies could have been much more difficult to deal with.

Fastpedeller said:

I guess they could take the heavy hand as the offence has been committed strictly speaking but IMNAL. Common sense would tell me you had no intention to drive without insurance, and indeed it was a mistake by a 3rd party which created the situation. Common sense would also say it would be unrealistic for you to be required to make further 'phone calls to the insurance company to confirm the insurance was still in place in case they'd made an error. Good luck, and top marks for pleading not guilty as some would just accept the situation and roll over, which would be absolutely the wrong thing to do.

I'm hoping the letter from my insurance stating that I was insured over the period is the clincher as I had the same worry

Edited by Gooly on Sunday 12th February 22:42

[dacouch]

Sheepshanks said:

Gooly said:

A signed letter stating they would indemnify me for the offence of not having insurance

Can they really do that?


My daughter had a policy issued for the wrong year, so when the Certificate arrived it had already expired. Nothing happened, thankfully, but I understood if caught she's have to plead guilty but go for a "special reasons" defence and ask for an absolute discharge.

It's called a "Letter of Indemnity" and is standard practice in these circumstances, a court of law should have no problem accepting it

[Sheepshanks]

dacouch said:

It's called a "Letter of Indemnity" and is standard practice in these circumstances, a court of law should have no problem accepting it

Sure - the insurer will agree they would have been held liable if anything had happened, as ours did.

But indemnifying him against the offence itself? That implies that if he was given points they'd somehow accept them for him, which is clearly not possible.


Anyway, presumeably the insurer will cough up for proper legal advice, and support in court if necessary.

[InitialDave]

Sheepshanks said:

But indemnifying him against the offence itself? That implies that if he was given points they'd somehow accept them for him, which is clearly not possible.

My understanding:

The offence he committed was to not be insured at the time.

His insurance company are stating that he was insured by them at that time, any evidence to the contrary being an error on their part.

So he was insured at the time, and not committing an offence.

[matjk]

Same thing happened to me , I asked esure to renew, they didn't got stopped by an anpr car! I called Esure, they found my call, admitted the cock up, spoke to the police to say I would be insured from that point on (so I could go on my way) got a letter from esure , took it local plod station and showed them and that was that!

You will be fine it's just an admin error , take in the paperwork and relax

[elanfan]

Send in COPIES of all the correspondence and I'll bet everything gets cancelled and you won't even get to court. In my day I issued letters of indemnity in circumstances where the fault was ours. Never ever heard of anyone having to go to court over it.

[anonymous-user]

Surely he was insured at the time, he just wasn't on the database which is not an offence. So there should be no issues in court.

[Durzel]

Bluequay said:

Surely he was insured at the time, he just wasn't on the database which is not an offence. So there should be no issues in court.

Being pedantic but at the time of the pull he wasn't insured. The insurance company erroneously transferred his policy to the new VRM, the scrapped BMW.

What they are saying is that they are prepared to retroactively indemnify him and his Micra at the time of the offence, therefore invalidating the "no insurance" offence.

Edited by Durzel on Monday 13th February 07:02

[Ian Geary]

SonicShadow said:

You'll be fine.

Or,

You'll be fined.

This is one thread where spelling does matter.

Good luck

Ian

[Sheepshanks]

Durzel said:

Being pedantic but at the time of the pull he wasn't insured. The insurance company erroneously transferred his policy to the new VRM, the scrapped BMW.

What they are saying is that they are prepared to retroactively indemnify him and his Micra at the time of the offence, therefore invalidating the "no insurance" offence.

I think you're right that as the time of the pull he wasn't insured so the absolute offence is commited.

This is the issue I had in my daughter's case - they agreed they would be held liable but wouldn't redate the Certificate of Insurance as apparently you can't retroactively insure anything. This wasn't some dodgy company either, it was LV=.

It's a massive can of worms. I'm super-careful now about checking askMID after insurance renewals and changes,


I'd be doing everything possible to prevent this getting to court rather than having to rely on some doddery Magistrates whose decisions can sometimes appear almost random.

[worsy]

Gooly said:

Just wanted to gain a second opinion, from what I understand my case is pretty clear cut but here is the full story.

In August, I had a Micra as a runaround and I was thinking of getting another E36. I had a look around for some 325is but couldnt find any for sale; I figured I'd get a quote anyway, so I phoned up my insurance company (Big company, Navy related name). By sheer chance, I got through to a lad who was also into his cars and we talked a bit about car stuff. The conversation probably lasted about 30min, which is 20min longer than it normally would take. Throughout the conversation I made it clear that I was only getting a quote and he was not to put it through; this is a conversation I have had many times before and it has never been an issue. The guy also quoted me on various modifications, each time stating that if I *were* to buy the car and add x and x modification, it would cost x much.

We end the phone conversation with him telling me to ring up if I do want to take the quote. The car I had given him was an old 325i I had which had been scrapped in 2015; however my mate bought it off me before scrapping it and he did not get a scrappage certificate when he did get rid of it. The car is currently registered as SORN on the database.

Fast forward a week; I'm driving my Micra through Leatherhead, following my friends in a recovery truck having just purchased a Silvia. We pull into a petrol station to reconvence and refuel; a traffic police car arrives and parks up, with the officers looking at us. We get in our cars to leave, and upon trying to pull out the trafpol races up behind and pulls me over.

The officer explains that I am being pulled over as my car is not showing as insured. I explained that I had purchased a policy for the Micra and I didnt see any reason for it not to be insured. I showed the officer the confirmation email from the policy being purchased; he then checked the database again and it showed that my Micra was showing as insured from the date of purchase but the cover had ended a week ago, the date I made that phonecall. A check on my old 325i showed it being currently insured. I explained the situation, the fact that the BMW was scrapped etc but the officer explained that as no insurance is a strict liability offence, he will have to charge me and seize the vehicle. I understood and agreed.

I phoned my insurance company the next day, explaining the situation; they were very helpful and amicable. The person I spoke to offered to re-listen to the conversation, and later rang me to confirm that the policy had been mistakenly transferred due to no fault of my own. After a week or so of correspondence, I received the following:

A signed letter stating they would indemnify me for the offence of not having insurance
A signed letter stating that I was insured over the period that the alleged offence happened
Full coverage of the impound charges on the micra, my costs of travel in getting it and a days wage.


This all happened in 08/16; I received the plea forms yesterday, which I have filled out and returned stating not guilty and explaining that my insurance company provided the above. Personally, from a logical point of view I see no reason why my day in court should not go smoothly with the charges being dismissed; I just wanted to gain a second opinion as to whether or not they would still have a case against me.

Sorry for the long drawn out post, I didnt want to leave any details out haha

Gooly, scan the letters and fax to the CPS. You will get a discontinuation from them. No point in spending public money to get you to court when it will be found Not Guilty.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Sheepshanks said:

Durzel said:

Being pedantic but at the time of the pull he wasn't insured. The insurance company erroneously transferred his policy to the new VRM, the scrapped BMW.

What they are saying is that they are prepared to retroactively indemnify him and his Micra at the time of the offence, therefore invalidating the "no insurance" offence.

I think you're right that as the time of the pull he wasn't insured so the absolute offence is commited.

This is the issue I had in my daughter's case - they agreed they would be held liable but wouldn't redate the Certificate of Insurance as apparently you can't retroactively insure anything.

This isn't right and an insurance company can retroactively insure what they want. They can't backdate certificates, but they can give retroactive insurance.

This isn't common but it's not rare either. Insurers make mistakes. They show stuff as not being insured when it should be due to their error. They issue a letter of indemnity, which acts as a backdated certificate. This is accepted by the authorities as proof of insurance being valid on the day of the alleged offence.

[Gooly]

Thanks for the advice everyone, hadnt considered that I could hopefully avoid court in the first place. Will send documents (copies) in and see what happens