Hit by driver "outside his insurance T&Cs"

[Jim1064]

In 2020 I was rear-ender by a guy in a Fiesta while I was waiting to enter a roundabout. He said he was sorry and gave me his insurer's details.

On contacting them, they said he was driving the car outside the terms and conditions of the insurance policy, and wouldn't pay up.

I decided to approach my own insurers, and they authorised the repairs promptly (about £3.5k damage). I recovered my excess from the other driver with the help of a legal insurance policy, and my own insurers are now in legal proceedings against the other driver to recover their losses.

I reported the other driver to the police as being uninsured while driving, but they came back to me saying there was a policy in place on the car and therefore no offence was committed.

How can this be - his insurance declined to pay, and yet in the eyes of the law he is insured...?

[Dynion Araf Uchaf]

possibly a young driver, possibly driving without a black box, or at night or some other limitation. So he would pass the PNC check by the police but not in actual reality.

[Dingu]

I can’t think of any situation, off the top of my head, in which the car is insured, driver known (especially where the policy is apparently covering the driver) and third party losses could be avoided.

[trashbat]

Dingu said:

I can’t think of any situation, off the top of my head, in which the car is insured, driver known (especially where the policy is apparently covering the driver) and third party losses could be avoided.

This - but even if the car is stolen from the policyholder and the driver not identified, I believe from years of such threads.

[Dog Star]

Dingu said:

I can’t think of any situation, off the top of my head, in which the car is insured, driver known (especially where the policy is apparently covering the driver) and third party losses could be avoided.

Agreed - maybe he was going to work but didn’t have commuting cover? Or another example would be one of my motorbikes which has no cover if I’m carrying a pillion.

However I’m pretty sure that in the above examples third party damage would have to be covered.

[rlw]

Can you even get less cover than third party ?

[Glenn63]

But whatever the ‘get out’ clause surely that still means that at that time the driver was driving that car, he wasn’t insured so driving illegally?

[J1990]

This just doesn't sound right, if this is something you're wishing to pursue then I would recommend legal counsel to move forward. The issue is that you're asking here about something that happened >2 years ago and should've been pursued as soon as his insurer's claimed they wouldn't be paying up.

Obviously the 3rd party was breaking the law by driving outside of their insurance terms, the police checks are purely looking for a live insurance on the database and they're not shown the specific details of the policy. Further action could've been taken at the time but as a non-lawyer I'm not sure where you'd stand now.

[JQ]

Jim1064 said:

In 2020 I was rear-ender by a guy in a Fiesta while I was waiting to enter a roundabout. He said he was sorry and gave me his insurer's details.

On contacting them, they said he was driving the car outside the terms and conditions of the insurance policy, and wouldn't pay up.

I decided to approach my own insurers, and they authorised the repairs promptly (about £3.5k damage). I recovered my excess from the other driver with the help of a legal insurance policy, and my own insurers are now in legal proceedings against the other driver to recover their losses.

I reported the other driver to the police as being uninsured while driving, but they came back to me saying there was a policy in place on the car and therefore no offence was committed.

How can this be - his insurance declined to pay, and yet in the eyes of the law he is insured...?

It was always my understanding that the insurance company was legally obligated to pay out any third party damage, and was then their responsibility to recover the monies from their client.

[blue_haddock]

Dingu said:

I can’t think of any situation, off the top of my head, in which the car is insured, driver known (especially where the policy is apparently covering the driver) and third party losses could be avoided.

Possibly only insured for Social and domestic usage but not commuting and he told the insurance company he was on his way to work.

[trashbat]

blue_haddock said:

Possibly only insured for Social and domestic usage but not commuting and he told the insurance company he was on his way to work.

It doesn't matter, because this:

JQ said:

It was always my understanding that the insurance company was legally obligated to pay out any third party damage, and was then their responsibility to recover the monies from their client.

[Silvanus]

I had a guy hit me me a couple of years he had no licence, and had used a freinds name for insurance purposes. The insurers still paid out in full.

[Jim1064]

J1990 said:

the police checks are purely looking for a live insurance on the database and they're not shown the specific details of the policy

That would explain it - so essentially you can still drive around uninsured without fear or being caught by police. Just drive any car which has an active insurance policy, no matter whether it covers you or not, and you won't be caught by police.

Edited by Jim1064 on Monday 23 January 10:12

[J1990]

Jim1064 said:

J1990 said:

the police checks are purely looking for a live insurance on the database and they're not shown the specific details of the policy

That would explain it - so essentially you can still drive around uninsured without fear or being caught by police. Just drive any car which has an active insurance policy, no matter whether it covers you or not, and you won't be caught by police.

Edited by Jim1064 on Monday 23 January 10:12

You're not wrong, it won't flag for the police via their PNC system as having no insurance as the vehicle does. Purely speculation here but I imagine there is a strong correlation between people who drive without valid insurance and those who commit other traffic violations i.e. They might not get initially pulled for no insurance but if they're pulled over for something else and the PNC system doesn't show them as having active insurance for the vehicle then it's a different story. Obviously this assumes they're carrying ID to confirm they're not the stated insured driver.

The same can be said for someone cloning plates from a similar car that's insured and hiding behind that, except that also then hides MOT status and any other shady behaviour they might get up to.

[Dog Star]

J1990 said:

there is a strong correlation between people who drive without valid insurance and those who commit other traffic violations

Correct. I have a friend who is retired Met traffic police, and she says that no RFL is a really good indicator - pull a car for no tax and a very high proportion would actually be involved in some form of criminal activity.

[Dingu]

J1990 said:

Jim1064 said:

J1990 said:

the police checks are purely looking for a live insurance on the database and they're not shown the specific details of the policy

That would explain it - so essentially you can still drive around uninsured without fear or being caught by police. Just drive any car which has an active insurance policy, no matter whether it covers you or not, and you won't be caught by police.

Edited by Jim1064 on Monday 23 January 10:12

You're not wrong, it won't flag for the police via their PNC system as having no insurance as the vehicle does. Purely speculation here but I imagine there is a strong correlation between people who drive without valid insurance and those who commit other traffic violations i.e. They might not get initially pulled for no insurance but if they're pulled over for something else and the PNC system doesn't show them as having active insurance for the vehicle then it's a different story. Obviously this assumes they're carrying ID to confirm they're not the stated insured driver.

The same can be said for someone cloning plates from a similar car that's insured and hiding behind that, except that also then hides MOT status and any other shady behaviour they might get up to.

As the driver is known, any active policy on the vehicle would be required to cover third party losses. This even applied where a vehicle is stolen.

[pavarotti1980]

J1990 said:

the police checks are purely looking for a live insurance on the database and they're not shown the specific details of the policy. Further action could've been taken at the time but as a non-lawyer I'm not sure where you'd stand now.

What do you base that on? You only have to watch traffic cops/police interceptors to see that they don't just look for a live policy on the system. They also look to see if the driver has a valid insurance policy to be able to drive that vehicle and the terms/exclusions of that policy as well (i.e. takeaway driver "just helping out" with his SDP cover)

[djohnson]

I’m no expert but aren’t the police just being too simplistic here? If the final outcome is that the insurer escapes liability to the third party (again I’m no expert but you’d think that ultimately that’d be a difficult outcome for the insurer to get to), then the true substance is that the vehicle was uninsured and an offence has been committed.

[OutInTheShed]

It is my impression that some insurance companies have a tendency to try fobbing people off, particularly civilians who don't go through their own insurance, people who challenge them through the ombudsman system etc.

They either expect a lot of people to give up, or maybe kicking things down the road into the next finance period is important.

[J1990]

pavarotti1980 said:

J1990 said:

the police checks are purely looking for a live insurance on the database and they're not shown the specific details of the policy. Further action could've been taken at the time but as a non-lawyer I'm not sure where you'd stand now.

What do you base that on? You only have to watch traffic cops/police interceptors to see that they don't just look for a live policy on the system. They also look to see if the driver has a valid insurance policy to be able to drive that vehicle and the terms/exclusions of that policy as well (i.e. takeaway driver "just helping out" with his SDP cover)

I'd suggest reading my full comment again - I stated that if you've been pulled over they will then check that YOU have a valid insurance policy by checking your ID against the policy registered against the car. My comment was in relation to being pulled over for not having valid insurance, the PNC system may be good but it doesn't recognise the faces of people driving by and check that they are registered against that vehicle... Checking that YOU are the one (or one of the people) insured to drive the car can only be done after you've been pulled over.