Rant alert - ! DH, Car insurance company , Data protection !

[Avantia]

I really need a rant and dont care at the moment wheher IBU or IBNU , but a combination of things that are not my fault but Iam left to sort out !

Firsltly (D? ) H scraps my car at the weekend which is def an insurance job not a touch up . So def not best pleased with him

Secondly he then flies out of the country for 2 weeks on business to other side of the world, takes his driving licence with him as he needs it for car hire. So wrote down his licence details just in case insurance company needs them

Thirdly phone insurance company up thsi morning to start claim bearing in mind, this car is registered in my name and DH is named driver on my policy.

Insurance company stat taking details - what happened etc - ' We need to speak with your husband '
Why ? '
To obtain his driving licence details ' Well he is out of the country for two weeks , he has his licence with him but I have the details .
' Sorry need to speak with him to validate his licence '
Yes but here are the details you can contact DVLA to confirm this .
' No sorry need to speak with him to confirm it is his , can't do anything about this claim until he contacts us '

I am so annoyed , DH scraps my pride and joy, buggers off out of the country, then I get jobs worth and bloody data protection to stop me making my claim on MY car and MY insurance.

So now DH will have to make a phone call from other side of the world to get it sorted !

Yes I know they are doing their job , but I need a rant .

[Iklboo]

DH is usually out at work when people ring for him and he can't take phone calls while he is working. He has specifically arranged with certain people that I am allowed to speak on his behalf as long as I give an agreed passowrd and can confirm other bits of DPA with them. Can your DH phone and sort this out for you?

[Avantia]

Well he has sorted some issues like that out in the past as he is often out of the country and at work cannot take phone calls on his mobile .

But the insurance company want to speak with him and hear his voice telling them his licence number, so no amount of authorisation is going to help . You would think that as he is a nmed driver on my insurance on my car that would imply some permission for me to speak to them on his behalf !

[PerpetuallyAnnoyedByHeadlice]

and HOW will they know its HIS voice??

Go grab the postman/window cleaner/random bloke passing by and get them to read it out

honestly, its plain daft!

[Avantia]

Well exactly ! I could put the phone on loud speaker and scribble down answers . Good idea .. but postman has already been .

[Fluffyone]

I'm confused, are you saying that your insurance company wants to speak to your husband about your insurance claim? The policy is in your name? If so, why do they need to speak to him.
(I thought you had to contact an insurance company before you wrote your car off, not after. How can you claim if it's been scrapped?).

[KERALA1]

Do you want to hear something nearly as annoying?! My insurance company leaked my details (name/mobile no./details of accident) to a random company who then onsold it to lots of ambulance chasing lawyers who now ring me on average twice a week pestering me to instruct them to sue the other driver. Grrr so they stick to the Data Protection Act only when it suits them...

Warning if you do get a random to impersonate him make sure the chap has all the details. My father tried to sort out a claim on behalf of my very busy brother in law but was stumped by the "when is your birthday" question he had to admit he didnt know and put the phone down

[Avantia]

Sorry he scrapes / scratches my car whilst he is driving it .

[RosieMac]

Get him to scan and email a copy of the licence to them!

[hatwoman]

tempting as it is using a random person could get you in huge trouble. I was pretty cross last night as dh has registered for telephone banking on our joint account. I know all the passwords but, when I got through to a person (having put in passwords etc) they said they couldn;t deal with me as I'm not registered. this is on a joint account.

[Fluffyone]

Are you sure you can claim when the insurance company can't send an assessor to see the damage? I think your DH needs a good kicking for scrapping your pride and joy by the way, how dare he??

[Avantia]

Good idea Rosie - although they will probably wnat confirmation that he sent it

He could do that actually he is working in a Government building.

[Avantia]

Fluffy - they will not process the claim until they speak with my DH , the car (which is registered in my name and has insurance on it in my name ) is parked on my driveway.

[theyoungvisiter]

Sorry if this is me being thick, but are you sure it's not more to do with teh fact that you are passing responsibility for the accident onto your DH?

I mean from their POV how do they know that YOU didn't scrap the car, and are trying to pass the buck onto your husband for some reason?

I can quite see how, in a legal matter like insurance, they might need your husband to tell them in person that he was indeed behind the wheel and accepts responsibility. There might be a lot more to the story than you are revealing, for all they know.

[Avantia]

I wouldn't use arandom person to pretend to be my DH , unless he was 6ft 2 , had a six pack and then he wouldn't be pretending to be DH on the phone

[theyoungvisiter]

Also given you weren't there at the time of the accident (I presume?) they can't process the claim on the basis of your say-so of what happened.

You weren't there.

Suppose, for eg, that your husband had actually been involved in a collision with another vehicle where someone was seriously injured, but didn't fancy being questioned over this, so he flies out of the country and gets his wife to pass on a trumped up story of what happens?

I'm not saying that's what happened of course! But I can totally understand why they need to speak to HIM, the person involved in the accident, and hear it from the horse's mouth.

[Avantia]

It will make no differnce to my insurance premiumn whether it was him or me as it is a claim on my insurance I might as well have told them it was me - but its the damn principle !

[Avantia]

I was a pasenger at the time so I know exactly what happened - I was not pleased !

The point is that they want to speak with DH about his driving licence not what happened.

[theyoungvisiter]

But it's not just the premium - it's a question of who takes legal responsibility for the accident in case there are other repercussions.

[Avantia]

also there was noone else involved - he misjudged an entrance and scrapped it along a wall.

So no other vehicle involved - no other person hurt - a quite straight forward claim.

[Avantia]

Do you really think I am going to stitch up my DH on this accident ?

[theyoungvisiter]

But surely the point is that they have to take the version of the accident from the person who is responsible for it?

I mean you say there was no-one else involved, but they don't know that do they? It wouldn't be the first time someone's tried to rewrite events after the fact. Or your DH could have been secretly drinking - or on medication you didn't know about - or maybe the person who owns the gate will come and sue - I don't know!

But I think it's fairly reasonable for them to want to check with the person who's taking the blame and get their version of events too.

Personally I'm quite glad to know that you can't just ring up and say "Joe Bloggs crashed my car - no you can't speak to him - but here's his license."

[theyoungvisiter]

No of course I don't think you are stitching your DH up!

But how are they supposed to know that? They have to have procedures in place to take account of the possibility.

[Avantia]

Well according to my DH the wall was responsible !

But given the fact they he was pissed as a fart , high on medication, is a disqualified driver - I see your point - NOT !

But hey why juts take mine and his word on it - why not intervie our passengers just in case we are both trying to pull a fast one.

INSURANCE COMPANY WILL NOT PROCESS CLAIM UNTIL THEY SPEAK WITH MY DH AND OBTAIN FROM HIM HIS DRIVING LICENCE DETAILS.

They can easily confirm he has a licence with DVLA is but then we start getting into Data protection...

[theyoungvisiter]

Look, the difference is:

If your DH rings and says "I take responsibility for this accident" and makes an untrue statement, that's a crime, and he can be sued.

If YOU ring and say "My DH takes responsibility for this accident, this is what happened" and it turns out to be untrue, you can claim that you were just passing on what you believed to be true to the best of your knowledge. That is NOT a crime.

I can see in your situation that it's annoying, but I imagine the insurance company has to follow procedure in every case, not just ones where they feel like it.

Plus "making a phone call from the other side of the world" doesn't sound that arduous in all honesty

[Avantia]

My car , My insurance , my premium , my DH !

Frustrating !