Driving without business use insurance

[newcat12345]

Husband who rarely uses my car was stopped driving home from a meeting today. I only have social, domestic and commuting insurance as don't need it for work purposes and this was a total oversight.

Even though I rectified the situation straight away with the insurer, DH has been slapped with 6 points and a £300 fine . To my mind a ticking off would've sufficed but that's neither here nor there.

My real concern is that I now have to go back to the insurer to tell them about the points. Is there a risk they will revoke the policy or are they likely to view it as an oversight? Petrified

If it was his usual place of work it would come under standard insurance for social, domestic and pleasure.

Does he have his own appropriate insurance on a different car?

Why was he stopped? I would hope the police have better things to do than stopping random motorists and asking the purpose of their journey?

No reason, just random pulling over in a lay by, lots of other cars.

He'd been out to a meeting about 10 miles from his office.

Yes he has another car with business use included

Coming gone from a meeting is committing not business use. Business use of where you actually use the car for business, not just to attend a meeting. Something else going on here?

*commuting

@freshstartnewme the meeting wasn't at his designated work place so he was driving on business.

That's really unlucky though.

Sorry OP I missed that update about the meeting being offsite.

I missed it.

My real concern is that I now have to go back to the insurer to tell them about the points. Is there a risk they will revoke the policy or are they likely to view it as an oversight? Petrified.

Didn't they tell you when you called them to change it?

Depends on the insurance. Business use covers more than one address, normal social domestic insurance will cover commute to a usual place of work.. This was explained to me very carefully (patronisingly), when I tried to purchase business insurance which I knew I needed and they assumed I didn't

I phoned the insurer as soon as DH had told me to check the policy. At that point no penalty mentioned

Ah sorry my mistake.

To clarify, meeting was offsite and DH was returning to office.

So is it likely the insurer will take any further action (apart from hiking the premium?)

To those saying it doesn’t matter - it’d matter to you if OP’s DH hit you with the car, then the insurance refused to pay out.

To be honest i’m Surprised the company didn’t check this sort of thing - i’ve Worked at 4 separate companies now where I couldn’t drive/claim mileage expenses until a manager has checked my insurance to make sure I had business insurance.

Sorry op what do you think insurer will do? DH has an accident years ago commuting when he didn't have commuting on his policy (very young!) he wasn't caught by police but insurer just wouldn't cover the accident, his policy carried on as normal though. And they kept a record of the accident even though he couldn't claim.

I'm just worried that driving without insurance (albeit just the business part) will be considered serious enough to revoke the policy - even though it was a genuine oversight

This is way you never answer ANY questions about where you have been/are going. The police have no legal right to ask you and apart from providing your details, you are under NO obligation to answer any other questions.

is He a named driver on your policy OP? Does he have his own separate policy? If so, you'll Need to inform both insurers of the extra points on his licence.

Outoutout that’s the sort of advice that seems great until you piss the police off and they threaten to get you for obstruction of justice, they decide you’ve given them reasonable cause for search of the vehicle, and the initial ticking off you were going to get turns into fines and points for every single thing wrong with your vehicle.

OP got off lightly - they are technically allowed to impound the car as it wasn’t insured

He's too honest for his own good!

Yes am going to the other insurance company as well

He is a named driver on my policy

But we did he get the points for? And the fine? The police don't give points and a fine for having sdp on insurance rather than commuting. He must have been doing something wrong

Outoutout that’s the sort of advice that seems great until you piss the police off and they threaten to get you for obstruction of justice, they decide you’ve given them reasonable cause for search of the vehicle, and the initial ticking off you were going to get turns into fines and points for every single thing wrong with your vehicle.

The police are not allowed to use refusal to answer a question as a bootstrap to arrest you. Otherwise there would be no point in having a right to refuse. They are also supposed to issue a notice explaining why they stopped you.

That being said, you give up some rights when you chose to drive a car. But you are still entitled to be told why you were stopped before being asked any questions. Unless the police are operating in a zone the anti-terrorist laws as laid down by an officer of the rank of Inspector or higher.

We should all obey the law. Especially the police.

He was driving without insurance. He didn't have business cover.