Think I had an accident whilst uninsured! HELP

[Spirallingallthetime]

I need help, I'm spiralling into a hole of worst case scenarios and I need someone to tell me what's likely to happen in my case.
I work in health care and normally never do home visits. Friday evening, on my way home from work, went to a clients house to drop something off.
Of course I had an accident.
I was on the left side of the road, needed to turn right into a driveway, indicated, slowed down, started to turn and a car tried to overtake me at incredible speed. Front of my car, hit the front of their car.
Thankfully, everyone is fine. They immediately accepted fault and apologised profusely. Was all very civil.
My insurance is SDPC only. This home visit apparently counts as business use. Aviva can apparently choose to decline any help!!
When reporting the claim, I already told them it occurred on a home visit so they are now aware of the fact.
I reported the claim online, and they have sent me a link to book the repair and get the hire car.
I haven't been able to speak to anyone cause its the weekend!
Am I going to wake up to an email stating that because I'm uninsured, I'm going to have to cover the cost of the repairs etc myself???? And if the other party claims they were not at fault then I'd need to cover their repairs as well??
Helllllp.
Also I know that this was a STUPID mistake on my part not getting the right insurance.

As long as they would have insured you for business use then in all likelihood they’ll just charge you the extra premium and you’ll be fine - obv as the other person was at fault then it shouldn’t be an issue. It becomes a problem if you’re at fault and if they would never have covered you in the first place for business use. If that were the case they can just void the policy from inception as if it were never there.

Thank you! This sounds promising. The other party completely admitted fault at the scene so hopefully they don't change their tune. I'm just soooo worried that they will void the policy.

One thing to consider is not going with the hire car company they set you up with as it may be an extortionate amount that they try and reclaim some of the costs back from you.

The best thing to do is call the other drivers insurer, who should set you up with a reasonable costing hire car. The reason for this is you need to be seen as mitigating your losses.

Agree. If the other side admitted liability go direct to them for hire and repairs.
Change your policy to include the correct use.

That was a real rooky mistake.

They may void your policy and you are technically uninsured.

You would be liable for your own repairs, because you shouldn’t have been in the road.

The other car can claim via uninsured drivers -

You should be grateful there was no injuries.

As long as they would have insured you for business use then in all likelihood they’ll just charge you the extra premium and you’ll be fine

After an accident? It is very unlikely they would do this.

I've never heard of an insurance company doing this.

Changing mid-way through a policy because you forgot to add it on, fine, but not after an accident has already happened and you're trying to make a claim.

I used to work in insurance and dealt with Aviva a lot , honestly it could go either way . They either charge you the extra or void the policy . I would try and claim directly from the third party insurers , if liability is admitted by them then this shouldn't be a problem at all. Find out who they are and contact them direct , just say you don't won't your bonus being affected / can't afford the excess so want to claim directly from them .

Check your policy carefully. There is general business use but also incidental use that is generally covered in most policies. You might be covered if you were just calling in somewhere on the way home. Forgotten the wording but I did once check because I used my car to occasionally visit another site and didn’t need business insurance for that.

Oh gosh! This is what I'm worried about. If they void the policy, does that mean I'll be on my own moving forwards? Or do they deal with stuff, then come back to me if they are unable to recover the costs?

If they void the policy it means you have no policy, and in effect at the time of the accident had no policy. They would not have anything more to do with you or the accident at this time.

They would need to reimburse the policy premuim though

😥I guess I need to wait till lines open tomorrow then. Do you think I should pre-emptively call and explain it all, or just sit tight and see how it plays out?

Hi OP. I’m no expert but I think I’d sit tight and see how it plays out without drawing any more attention to the fact it was a home visit. The main thing is that the other driver was at fault and admitted liability, so costs will be covered by his insurer, not yours.

Hopefully it will all be dealt with smoothly with no more mention of it being business related, and then when it’s all sorted you can add the business use on to the policy going forward.

Try not to worry about it.

Sorry OP but this is the most likely outcome after there’s already been an accident, also worked in insurance and where it’s already occurred they are far more likely to void the policy than they are to just retrospectively charge.

Yes, in fact I believe they are required to if it’s cover they would’ve provided for an additional premium at inception. If it’s not cover they would’ve offered at any cost they can void the policy.

I’m surprised your work didn’t ask for proof of insurance if you were doing home visits. All of mine always have

This is not correct, if it was then nobody would ever bother getting business insurance and paying extra for potentially YEARS because they would know on the rare chance they get into an accident then they can just pay a smaller amount at that time.

Having worked with multiple insurance companies none of them would do this, it would be a simple void of the insurance. You were insured to do X and did Y, so therefore were uninsured.

Having spent hours sorting business insurance, my insurance said the same it would go to adding the £1.50 to my excess if I had an accident. It would have cost me more to get it added to the certificate in admin charges, luckily they wavered the admin charges.

FOS would disagree with you. It’s not black and white but if it’s cover that would’ve been offered then they should look to settle the claim. The only sure fire get-out for the insurer is if they can demonstrate they wouldn’t have offered that cover at any cost.

Could us link us to the relevant advice?

Every year thousands of people find their holiday insurance doesn’t pay out because they didn’t declare a pre-existing condition, or because they did an uninsured activity. How does this happen if you could simply pay the extra premium for winter sports after your ski accident, or a few hundred extra it would have cost you in health insurance following a stroke after you have been landed with a £300k medical bill?

Do not call up and stick yourself in the shit. Sit tight, they've already said they'll sort your car so either haven't noticed or don't care. This would be way more difficult if you were at fault but they're fixing your car as far as you know right now so go on that assumption.

Did you go to the home visit from your home or return to your home after? You could say it was a commute to work potentially. More tricky if it was office to home visit back to the office.

What did you actually drop off to the clients house and was it part of your job?

Eg are you a nurse at a doctors surgery and dropping off bandages for the district nurse OR were you dropping off a personal item (eg the client visited the GP surgery and left her scarf behind, you were passing that way on the way home and offered to drop it off.

I would consider the first scenario part of your 'work/business' but not the second scenario as you just took it upon yourself to be neighbourly rather than a work duty. Maybe insurers would view it the same way?

I'm wondering if it was a "client visit". You were dropping something off on your way home, so does that count? In any case, the other party has admitted liability so your claim is against them.

Here you go:

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/businesses/complaints-deal/insurance/misrep-and-non-disclosure

It’s been discussed at length on Pistonheads obviously in relation to motor insurance. I suspect the response might different between a claim of a couple of £k where someone has genuinely forgotten to add business cover or declare a non-standard set of wheels vs a £300k PI claim where someone has lied through their teeth about a litany of things.

Thank you for the link. I don’t think it is quite as clear as you make it out to be but I also think if she read her fine print she might well find the amount of activity she undertook that could be considered ‘business use’ might well be covered by her policy anyway.