Advice for those with car insurance!

[Calmasacloud]

For goodness sake check the small print and don't allow your husband to do these things without double checking!!!!

I apologise for being unclear but am a little bit worried and need advice.

My husband had an accident on the way to work last week. He hit a van which broken down on the road in the dark. Because he hit the stationary vehicle he is 'at fault'. He started an insurance claim, but whilst looking at the documents has realised he is only insured for leisure and domestic use. Eg he will not get any insurance. He is in effect uninsured for this accident although he does have insurance and the police who were present at the accident checked this.

So, is he classed as being illegal and as an uninsured driver. He was not trying to get a good deal and be fraudulent...he genuinely bought the wrong policy? We no he will not get any insurance and will be liable for the damage (write off) to the van and his car alongside the other driver's courtesy car. What else will he be liable for? Do you know whether he will have to pay the fee for the assessor who values the car even though he will be telling the insurers on Monday that he will no longer be pursuing a claim?

Please help. Never been in this situation and want to resolve it as quickly and as cost effectively as poss and move on.

Thanks for the warning, OP.

Luckily my insurer's SDP policy does cover commuting to a permanent workplace.
What about if a person drives as a one-off or even for a few days with colleagues to a workshop or conference elsewhere? I wonder where that lies insurance wise.

Agree it is easy to miss things in the small print.

When DH was renewing his car insurance a few years back, I was reading the small print, and the small print in the policy stated that the car had to be kept in a garage when at home. At the time we were living in a flat, with only an allocated space in the car park. This invalidated his car insurance - luckily he hadn't needed to make any claims.
DH had started insuring his car through this company when we lived at a property with a garage, but when he'd called to tell them about the move, they didn't ask him about changes to parking arrangements.

lljkk - if you're not insured for business use, then even if you're only doing it as a one-off, you're not legally insured.

Most companies I've worked for remind employees to get business cover on their insurance if they're going to need to use their own vehicle on company business.

I had to do some short term driving in my own car on company business a few years ago. I rang up my insurance company to ask about getting insurance cover for business use - I was initially thinking about just getting short term business cover IYSWIM - and they changed my policy to include business use for no extra cost.

It says on the Certificate what the insurance is for, im looking at mine now since i've just renewed.

As far as I know, even travelling to a different site for a day or two would need business use added to the policy.

I added business use a few years ago when I was teaching and needed to transport a child in my car. It didn't cost any more, they just added it on. SInce then, I've always had business use on my policy.

So sorry this has happened to you, OP. We had a similar thing happen to us last year. Thankfully we discovered that neither DH nor myself were properly insured for the cars we were driving before either of us had an accident, but if I hadn't made a chance phone call, it could have been very different.

I hope things work out OK for you, OP.

I have business use and i dont even work.

Thanks, I was just pondering this other night. I don't even have a job yet, lol, but good to be prepared. :)

ShellyBoobs - thank you very much

When I looked at getting car insurance when unemployed, many sites wouldn't let me insure myself for business use as I didn't have a job!

OP, I'd go with just being totally honest with your insurers.

Let the claim process continue and just answer anything they ask.

As has been said, they may only ask for an additional payment to cover the increased premium you would have incurred if the correct cover was in place.

Fingers crossed for you!

Which company are you with OP?(if you can say)

Also - insurance policies don't always include the use of a hire car / courtesy car if your car is damaged in an accident.

A colleague of mine got caught out by this - someone drove into her car, and it was in the garage for a few weeks. She'd assumed that she'd get a courtesy car, but her insurance company said that this wasn't in her policy, and she'd have to pay for a hire car herself if she wanted one, even though the accident was someone else's fault.

I checked with my insurers about this after my colleague's experience, and my policy didn't cover the use of a hire car following an accident either - they said that they'd removed this as a standard thing in order to cut policy costs. They charged me an extra £8 to have this added to my policy.

Another thing for people to bear in mind if not having access to a car following an accident would be a major inconvienience. Although obviously this is minor compared to not realising that your car isn't insured for commuting to work.

Allow the claim to be processed, answer all questions truthfully and never, ever lie.

You may find you are covered and/or the insurer doesn't pursue this line of enquiry. The amount of small print in a policy, it's very hard to be certain sometimes exactly what is and is not covered, as some clauses can seem to contradict.

But, never ever lie to an insurer.

Policy documents specifically says "excluding travel to any place of work". That's why I don't think he can claim anything, not even for the third party. He was going to work.

Sorry, that sounds pretty clear cut. A bit nasty putting that in the small print IMO as I bet they get out of thousands of claims by putting that in
Do you mind telling me who you are with so I can avoid them?
Good luck!

Mine says, "Policy covers: Use for social, domestic and pleasure purposes, use by policyholder in connection with the business of the policy holder".

Sorry but there is an awful lot of misinformation floating around this thread. The OP's DH is covered for third party risks no matter how the cover for driving to/from work pans out. Whenever an insurance policy is taken out, you have bought the minimum legal cover everyone is required to drive on the road i.e. third party cover. Legally, that does not change unless the insurance company take legal steps to void the policy and retrospectively refuse to indemnify i.e. insure for even the basic legal minimum cover. It's the rest of the cover that is under question in this case and in all honesty, it's not something that is considered a major breach of the T&Cs of most policies. Every ins co deals with these things differently but it's never as black and white to say no cover, your policy is void and you are then stuck with a claim for thousands as well as the cost of your own car's damage. It will depend entirely on the individual circumstances of the OP's DH, and then how the company view this oversight.

Even if the policy works our cheaper without the work commute cover, again, there is the option to simply add the cover, and charge the additional premium. That is something that happens a lot more often than a total refusal to indemnify a policyholder if they have failed to answer all questions accurately when taking out their insurance.

As I've already said, it's up to the insurer to decide if there is an issue with indemnity, and then what action, if any, they'll take to address that. The basic TP cover is still valid, and won't be removed on the basis the policy did not have the correct level of cover for driving to work. It's probably best for the insurer to handle the TP claim as then the cost can be controlled to an extent and not spiral etc.

Another warning I would give to people who use comparison sites. They filter results on approximate details it seems.

My experience: I have entered x, y and and results return.... Select cheapest option -read reams and reams of hard to fathom poorly laid out detail and small print only to find they have substituted my x,y and z with something else.

I go back to start search assuming I made the error inputting x, y and z but no.... The site of the insurer pre loads a different answer. Change it to what it should be and suddenly price jumps up.

Return to search and select another insurer and repeat until you find one that has carried details across correctly and offers level of cover you need without having 'add on' extras that bump it up to a bigger price. (This was moneysupermarket and only happened a couple of times but did happen). Beware!

Insurers are spectacularly inconsistent on what they do and don't care about, in my experience. I nearly got caught out like this when DH needed to start using his laptop for work use and wanted me to check it was covered- it specifically wasn't and we had to switch policies. I spoke to several insurers and they ranged from wanting a ludicrous extra premium to not even having an option to record what the laptop was being used for.

I pointed out to one that loads of people use laptops or smartphones to check work email and surely the risk didn't change. Made no difference, there are underwriters out there who consider my company's email program in a different category of risk from my own one, apparently

Hermione that is a very good point to make and is why you can never anticipate how the insurer will deal with the OP's dilemma. I started working for one that took breaches seriously but dealt with them fairly. Now, I work for one of the largest who genuinely couldn't care less about even major breaches. Hence my advice to not highlight this to the insurer and let them pick it up and determine what happens.

My last renewal only had sdp, luckily I noticed. It's very easy to miss

In my experience all my policies have included the commute to work, but only say social, domestic and pleasure on the document.
I know it includes commuting as I always say / check. I think "domestic" tends to cover it.

I recently had to add business use as I occasionally use my car to go to meetings (cheaper than the tax payer hiring me a car to go 7 miles!!). I was dreading it thinking "this is going to cost loads", I was surprised to learn one policy already had it and to get it added to the other was a £10 admin fee!!!

I would urge anyone to contact their insurance companies, double checking / adding something costs nil, or almost nil!!

Oh, I have a question! I have SDP cover. It's only me on the insurance, and I don't have a job. About once a week, I might drive DH to work. Am I covered for that? It's not my place of work I'm driving to, so I assumed I wouldn't need cover for driving to work.

You need to look at your own policy, MrsG.

My papers doesn't say anything about commuting, but their website emphatically states that their regular SDP does include commuting to a permanent workplace (DirectLine).

I've just re-newed my insurance and noticed the commute/non commute option for the first time. I think making this distinction is relatively new, I guess to try and bring policy costs down. Bit of a bugger for those of us used to commuting being included as standard and don't really think to check it.

MrsG my interpretation would be you are covered as you do not have a place of work. Giving someone a lift somewhere once a fortnight isn't regular enough for it to be considered an issue. And as you are the PH and don't have a place of work, that argument wouldn't stack up if an insurer chose to take issue.