Elderly mother fibbing on car insurance

[Transitory73]

I think that I’m in the right, but would appreciate some insight.

(I’ve namechanged for this).

My mother is 86. She learned to drive in her fifties, and has had a car ever since. My father is still alive, and doesn’t drive.

I discovered today that when she renewed her car insurance earlier this year, she deliberately concealed a medical condition. She has been undergoing treatment for macular degeneration for a year.

She’s just acquired a new (to her) car, which arrives next week, and because she goes to pieces when she has to deal with any kind of call centre, I called up on her behalf to ask for her insurance to be adjusted. After I’d made the call, she said, “you didn’t mention my macular degeneration did you?”

I was furious with her. She thinks that everything is ok because she had an eye test at the optician earlier this year, after she’d renewed the insurance having failed to disclose her eye condition, and the optician pronounced her fit to drive.

I don’t know what to do. I’ve had it out with her today and explained to her that she has invalidated her car insurance by concealing her condition. If she crashes her car, no insurance but worse still, if she hits somebody else and injures or kills them, her insurance won’t cover them. I think that she’s committing fraud, as well as being selfish and irresponsible.

None of this cuts any ice with my mother: her response is, “stop going on about it” and when that fails, “you’re really upsetting me now and I can’t cope with the stress at my age”.

She’s worried that her car insurance will go up, but my view is that if you want to carry on driving in your eighties, you need to pay the appropriate car insurance premium. She can’t understand why her premium is almost £1,000 even without disclosing her eye condition. The answer, of course, is that old people have more accidents.

What would you do?

A: tell her that if she doesn’t call her insurers and disclose her condition, I will.

B: leave well alone, on the grounds that she is an adult who can make her own decisions and take her own risks.

(The problem with B, of course, is that it’s not just herself she is putting at risk).

You only have to notify the DVLA if you’ve got macular degeneration in both eyes. If it’s one eye and she’s passed the ‘visual standards for driving’ they don’t require it..

www.gov.uk/macular-degeneration-and-driving

However I would notify both the DVLA and the insurer regardless - we went through this with my dad, and the DVLA were terrific. They deal with this all the time. Even if your mum is fit to drive now you should very aware that she probably won’t tell you if her eyesight gets worse.

A.
A pensioner drifted into oncoming traffic and killed my DM and another young woman and badly injured two others. He got a suspended sentence because of his age. I have no parents now. My DC lost their GM. I'm only in my 40's.
Please think hard about the possible repercussions of doing nothing. Real people live real tragedies because of people like your mum.

Id be phoning her insurance company.

I'd phone both her insurance company and the DVLA and find out what the penalty is for not declaring her condition - then I'd present her with that evidence and tell her that if she doesn't declare it then you will. Old lady or not, the law still applies. Does she want a criminal record?

Option A. You could talk to her about what would happen to your dad if he was a passenger if she crashed without involving any other vehicle. Surely she would want her insurance to pay out to treat him!?

p.s. I don’t think this angle is the most important either but I’m trying to think of what you can say to get her to do the right thing here 🤷🏻‍♀️

Option B, she’s a grown woman and can do as she pleases, she’s not a child.
I really agree with you that’s it’s a terrible idea, if she is found out she will struggle for all types of insurance such e.g. home insurance, it won’t just affect car insurance. It’s fraud no insurance will touch her.

Not sure why you're asking randoms n the internet. Ask a lawyer. No, not about your mother, about your position in aiding and abetting fraud.

Options B. She is an adult, stop micro managing her.
She knows the actions to her decisions and unless you think your mum lacks capacity to make decisions, you need to leave her to do it herself.

If you tell her insurance company it’s the end of all insurance for her, she will need to use specialist brokers costing thousands, she needs to ring and change it.

A
At 86 she needs to give up driving, sell the car and use taxis or public transport

Could you look into policies with the condition disclosed and see how much they are? £1000 seems a lot, maybe if you shopped around and showed your mom it actually won't be much more?

*@Savingshoes

Options B. She is an adult, stop micro managing her.
She knows the actions to her decisions and unless you think your mum lacks capacity to make decisions, you need to leave her to do it herself.*

Do you know what macular degeneration is???

If not look it up!

If she killed one of yours because her eyesight failed her, would be ok with the fact that she wasn't stopped?

If someone didn"t stop a drink driver, would you also think that's ok? They just went "I didn't want to micro manage", well that's just fucking fine when my child is dead I the road!

I personally couldn't live with myself if I didn't step in!!!

Shame on you!

Would it reassure your mother to hear my experience?

I was really worried about declaring and always answered "noting that affects my ability to drive" with a no when talking to the insurers because it genuinely hand on heart doesnt affect my driving as I wouldn't drive at times when I'm impaired. Plus GP, consultants, never advised on driving. I was scared of being open and being hit with a huge premium or worse still struggling to get insurance.

Then I had to renew my driving licence and that was it, I had to declare.

It was hella stressful because I didn't know what was going to happen. The first letter from DVLA scared the poop out of me because it said they needed to assess me and get more info and I might lose my licence.

I spent almost a year on tenter hooks whilst they prosessed my information and then they sent me to see my GP for a fit to drive assessment. I was open and honest. At the end we agreed that yes, sometimes my condition means that I am not fit to drive but I'm sensible enough not to drive at those times. He recommended I be allowed to continue to drive with no restrictions and the DVLA agreed.

Now when renewing my insurance I just select I have a medical condition, DVLA aware, no restrictions and that's that. No increase in premiums, no problem getting insurance, all okay.

With your Mum she might have to have assessments every couple of years, but they're honestly not a big deal.

I used to work for an insurer which specialised in the over 50s. I was really shocked to find out that although it is the 17 year old “boy racers” who have the most accidents, the drivers who have the worst accidents - the multi car pile ups, the kill 5 people at a time accidents, are almost exclusively older people, primarily over 80. So much of it is down to older people equating driving with independence and freedom. Older people who really shouldn’t be on the road due to medical or physical issues (ie your brake reflex is hugely impaired when you are older) were invalidating their insurance like your mum, killing families and then leaving survivors with nothing.

But this is a really hard message for someone who wants to be independent to hear from their child.

I can tell you want to do the right thing - but putting yourself in the firing line will make your mum angry with you, rather than face up to the actual issue. Can you band together with siblings/ family friends to sit down and talk her through the facts?

@cptartapp sorry for your loss

Very difficult for you, I had an elderly relative in the situation who thought they were 'ok' with all the family pussyfooting around them until they finally had a 'prang' (old people's word for bloody crash).luckily no one hurt but could have been. They decided themselves to give up licence but not before time....

also in many other countries e.g Germany, Romania etc people have a thorough medical every 5 years no matter what age they are...if they are not fit to drive for whatever reason they have their licence taken away, simple and safe.

My sister was nearly killed by a man in his 80s who drove through a red light straight into the side of the drivers door. She was taken away by ambulance. He refused to go to A n E. We suspect he should not have been driving at all, as he died shortly afterwards from cancer and could have been driving while on morphine or other strong painkillers.

Why is everyone going on about her killing someone? The optician declared her fit to drive (verified by a third party who was present). If it's only in one eye and not yet very developed, it will have no bearing on her ability to drive. My aunt is blind in one eye and still able to drive.

Yes she should declare it from the point of view of legality and possible claims by a third party, if it's definitely asked for by the insurance company. And yes if it's asked for by the DVLA (and I'm not sure why it shoudl be if the optician says its fine). But ranting to her without checking that it actually IS required seems a bit premature.

I'm not in UK but over here at that age you need to psysically renew your driver's licence each year. You need a medical. Having worked in the Insurance industry if a condition comes up we ask for their licence. If she was involved in an accident it wouldn't invalidate her insurance. They still pay out. She is supposed to declare it though and if she did she would be told to get onto driver's licence authority. Lying for a licence is illegal and Insurance Companies go with that.

When is her licence due up? Is there a similar procedure in UK?

cptartapp

Really saddened and sorry for your loss x

Thanks for your contributions, and I’m sorry about the posters whose families have been damaged by careless older drivers. Thanks for sharing those experiences.

My mother has macular degeneration in both eyes. I believe that the optician thinks she is fit to drive: when she went for the eye test earlier this year, I made sure that a trusted and sensible family member went with her. The same family member insisted on staying with my mother during the tests and verified the result with the optician afterwards.

Here’s my plan:

• tell her that she has to declare her condition to the DVLA or she’ll be fined £1,000. If she doesn’t, I will.

• explain that if the optician believes that she is safe to drive, the DVLA will accept it and not take away her licence.

• find out what the DVLA need to see in order to be satisfied that she is fit to drive.

• when my mother provides the evidence the DVLA need, notify the insurer of the macular degeneration, and tell them that the DVLA and the optician consider her safe to drive.

Then if she needs to pay a higher premium, so be it.

If I need a bit of leverage I’ll try the “you’re paying £1k for invalid insurance that won’t cover you, so I’ll just call up and cancel it, shall I?” line. That might do it.

I’d already tried the ‘if you seriously injure someone else, the insurer can recover the cost from you and that means goodbye house and savings and goodbye to ever getting insurance again’, but she didn’t want to listen. She’s my mother but Christ, she’s a selfish old woman.

I assume those who say option B wouldn’t mind if OPs mum crashed into them or ran over their child because of poor eyesight?

Option A is the only option. Because it’s not just her at risk. She could end up killing someone, because of her selfish choice.

If it was only her who was at risk then absolutely let her crack on. But not when she’s choosing to put other people’s lives at risk.

If she can’t cope with the stress of this at her age how would she cope with the stress of a potential fatal accident?

Since you have already called on her behalf I would do it again and disclose her eye condition.

A