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).

Some readers might be interested in this case of a legally blind man, driving without a license, who killed someone. Doesn't mention insurance, but I doubt he had any.

www.vancouverislandfreedaily.com/news/b-c-man-driving-legally-blind-without-licence-gets-two-years-for-fatal-crash/

Her doctor should be telling her not to drive, then she needs to tell DVLA and her insurance

Why is everyone saying she's gong to kill someone? The optician has said her sight is still good enough to drive.

However that doesn't mean she's not breaking the law, but maybe she doesn't care about a criminal record at her age.

I've got to say, her sight may be good enough to drive but are her reaction times?

@amicissimma

If the optician has declared her fit to drive I think the insurance company would have a hard time getting out of a claim on those grounds.

I also think that DVLA would be unlikely to take away the licence of a driver on bad vision grounds if the optician says she is fit to drive.

Macular degeneration can mean anything from a slight reduction of vision in one eye to severe loss of sight in both eyes. Her optician will have a better idea of the situation than a load of randoms on an internet forum.

This. All day long.

A

OP, sounds as though you have a good plan. Best wishes to you. Thank you for being bothered about this.

Macular degeneration is no laughing matter. Means she can't see well in dusk or dark, it changes her depth perception, irreversibly changes her sight - my mum has the same. Horrible stuff. I do sympathise.

But she has to tell the truth on her car insurance. What if she hits someone and kills them??

So I have experience of this, both from my husband having his licence removed due to a (different) eyesight condition. And through my work in car insurance.

She needs to tell the DVLA (you can do this online). They will likely ask her to see particular opticians for a particular type of eye sight test. They usually use Specsavers in my experience but there will be others. And there will be one local (my husband had his done on a remote Scottish island so trust me - they'll have someone local).

Insurance wise it may increase her premiums but it depends who she's insured with. The company I worked for did not take it into account. It had to be declared, but they felt that it was straying in to disability discrimination and did not increase premiums. This isn't the same across the board so it's worth her shopping around.

@Transitory73 I think you have made the right decision and if she is deemed fit to drive by the DVLA and it's declared to the insurance company this has got to be better for your mother than worrying about being found out.
It's difficult for everyone involved when the tables turn and children have to start making decisions for their parents.

but worse still, if she hits somebody else and injures or kills them, her insurance won’t cover them

Just for the record, this wouldn't mean hat they wouldn't be entitled to compensation. They could claim through the Motor Insurers' Bureau.

There are so much more risk to elderly person driving, I think this is too serious to leave it and hope for the best. Definitely option A.

Show her this:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-53471392

My mother drove for fifteen years with macular degeneration in both eyes, fully declared, no problem.

As soon as her vision became almost bad enough to be too bad to drive, she stopped voluntarily - a real pain for her, widowed, living fairly rurally with a next-to-useless bus service, but she knew it was the right thing to do.

@Transitory73 Is your mother having her MD treated?

If not, it is presumably not that bad.

My Mum is older, doesn't drive and has MD.

She has been having injections into her eye for about 3 years now, every 8 weeks.

Her sight touch wood is stable and as she's had both cataracts removed, her eyesight is better than mine. She doesn't even wear reading glasses.

If your mum is not being actively treated, the MD is likely to be very very minor.

Having said that, I think many people of 86 ought not to be driving anyway. My dad gave up at just before 90 and that took a lot of persuasion but his reactions were simply too slow.

If your mum is not being actively treated, the MD is likely to be very very minor.

OR very bad and not able to respond to treatment.

Which is it?

Yes, she’s having injections in both eyes to stop the MD getting worse. It appears to be working, but she’s still having the injections.

@Transitory73

Yes, she has been renewing it every three years and no, she has not told the DVLA. I could kill her.

For her it’s about loss of independence, but they don’t live in the middle of nowhere. She can walk to the shops easily, and to the train station, and she can afford taxis. I think she genuinely believes that if she’s in a crash she could just cry a bit and a kind policeman would pat her on the shoulder and make it all go away for the sweet old lady.

Not if she killed someone. I was almost run over by a 90 year old with poor eyesight who ran a red light.

My mum's MD is the Dry type which does not respond to injections - she has never had any treatment for it

As an aside, she refuses to drive with any of her grandchildren in the back of the car because she “couldn’t live with herself if anything happened”. The irony! Stubborn elderly others, eh?

My brother and sister are wimps who run away from difficult conversations, so this one’s on me.

Elderly MOTHERS, not OTHERS!

I’ve been in a similar situation - father with undeclared dementia and heart disease.

Insisted he declared both to the DVLA but they passed him on medical evidence.

I think they should have refused it but the bar is quite low.

Jesus. Her insurance is worthless. She basically isn't insured. It's invalid. She needs to know this and if it means you fall out then you will at least have a clear conscience. If she killed someone's child (or anyone) you would never forgive yourself. Her GP might inform them so maybe contact them as a way out?

@Transitory73

As an aside, she refuses to drive with any of her grandchildren in the back of the car because she “couldn’t live with herself if anything happened”. The irony! Stubborn elderly others, eh?

My brother and sister are wimps who run away from difficult conversations, so this one’s on me.

So she knows that she isn’t safe then, doesn’t she. It’s just she only cares about not hurting a member of her own family, not someone else’s. I understand how hard it must be for her to accept getting older and losing her independence but frankly, that’s just tough! Her right to driving is massively trumped by the right of others to safety

My mil has MD that is being treated and has been declared as fine to drive