Has anybody been able to continue driving after having an insurance policy cancelled? I’m in bits

[GraceyBeaker]

I’m mid 20s. Passed my test yesterday, absolutely over the moon. I have a car ready for me, my partner’s old one. It’s a 2007 Yaris. The car did fail its MOT a month ago but it’s only a small part replacement that we will get round to doing now that I’ve passed. It’s essential I drive ASAP for various reasons. It’s too far to walk to most places and I can’t do buses, within 5 minutes of being on a bus I have to get off to be sick. I have severe motion sickness on buses.

Problem is, I don’t think I can afford any insurance. When I was 18 I tried learning with my dad and used a monetary gift from my grandparents to buy a little car. We arranged learners insurance, a black box policy. When filling in the forms we said we’d be practicing 2x times a week. However, my dad never kept to his promise of practicing with me, constantly fobbing me off when I asked and so we went months without using the car. This made the insurance company think we had turned the black box off and were driving without it, which resulted in them cancelling the policy. I received notice at the time that they were cancelling the policy but being a naive 18 year old I never realised it would affect me going forward, so I just let it happen.

Now when applying for insurance I have to declare I’ve had a cancelled policy, and my quotes are all £8000+. I have no idea what to do, I feel like I’m being treated like a criminal.

Any advice?

I think I'd be tempted to do the same, and deny ever having been warned that your policy was about to be cancelled. The onus is on them to prove that you got the warning then. Take screen shots of the relevant sections of your online record with them, and save them so that there'll be a date that shows when you took the screen shot.

It sounds like an utter nightmare.

If that doesn't work, there are specialist brokers who deal with drivers that have been banned etc, it might be worth trying one of those and explaining that the insurance was cancelled because you weren't driving, not because you got pissed and wrote off a streetful of parked cars or anything.

Best ask MNHQ to delete this, too, just in case there's someone who works for your insurer reading!

So you had a letter warning you that your policy could be cancelled? The fact that there's nothing on your online account doesn't mean much if you knew you'd had a warning; it's not the insurer's responsibility to keep sending you letters/emails/texts. As upthread, you cannot just 'go' to the FOS without going through the company's complaint procedures and even then, the FOS has probably got quite a backlog so it won't be an instant fix even if they do find in your favour.

No need to be snarky. I expect that poster is saying what came to my mind too.

Newspaper columns often have financial experts who can help on your behalf. They often print interesting or complex situations like yours and can advocate for you to insurance companies. I think your case could be taken on. I would seriously consider contacting the Money section of the Sunday Times.

I’m sure you didn’t mean to sound rude in your reply to me. Perhaps you misread my comment as a jibe 🤷‍♀️

I was thinking of those consumer champion type columnists. If I had never heard of this being a thing, im sure others have also never heard of it and it might be something they’d be interested in taking up on your behalf.

A quick Google brought me up the Guardian version of this, but there’s all different publications doing similar https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/mar/27/my-car-was-a-write-off-and-so-was-churchills-paltry-offer

It sounds to me like something that needs some sunshine on it as you shouldn’t be in a situation where you cannot get insurance. It’s ridiculous.

Also incorrect advice, there is no onus on the company to prove they sent you a warning.

People need to realise this is really, really, simple breach of contract. You agree to do XYZ, in exchange for insurance cover. You fail to do XYZ & so the insurance is cancelled.

My apologies, I thought you were accusing me of being a journalist. Genuinely sorry!

Actually that very much depends on what the contract says. Telematics policies are different to normal private car policies. If it says in the terms and conditions that they will give x number of warnings then they must do that.

May be worth looking at your documentation to see what it says regarding warnings.

Can your partner not take out the policy in his name and you be a named driver?

Well I obviously didn’t phrase it like that in the official complaint! The complaints portal had a section saying “How would you like us to help?” So I made those 2 suggestions. Then said if they can’t do either of those then I will take it to the FOS after receiving their final resolution letter.

That is called fronting and is considered fraud.

Why do the insurance companies have to give a warning though if op was in breach of the policy? Genuine question as I'm not clued up on this. I do really sympathise with op it's a really shit situation, but I don't think the insurance will accept any fault or budge on their position when technically there was a breach In policy and the op was aware of the terms and conditions.

Do you have the MOT certificate? It would show the mileage, which would show that the vehicle was not used.

Who’s name was it in ?

yeah okay good luck.

If I was you I’d be looking for other solutions now, such as being added as a named policy to someone else’s policy.

Company have 8 weeks to respond before you can even start the ombudsman process and then with back log the ombudsman could be another 8 weeks+. If you need to be driving ASAP then get in touch with providers who specialise in those with cancellations etc or get yourself added to a policy.

It depends on what the t&cs say. You will often find with telematics policies that you will get warnings for different things (eg speeding), and after x number of warnings your policy will be cancelled.

Telematics policies often offer warnings for certain things such as acceleration, speed, driving outside of the considered curfew times for the policy.

However for a simple breach of terms, which failing to drive leading to the box not working is, it is a simple case of “you agreed to X, didn’t do X, it’s cancelled”.

Insurers understand the significance of cancelling a policy and most don't void a policy without having given the insured an opportunity to provide evidence to prove they haven't breached the policy.

The wording of the condition is important and non-compliance doesn't always give an insurer the right to void.

The OP's warning letter was all they needed to do though.

Because T&Cs have to be fair, and giving several warnings instead of instant termination is fair.

Ignore the PP who has you bang to rights on breaking the policy. If you can show that their treatment of you isn’t fair, it could make the T&Cs unenforceable. It’s a long shot, but there is much more nuance in legal matters than ‘if you signed it, tough’. That’s why the courts are full of contract disputes.

In the meantime, on buses sit near the front and over the wheels (less bounce), get some anti-sickness pressure bracelets and stock up on ginger. Take off your coat / jumper, carry water and a fan, don’t read / play on your phone.

She was still a leaner driver and needed her dad to supervise. Dad made excuse after excuse and broke his promise to take OP out twice week!y.

I had a policy cancelled - different reason . I went into swimton and they gave us a reasonable quote

Ah okay, thanks for explaining I didn't realise warnings would be part of it

Don’t send this!

Those options won’t work. They can’t remove the cancellation - they have a legal obligation to correctly report and record this. The only way it’d be removed is if they were wrong; and you admit they weren’t.

They also won’t be able to honour insurance as if that factor wasn’t there, sadly. They have no obligation to offer you insurance again.

You can appeal to their better nature and plead with them to downgrade the cancellation, but they don’t have to and they won’t if you go in all guns blazing and threatening the FOS.

The FOS has a massive backlog of complaints and to be honest, you’ll probably have paid for the first year or two of insurance by the time they get back to you, so you really want the insurance company to help you out themselves rather than just say, “Nah, too hostile, good luck.”

Warnings not showing in your online account isn’t really an issue. They’ll be able to show that they are automatically generated and will have gone to you. You admit you got one. Unless you’re going to lie, you’ve got no grounds there. If you do lie, and they prove that you did get the letter - they only have to show that it was put in the post - you make your situation worse. It starts looking a lot darker if they start suggesting fraud.

I've had one cancelled. I thought they were taking the DD from a particular bank account but it turned out I'd mixed my accounts up. Too late to do anything about it when I discovered the issue.

I use Quote Detective and they've always got me a policy. They're never massively cheap but definitely nowhere near £8k.

As someone with a law degree, this is a really, really long shot. It’s almost completely nullified because OP herself recalls getting at least one warning. She wasn’t instantly terminated.

This is unbelievably harsh because it’s her Dad that let her down, but OP signed a contract that said she’d drive a minimum amount each month, so needed her Dad, a driving instructor or someone else suitably qualified to supervise her. She didn’t. They warned her, she still didn’t. They cancelled her policy. There’s nothing unfair in that, from the company. There’s a lot from her Dad, but he can’t impact on the cancelled insurance now.

And any legal claim for unfair treatment would likely take a long time to get heard, let’s be honest.

you’re welcome. Warnings might not be essential in this specific case, but equally it could be considered onerous if buried somewhere in the 20 page T&Cs is a clause that they enacted without warnings. My thinking is just that the OP may as well try to get it overturned as it’s going to cost her thousands in the next 5+ years. She’ll be no worse off for taking the company to the ombudsman.

I also agree with getting a newspaper consumer rights journalist involved, if they can. It’s an interesting case and newsworthy as insurance is on the rise - there was an article in the Guardian about it just a few days ago.