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?

You aren't allowed to do this.

The other - allowed - option is to see if adding her partner as a named driver, with the op as the main driver, will bring it down. It did for us.

Honestly, it’s not that bad. Start talking to some brokers for goodness sake and stop catastrophising! There are loads of drivers out there who have had insurance cancelled and yet have found other companies willing to insure them for a reasonable cost. Worst case you wait five years and get a policy from Direct Line, but it won’t come to that. You’ve got a bit of a double whammy for being a new driver with no no claims, but you’ll get something. You might have to do a bit of legwork to find the right broker, but ask around locally too, you might have a good independent one near you.

It is exceptionally annoying that insurance companies can and do do this, but it’s not a criminal record, it won’t show up on a DBS and if you keep a clean driving license then the significance will gradually recede as it becomes further back in time. Take it as a life lesson to always read through insurance policies (any type) and pick up the phone and talk to them if you’re ever unsure about the t&c and whether you’re complying.

I’ve had a policy cancelled, I’m with Halifax now and have used Tesco previously, both questions were have you had a policy cancelled in the last 5 years?
which mine was in 2013 all cos i didn’t send my driving licence in as was eating it for new one with my married name. So from 2018 I was clear of it.

Why are you so bothered about this? It. Does. Not. Matter. You received it, you know you received it, and you claim to be an honest person, so it literally does not make one jot of difference whether they can send you it again or not unless you’re going to lie and say you didn’t get any warning.

Let that go OP it’s irrelevant

What does the actual email say. I took out new insurance last year but I was rushed in to hospital and never sent them my no claims in time so they emailed to say wev cancelled your motor insurance policy. There's no mention of telling others I've had it cancelled and at the bottom it says- . We’ll have to let the Motor Insurance Database know you’ve cancelled. The Police have access to the Database, so you need to obtain alternative cover straight away.

Therefore they said at the bottom I've cancelled.

I won’t share the actual email because I’m sure it would give away the company to anybody on this forum who works in the industry. But it basically said they have cancelled the policy due to not receiving black box data. Then some waffle about how I still owe them one more payment. They didn’t mention what to do about this cancellation going forward

As they can't prove they sent you a warning letter, I would complain about the cancellation and say you were never warned. I'm sure they have to give you a set amount of notice before cancelling it. Pretend you never got the actual letter in the post! Or have you already told them you received a warning letter?

Yeah I’m pretty sure they’ve buggered up their document-keeping somewhere. They produced a copy of every other document I asked them to, but not the warning letter. Even an unrelated warning letter due to a bounced direct debit earlier on in the policy is available on the online account. So there is no valid reason why the warning letter about the black box shouldn’t be there. But as PP’s have said, I do know I got sent a paper copy and I won’t deny that because I don’t want to end up in more trouble. But maybe the FOS will argue they could’ve done more?

@GraceyBeaker have you looked over your old policy docs to see if it explicitly says anywhere that you need to drive the car for x amount of time within a certain timeframe in order for the policy to stay valid?

Just tell them you never received anything in the post if it's not in the portal. Who gives a fuck about morals or right and wrong and opinions of strangers on the Internet. End of the day you were only a learner driver and shouldn't have your insurance affected as an actual driver now for such a stupid cancellation reason. Not driving enough as a learner, means less risk of crashing and less chance of a claim so its a ridiculous policy in the first place.

IT DOESNT MATTER what letter you had when. Let it go. You are never going to successfully appeal this this or get the cancellation withdrawn by your previous insurer. By your own admission you didn't comply with their requirements, they warned you the policy would be cancelled if you didn’t act and you didn’t so they cancelled it. Ignorance is no defence in law, it means that you can’t wriggle out of something by claiming you didn’t understand. It’s on you to make sure you do understand.

Look forward not back now.

it does not state a specific amount that the car should be driven anywhere in the documents. Just that the black box should be activated and receiving driving data throughout the duration of the policy. The correspondence I received just said I wasn’t using the black box as much as they had expected, and that they ‘wanted to remind me’ that the policy is only valid if I’m using the black box.

Hang on
Are you planning on driving this car with a failed MOT?

No. I’ve said twice that we’re not doing anything until the car is repaired, but clap clap

Op the financial ombudsman is the regulating body of insurance companies. Follows these steps:
-contact the company in writing and state you wish to complain. Explain that you're complaining because as a youngster their assumption of your black box being turned off and lack of adequate information to explain the impact of this on you wasn't made clear. As such you are now being financially impacted moving forwards and they would have known this was a risk to you when cancelling your policy but didn't care to investigate sufficiently before making such a big decision. Explain that you want this not only resolved, you want a written response ASAP that they have received your complaint and will look to rectify it ASAP by removing and rectifying records showing that your policy was cancelled enough that your future insurance isn't affected.
2)once you have complained it is VERY important you let them know that without a response confirming they are working towards resolving your concern, you will be forced to contact the financial ombudsman to make an official comment. FYI, if companies have to answer to them for a complaint its a big fine before things even get going so it is very much in their interest to help you when you raise this.
3)if they do not help, contact the financial ombudsman. I have had to do it before and they are excellent.

Make it very clear also that the longer they take to investigate the longer you remain impacted, also make it clear that when the issue occurred you didn't know how this would affect you hence you only contacting them now and make it even clearer that they could have and should have done much more I.e anpr on your car to shown it wasn't hitting any cameras or in use and diagnostics on the box etc.

Good luck! Don't be scared this wi get sorted

That does seem incredibly harsh OP. I’d echo finding a broker who can find an insurer that only asks about cancellations for the previous 5 years.

I would also add a second driver even if they’re unlikely to drive the car very often. They don’t have to drive it regularly. Even driving it once on the insurance policy would make them being on there perfectly valid!

incredibly helpful post, thank you

OP, I mean this nicely, but you need to take responsibility and accountability. 18 isn’t a child. You had Google, you had a lot of access to information and blaming your dad is wrong. He may have let you down, yes, but you should have picked up the phone. When I was 18 (I’m not much older than you) I was in charge of my parents whole lives - you need to accept this and it’ll do wonders for your future in other ways.

Others have given really great advice on steps forward here, but I think someone needed to tell you to stop blaming others.

How the hell have I not taken responsibility for goodness sake? I’ve spent the whole bloody day on the phone to different companies. I didn’t ask my dad to do it Christ.

Totally agree.

Focusing on this letter not being traced when OP knows full well they received it & also knew full well the terms they agreed to when they took out the policy but now acting like this situation was not their fault, baffling

I really can't understand why you can't just add your partner to the policy instead of thinking of all the elaborate ways to complain about the previous insurance company? It's a much more straightforward route.

I don’t see how adding my partner as a secondary driver is going to bring it down by more than a grand or so

OP you’ve been repeatedly banging on about this letter not being on your portal WHEN YOU KNOW YOU RECEIVED IT.

You’re desperately trying to find a way to wiggle out of something that was and is entirely your doing- that is not taking responsibility.

Great! Try them OP.

I agree. You need to get over the letter.