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 keep blaming your dad and saying you were only 18. Your posts aren’t reading as someone taking responsibility for their past actions.

You have had it in for me throughout the entire thread. I have every right to put a complaint in the to company. All insurance companies legally have to offer this. I’m not doing anything morally wrong by attempting to fix this.

I KNOW I received the letter ffs. But I have worked in device insurance, which is admittedly a lot less high-stakes than car insurance, but we were expected to have everything watertight and on record. Even though they did send me the letter and I admit that to the FOS, it could still go in my favour that they failed to upload this to their online portal.

My past actions 😂

@GraceyBeaker early in the thread someone posted a link to a website where you can request a copy of your insurance history. Check there if the cancellation was indeed registered. https://www.mib.org.uk/managing-insurance-data/requesting-your-data
To be perfectly honest, I completely forgot that 15 years ago I had motorbike insurance cancelled within the first week of taking it out due to some mix-up with the documents I sent which the insurer claimed to never have received. The record of this incident is nowhere to be found and I have never declared cancelled insurance. I had 3 years' worth of motorbike insurance since then a long break and I am now in my second year of car insurance. Nobody has ever challenged me about that, although I have never had to claim on my insurance either.
Now I am not suggesting you lie but it would be wise to check with the database whether there is actually any record of this cancellation. As well as challenge the company for cancelling your insurance due to limited/no use as this clause is not in the t&cs as you say (and can't possibly be because, as I mentioned earlier, you need insurance for vehicles parked on a public road even if they are technically SORN)

@Mrsttcno1 is bang on, thanks for agreeing.

You are now saying your documents aren’t all in the online account when you KNOW you got a warning (which you ignored) and then a cancellation. I find it bizarre that you think you’re being responsible.

You are 100% in the wrong. You fucked up. We all do sometimes. It is what it is. Just focus on the solution now (which I know you’re also doing in between the ranting). I do honestly hope you find a solution as I think insurance companies are absolute scammers.

Oh no. Ask your dad to reimburse you!! Poor show on his part.

What you are completely failing to realise is that EVEN IF it “goes in your favour” that they did not upload this to the portal, the fact remains that you did receive it, you’ve admitted you received it, so at absolute best you might get some small amount of compensation as a good will gesture due to the fact that there is not a copy of the warning now.

The fact they don’t now have a copy of something that you and they both know they sent is irrelevant to the fact that you breached your conditions of insurance, received a warning, and the policy as a result was cancelled.

It’s not called “being out for you”, it’s called reality- and experience.

If it goes in your favour you’ll get probably around £150 compensation, not for this self-inflicted problem to disappear

Yeah! Trying to pin your fuck up on a company for not keeping a copy of a letter you know & admit you received is a bizarre way of taking responsibility 😂

It would be cheaper for you to go on your partners insurance? He can keep the Yaris as insured under his name and you can be added to it so you can drive the Yaris.

Why does it matter? Yes, the OP got the letter but if it is not logged with the insurer it may well be that the ombudsman will rule in her favour due to technicalities. Why is this not a viable avenue? Plenty of contracts are being disputed on the basis of poor record-keeping. And if the insurer can't prove that they notified the OP, then that's on them surely.
Or are you taking moral issue with this?

This.

Exactly! Technicalities. It’s not about morality.

Worst case scenario the case gets rejected but I can’t believe I’m being attacked for wanting to try 😂

The whole job of the FOS is it meticulously go over documents and records! That’s what they DO.

How is lying about not receiving a letter a better lie than getting added to your partner's insurance as a named driver? This is mad.

I bet if it were their own kids, they wouldn't be saying "Tough shit, you have to fork out 20k a year for the rest of your life". They would be trying every available avenue.
We have a saying in the NHS "If it's not written down, it didn't happen" Meaning that we can provide the best care in the world but unless we document it, we can be taken to court by a patient and have no way of proving that we did what we had to do. The onus is on the company to keep records, not on you. And if there is no record of the warning letter, then there is no warning letter.

@GraceyBeaker I have just read through and really feel for you, what an upsetting situation. I'm not totally sure why you're getting such a hard time. God, when I was 18 I would have asked my parents advice and probably done exactly the same thing, re the letters you got and your dad saying it's fine!
I don't have any advice but hope you manage to get a resolution and are able to drive soon.

I won’t be lying about the letter, I would be saying they failed to inform me properly. The insurance documents state in several places that any problems with the insurance would be added to my online portal, and this never happened even though I received the paper letter.

have edited the wording slightly, but in several places it says “If an issue arises with your policy, we will contact you and upload any correspondence to your online portal”. The company literally failed to do this.

I could even attempt to argue that I didn’t feel the letter I got was legitimate, as there was nothing in my online account like promised.

Because if the OP is able to have the cancellation annulled on the basis of poor record-keeping, she can start with a clean slate. Whereas if she commits insurance fraud, she will be looking over her shoulder waiting to be found out.

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

Do check though as our experience was that is did bring it down by £1000 for DD's insurance. I posted the figures up thread but it went from £2200 to £1200.

Also waiting 4-6 weeks, if this is possible, made a big difference. This was following advice from friends who have looked at insurance for new drivers.

The op has said several times they won't lie about the letter. Just that the letter isn't available online or from the company.

They've also said several times that they won't out her partner in a dodgy position by having him as the main driver on the car when that's false.

OP, a couple of people have suggested your partner insures the car in his name but with you named as the main driver, and him as an additional named driver. This is absolutely fine to do. On our multi car policy with Direct Line, DH had 2 cars insured in his name and we could specify which of the 3 of us on the policy was the main driver and who should earn the no claims bonus. It was the cheapest way for DS (19) to be insured to drive the 3rd car. In your case, your partner can insure both cars on his policy, but have you named as main driver for one of the cars (yours). The only difference I can see from our case, is that DH owned both cars on his policy, whereas your partner doesn't own both of yours. I do know though, that spouses can legitimatly take out policies on a car owned by their partner, because DH and I did that for several years too. It's worth him contacting someone like Direct Line who do multi car policies to see if it's an option for you while you try and get this situation sorted out.

Under no circumstances should you categorically state that you received a warning letter. Your recollection could be wrong. If you don’t have a copy and the company can’t produce a copy, then the letter doesn’t exist. There is zero evidence of its existence.

Memory is incredibly unreliable and for all you know you are recalling a different letter about a different issue or your memory has invented it altogether due to stress.

At most you can say that you think you may have received a warning letter at the time but it was years ago and you don’t have a copy and the company can’t produce a copy.

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers/complaints-can-help/insurance/motor-insurance/black-box-insurance-telematics

You aren’t the only one caught out it seems.