Just been pulled over by the police

[Outandabout43]

Fuming right now.

Been on a night out with work, partner picked me up, he is a named driver on my car.

Had issues with insurence when I renewed. Noticed policy was inactive after paying yearly fees. Spoke to insurence who apologised, stated the policy will be activated and gave £100 as a gesture of good will, this was in may

Police just pulled us over. Breathalysed DH driving the car and stayed we had no insurence. Checked policy and it's come up again as inactive. Have been told we have 7 days to prove insurence or DH will get 6 points in his license, this will effect his job.

I'm mortified. Obviously I'll contact insurence on Monday, but what if they say we are not covered. I've attached a screenshot of email provided by insurence but I'm really panicking now. What do I do??

No but you should check your insurance certificate and schedule when you receive it.

I've spoken to them and he is a named driver and even if he wasn't was insured to drove mine 3rd party.

No idea why he is not documented on the certificate, honestly this is awful

Apparently they have raised a ticket to add policy to MID and could take 5 - 10 working days. I said this isn't good enough as only have 7 days. What do I do now?

It takes 7 days for MID to be updated when your policy is renewed. I remember a police officer followed me into a shop because I was flagged as having no insurance during those 7 days. He accepted an insurance cert I had in my emails though, so it seems ridiculous that someone would still get points on their licence despite doing everything right. Would they use the same argument if there was an accident within those 7 days?
I would escalate this as much as possible OP.

Produce the certificate from your insurers which shows him named. Job done. If you don’t have a copy, get one.

Posted in error

A few years ago I had a letter saying my car wasn't on the MID. I called my insurers and they hadn't sent the information through to the database but assured me it would be updated the next working day, Monday. The police pulled me over on the Tuesday as I'd tripped a camera. I had an electronic copy of my insurance certificate but that wasn't sufficient apparently. Although they could have impounded my car they waited until my insurers opened at 8am and were able to confirm I was insured.

The police were great but my insurers weren't remotely apologetic. I hope you can get it sorted.

Technically the police are correct- it's whether your vehicle is showing on mid which counts as insured.
Please don't panic just call them on Monday first thing to get it sorted- demand they send you a bespoke letter for the police explaining that at that specific date and time of being stopped your vehicle was insured.

HOWEVER your husband may not be covered as you said he's not named,unless his own policy covers driving other cars for partners vehicle (unlikely most dont) he may have been driving uninsured.

What you do now OP is raise a complaint with your insurer. Actually tell them you wish to raise a complaint about their failure to correctly enter the details of your insurance cover into the MID.

That's not the case with all DOC cover.

Some policies do cover driving other cars regardless of them having a policy on them. Only certain insurers do it though.

(There can be another issue with that though in that all vehicles have to have insurance at all times, or be SORN'd, otherwise the registered keeper is committing a difference offence, but that wouldn't be OP's DH's problem anyway.)

I am going to suffer with paranoia now. I gave them £206 😫

From memory it is defence that you reasonably believed the car was insured. If you had all the documentation from your insurance company that you had a live policy then it would appear fair to argue you did reasonably believe the car was being driven by an insured person.
If the police pursue this I would get some advice from one of the law firms that specialise in motoring offences.

Sorry I missed one of your posts- if he's a named driver, if you've paid your insurance premium and they haven't told you otherwise the contract is in force. Therefore your insurers will have to agree to cover you and will send you a letter to satisfy the police. Please do not panic, if those conditions are met you'll be fine x

What? This is news to me and I’ve been driving for 30 years.

The covering letter or email nowadays literally tells you to check that they’re correct. If it’s not the policy holder’s responsibility to check everything is correct then whose is it?

Well yeah you obviously check the details of the policy you've bought, especially when you go through comparison sites. I spotted something wrong on mine (my fault). Usually easier with a paper document...

But I've never thought to check this MID database.

Check the details yes, but not to go online and check they have done their job correctly by putting it on the database.

Exactly, you check your certificate, not the database. I’m the person who looks at t&c and I have worked in traffic prosecutions and I’ve never heard of anyone checking the database for their own policy when they take it out.

She quoted a letter with it written correctly. Then proceeds to misspell it. Again and again

This is true. It could possibly apply here.

It is a (relatively) common defence on company vehicle insurance issues where the driver wouldn't necessarily have access to insurance details but should be able to trust the employer to take care of that.

Nothing will come of this. The car was insured. If there had been an accident the insurance company would have paid out which is the key point.

A clerical error which meant the MID wasn't updated does not invalidate the insurance otherwise everyone who takes a policy out wouldn't be allowed to drive until the MID is updated. And the insurance company would tell you that you mustn't drive until the MID is updated, which they don't. I suspect the person on the desk (likely a civilian rather than police officer) was talking out of their arse.

As a police civilian member of staff for 20 years who previously spent a number of years working in traffic prosecutions I can tell you that the person, officer or staff, have been presented with the insurance certificate for the OPs husband’s vehicle which wouldn’t have the registration number on it of the vehicle that they were stopped in when driving. The certificate for the actual car being driven should have been presented also. It might be that their third party cover for other vehicles included their partner’s car but it would be unusual as generally insurance companies don’t cover in those circumstances, you would have a partner as a named driver. By the time the ticket is processed by the force the police national computer may be updated which shows the husband as being covered. Personally I would be getting a certificate from my insurance company showing my husband as a named driver to email or produce at a station. My advice to OP is don’t leave it. As it’s your DH that was given the ticket he needs to check with the dept that processes the tickets that everything is in order else he could either get a summons for no insurance or failing to provide a certificate of insurance.

I've just checked mine and it's showing as not covered, it auto renewed on 8th (cert is on the portal and can see the payment on my cc), so that's a bit rubbish isn't it!

I think she's mistaken. The offence is driving whilst uninsured, not driving whilst insured but not being on the database.

No, you can't tell us that, because it's incorrect. OP presented both her own insurance certificate for the vehicle and her husband's insurance certificate.

I’ve just re read all the updates from the OP and you’re correct. He’s not a named driver on her policy for the vehicle being driven and he’s relying on the driving other cars section of the policy. They still need to check if he was covered third party for his wife’s car as it is from the same household and quite a lot of insurers don’t cover that under DOC. I stand by my final point which is to check what is happening and not for her DH to assume it’s sorted. It’s for him to make sure that he has provided everything, he got the ticket, he needs to check the DOC terms with his insurance company.