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??

Regarding insurance, if a police car is driving behind someone (driving quite normally) for example, are they actively checking everyone then? every time they see a number plate

Presumably this is done automatically by an on board system?

Just curious as this seems like quite a lot of checking. I always thought they only checked insurance if someone was driving erratically

That doesn't make sense.

If they were waiting in a layby and a car passed, why would they hone in on it and stop it for no reason?

They won't have the computer on checking insurance of every passing car.

No, we where very nearly home, over half an hour away from where I had been out. Stated it had flagged on the system I had no insurence.

It wasn't random. Their computer will have flagged up an uninsured vehicle. You don't have to watch many of the 'Motorway Cops' type programmes to see that many people who don't bother with insurance also don't bother replacing their tyres etc as often as they should and could well be driving dangerous vehicles.

I don't watch Motorway Cops :)

No she doesn't. She was under the influence.

He was breathalysed because he had no insurance, people that have no insurance are more likely to break other rules/be wanted by the police.

ANPR cameras are in police cars and flag up if a car isn't insured. This is why they were stopped.

But they do. Police have ANPR which scans the number plate of every passing vehicle and bings up an alert if they find that it's not insured or has no MOT. Then the police have grounds to stop it and check for other motoring offences.

It doesn't seem to be a random stop, they could tell the car was uninsured because it wasn't on the MID. They can actually seize your car at the roadside if it's uninsured so the email op showed them probably helped the situation somewhat.

Sorry the police were brash with you OP. There's no need for that and their training actually teaches them to be polite and deescalate. Sounds like all will be okay though!

Op , I used to work in insurance I'm sure this will be sorted this morning. But what you should do is say you will stay on the phone whilst they e mail you your certificate of insurance and you check you have received it whilst you are still on to them .

Totally understandable. Hope this is sorted for you quickly.

I guess it could, but the disc has on it the date to which it is valid, which the gardai can just instantly see. So what has happened here couldn't happen. I like having the paper discs, they reassure me that I haven't made a mistake and forgotten to do something!

Yes it could. A policy certificate can be issued and the policy could later be cancelled. Which is why it's all digital now.

Back to my previous post ask for a covering e mail too not just the certificate.

The police don't need a reason to stop you in the UK.
https://www.gov.uk/stopped-by-police-while-driving-your-rights#:~:text=The%20police%20can%20stop%20a,if%20you%20do%20not%20stop.

He wasn't breathalysed for no reason, committing an offence ( no insurance) is enough to get you breathalysed.

Or the car stinking of alcoholic beverages.

Why are people correcting the OP's spelling?

All that matters is that it is on the insurance database. Better to just check yourself

https://enquiry.navigate.mib.org.uk/checkyourvehicle

But you’re not ringing with a complaint. You have no insurance- this is an emergency so just call any number that’s available.

When you do manage to make your compliant, make sure that you get more than £100. Also take it to the ombudsman as whilst 1 is a mistake , twice is incompetent and you won’t be the only customer to have experienced this.

Oh that's interesting, didn't know that.

We've experienced this too. A police car followed us menacingly home for a couple of miles. They pulled us up almost outside our house and were quite unpleasant. I fetched our valid insurance documents whilst they breathalysed my partner, but they didn't want to know. We were marked as uninsured on the Ask MiD database. Eventually ofter much stress and many phonecalls Hastings updated the database (they had 'forgotten' to update it!?) and we were ok.

@MrsRobinsonsHandprints I thought it wasn't on the database that was the ops issue ?

they may not have been available at 1am, and prefer complaints on Mondays -Fridays, but the will definitely have call lines open on a Saturday.
Sound an incompetent bunch.

Don't worry OP, it's really not your fault and it'll be fine. You should press for extra compensation for the inconvenience though.

You can check on the askmid website: https://enquiry.navigate.mib.org.uk/checkyourvehicle

If it turns out that there is no policy in place you could potentially be prosecuted for no insurance also as you are the owner of the car and if the insurance isn’t in place you’ve allowed your DH to drive without insurance. Presumably your vehicle wasn’t seized for no insurance at the roadside or you would have mentioned it. As the officers could see your DH wasn’t insured and you were in no fit state to drive. That doesn’t quite add up that they have let you go on your way if DH is uninsured. Or did you have to get someone else to come out?