Car uninsured for 5 months - no accidents - should I / can I retro insure?

[MaryQueenOfSpots]

I went to renew our road tax and couldn't do it online as our insurance wasnt registered. Having tracked back it seems that our new car insurance company took a payment, then refunded it and havent taken one since. My DH arranged the insurance online and neither of us noticed the lack of monthly payments

We are usually very responsible (honest) and am horrified that we've been driving uninsured. Obviously the priority is to insure ASAP (car is already off road). So can we retro insure with the original company as clearly there has been a mix up- our no claims discount will go down the toilet if we can't but I'm more worried about being "done" for driving illegally for the past 5 months.

Hope someone can help

I would ring the insurance company up first of all.

your no claims discoubt should be valid for two years as long as you can explain the break in cover so that might be alright - its usually if people give up driving though rather than this. have you been on to the insurance company? if they cancelled your insurance they are supposed to give you 14 days notice to your last known address (i think, its been a while since i worked in motor insurance). tbh i would find out why it was cancelled first, they might blame the bank but in any case they should have written to you, with the last letter being sent recorded delivery

Thanks for replying.

DH spoke to the insurance company and the short version is that we are insured (phew), but DH stressed about starting a new job today chronically disorganised.

The tedious long version is that the cancelled payment is from the old insurers. It turns out the new insurance company hasn't updated DVLA database so we couldnt do the road tax. Also DH gave them details of a bank account we don't usually use for direct debits so didn't think o check this account

Thanks for the advice. It's good to know they would have sent a letter, rather than just cancelling.

Just the road tax to sort now

phew thats good! the company i work for send 3 letters if they cant take a payment from the account and the last one goes recorded so youve gotta sign for it and cant say you didnt get it.

glad its all sorted!