Car insurance cancelled due to undeclared named driver points!

[Rukshi6]

Hey, I really need some help! My now ex partner got an involved in an accident which was his fault, driving my car. He is the named driver and I’m the policy holder. He didn’t tell me he had two motor offences, an IN10 (8 points) and a CU80 (0 points) dating March 2017. I renewed my policy twice in May since then and didn’t declare those points. This accident happened in May and I decided to claim for my own car damage 2 months later which is when they did our licence check and found his points. Theyv declares the policy void and are asking me to recover the third party costs. Is this fair or right? I was misled by him, and didn’t know about the points but gave them information to the best of my knowledge. Am I expected to do my own dvla check on named drivers? I didn’t even know you could do that until now. Also, can they not recover their costs from the driver rather than me? They’r telling me I’m responsible so liability falls on me but in their terms it says “In those circumstances, we reserve the right to recover from you or the driver, all sums paid (including all legal costs), whether in settlement or under a Judgment, of any claim arising from the accident.” it does say “you or the driver”. In this case shouldn’t they go after him?

Iv taken it to the financial ombudsman but just waiting to get a final response from Admiral before they do anything.
Iv always been honest myself with Admiral, even told them when I was involved in a minor non fault accident that I didn’t claim for. My licence is clean also. I’m so stressed about this because there’s two personal injury third party claims that haven’t been settled yet and vehicle damage of nearly £5k already. I’m looking at £10k or more.
If anyone’s been in a similar situation, can you tell me what I can do? A lawyer has told me that he’s not sure Admiral wouldn’t have insured named driver even with the IN10 offence and said if I can prove that Admiral would have provided cover if all the info was correct, then I could just pay the extra premium. But, Admiral said they wouldn’t have. Need to find out if anyone has been covered with Admiral with IN10 offence. Also need to prove that I didn’t deliverately misrepresent, which I wouldn’t have. He barely drove the car, and it was more expensive to have him on, so it’s not like I added him to reduce the premium for myself.

It was your insurance it was your responsibility to check that the information you gave them was correct.

I'm sure it states that the info you have provided is truthful and correct ? Will he pay ? Presume not as he's your ex. Did he have his own policy for his own car ? Could you claim against that ?

Hi, I work in insurance and I'm sorry but Admiral are correct in what they are stating although they are being quite harsh. As the policy is in your name you are responsible for making sure all information is 100% correct. You could go on the internet and run through a quote with Admiral and put those convictions in and see if they will quote, obviously his date of birth etc. We have known people have to pay insurance companies back and they dont expect all the money back in one go, dont know if that is any small comfort. Sorry you are in this situation, its so wrong of him not to tell you about these convictions. Let me know if you need any more advice.

Why should YOU have to pay when it was your DP who had the accident and it was his points that caused the car to become uninsured?

I can see why (harsh but within rules) Admiral may cancel insurance and claim off you. But you should be claiming that in turn off XDP - both in terms of the 2 personal injury claims AND the damage that HE did to YOUR car.

YOU should not be out of pocket for an accident that you were not involved in.

I agree. But they’ve said ultimately it’s my responsibility and quoted their general conditions:

“General Conditions of Your Cover

1. Your duties

You will be provided with the cover set out in this policy if:

• you or anyone else claiming cover under the policy has kept to all the terms and conditions of the policy
• the information confirmed on your Motor Proposal/Renewal Confirmation Form or when registering a claim is true and complete’

So because it’s MY duty then they are liable to cover costs from me. I could take my XDP to court but means more costs for me and I don’t really want to have to do that.

At the moment he’s saying he won’t pay, but I’m sure he will pay something if I ultimately have to pay.

But I really want the financial ombudsman to uphold my complaint and decide that the cover is still valid but a higher premium will have to be paid to have both drivers covered even with the motor offences declared. If this fails, then at least to decide that my DP should be liable to pay, not me.

I think you will have to take your ex partner to court and make it his problem. He’s the one in the wrong. What a complete knob he is.

Your DP is not and will not ever be liable to pay. He does not have a contract with the insurance company. Their contract is with you. You have to pay.

If you then want to try to bring some sort of claim against him then that is up to you

You need to prove that they would have covered him then the additional premium could be paid. Have you ran a quote through ?

Admiral cannot possibly know if you deliberately withheld relevant info or were ignorant of it. Either way the policy as it stands is void, hence the request.

I would imagine you are responsible for the costs relating to the accident. Your car, your insurance policy. Then presumedly you can take your ex to court for the costs, completely unrelated to the insurance company. None of their business that you were essentially ripped off by your ex partner.

If your going down that route you need to prove they would have covered him, have you ran a quote through ?

Dont know why that posted twice!

not many insurance companies will cover someone with an IN10 - its a charge for driving without insurance.
If they wouldn't have covered him with the points it would appear to them that you have fraudulently not declared them to get insurance.

If you do go to court to claim off him, make sure that you remember to add in any costs of your insurance costs going up in the future due to him not telling you (did you ask him or just expect him to have told you - might make a difference, I don't know...) and thus having problems with insurance.

Was he an ex when he drove the car and still on your insurance? Sorry this has happened to you, it must be gutting when you think you have done the right thing and somebody else's mistake/lies/omission/whatever cause such a big nightmare.

He wasn’t an ex at the time. Our separation is really recent. Iv tried to do an online quote with admiral stating the IN10 offence but it said they couldn’t give me a quote online, but to call them. I’m gona try and call them and see what happens that way.

I really don’t want to go to court with anyone. I guess it’s my word that I didn’t deliverately avoid telling them about the offences. Which isn’t enough I guess in court. The consumers act (disclosure and misrepresentation) 2012 states something about showing reasonable care when u give information, and proving that something was declared deliberately. I don’t know how I could use that

Going to court is a long way down the line yet. What will happen is that Admiral will have to pay the third party out under the Road Traffic Act as there are injury claims this is likely to be at least a years time. They will then come back to yourself for the money, at this stage you can then try and get your ex to pay. The third party insurers will be pursuing Admiral as the vehicle is insured they will not pursue your ex direct.

Also forgot to say if you ring them for a quote and give your vehicle reg they could know you are already insured with them. So really you should get the reg of a similar vehicle so the quote can be as like for like as possible.

Yeh I will ring them with another vehicle and maybe even other names and details.
I was confused because admiral gave me the option of having just me XDP voided on the policy and policy cancelled anyway, but told me I wouldn’t have to declare that Iv had insurance cancelled, but would still have to cover the cost of third party claims. Second option was to have both of us voided on the policy and insurance cancelled but still pay third party claims. I don’t know why they gave me these options when both still require me to cover their costs. I’m assuming that maybe the second option means that if both of us were voided then essentially the third party’s had an accident with an uninsured driver so MIB would cover the costs. But Iv been told MIB would just come after me for the costs. I think admiral are still required to pay under RTA because the car was insured at the time of the incident.
The law is so confusing!

The difference here would be for future policies, so when you take out another policy you are always asked 'Have you ever had insurance cancelled or refused ?' If you say yes to that question then you yourself could have trouble getting future car insurance, so choose the option of just having him taken off the policy. You are correct in that the MIB will not cover the cost of this claim as the vehicle had insurance at the time of the accident. Have you spoken to your ex yet ?

You need to be careful putting in different details even if you're just getting quotes - there was an article in the paper recently about someone who was getting a quote, couldn't remember exactly when she had had a prang/speeding points (something minor, can't remember exactly what) so guessed and was a year out. She just wanted to get some approximate quotes - maybe she was buying a new car or moving or had seen an article about good deals - so to her it wasn't a big deal, she was just looking for a ballpark figure.

She then discovered her insurance had been cancelled - because she had put down the incident as being 4 years ago instead of five, the computer systems picked it up and flagged it against her current policy - who went eek - that's different from what we have - and assumed it was correct so cancelled the policy. As she knew it was just an estimate and not the real thing that she would have confirmed when doing properly, she didn't give it a thought and didn't spot the letter from the insurance people saying about it until much later.

Not good - particularly as there must be loads of people who do similar, putting in best guesses for things when they want to do it in a hurry just to see. i guess you need to put accurate details in as your last attempt if you try various things (not least because trying variants is suggested as a legitimate practice, especially if you have a job that doesn't fall into their exact categories but could be one of several sort of and they have different price implications).

I'm sorry you are finding yourself in this predicament but of course it is right you should be responsible otherwise anyone with a suspended licence could do the same ang get insured that way.

It is your licence and in any doubt shouldn't agree on someone else being named driver.

Thankfully you will have the option to sue him for any payment you'll have to make though.

My licence is clean. I understand that it’s my responsibility to ensure the correct information is on the renewal confirmation. But i did ask him about the points and he said he didn’t have any. We found out after we agreed to do the licence check. He said he didn’t know about them but that’s obviously a lie because he would hav had to be stopped. I asked him if he was stopped and he doesn’t remember being stopped. Unless they can catch you on cameras for driving uninsured and being on your phone at the same time. I doubt that. N that’s why I believe he deceived me so I can permit him to drive the car cos he didn’t have another. I just think it’s really unfair to say it’s totally my responsibility especially when the other driver is withholding the right info so they can drive. And if it should be entirely my responsibility, they should have advised me to do a licence check on every renewal or have done it themselves. Didn’t kno anyone can do a licence check. Actually, in the past, Iv had insurance companies ask for a copy of my licence - admiral have never asked.

I just think it’s really unfair to say it’s totally my responsibility especially when the other driver is withholding the right info so they can drive.

But you took responsibility for him. The same as if you'd added him as a named cardholder on your credit card - you couldn't say you didn't know he was going to commit fraud; if he did; you'd be liable. He would be acting on your card.

It's the same here. It's really, really unlucky for you and it is awful, but you took responsibility for him and he was lying to you. He has points. As a result of those points; he probably would not have been offered insurance with Admiral; based on a quick internet search. That means your policy was void; as you didn't declare all the relevant information, and as a result you will owe Admiral for what they paid.

As others have said; legally this is quite clear. Note that I'm not saying it's right or that I agree with it, just that it's clear. You took a contract with Admiral and allowed him to act, essentially, as a vessel of you. That makes you liable to Admiral. If he misled you; you'd then claim against him in court. You'd pay Admiral, he'd pay you. You're going to have to look seriously at doing that if you don't think he'll voluntarily give you the cash.

Hi

I have a question as well, because i have seen you are working with an insurance company....

So back in 2016 i have been a named driver on someone else's policy, i received some point due to a traffic offence and i declared it, then few weeks later the insurance company sent a letter to us, saying they will need to remove me of the policy due to the points.

Now i am looking to get an insurance again, and to be fair im not 100% sure about what would be the best answer for:

" Have you ever had insurance policy cancelled or withdrawn ... ? "

Any help much appreciated:)

You need to explain the situation to them. If in doubt you should say yes.