Pulled by police on the way back from service

[A3NDY L]

Just had my serviced today no problems, just needs a brake fluid change at some point. Cost me £300 which I thought was resonable. I had just driven my dad's office where I work (and the car is registered/insured), and could see police flashing me from behind. So I pulled over and he tells me I have no insurance!!!

This is news to me. On his system it says I haven't had insurance since 30/5/08. So i asked him to come to the office with me and we could get it sorted there and then. This was at about 6pm. I had a cover sheet but it was only for 30days and expired on the 30/5/08. the fleet policy that my car should be on contains alot of other cars, so the policeman checked the other cars, and the ones he checked all came back saying they were insured. So we tried to get in thouch with the insurance brokers, but they were closed.

He told me he would have to seize my car and if i could not prove it was insured i would have to pay £105 to get it back and go to court - and that i would be responsible for driving without insurance! 6-9points!!

he was the first nice policeman I've come accross. He gave me a slip and told me to produce proof it has been insured, within 7 days. and that i could keep my car. So someone at the company is going to have a hard time tomorrow! We think it is the insurance companies fault though, as we were told it was on the insurance when I bought it 3 months ago.

I shall write back tomorrow with the outcome.

 

[jcb]

by bizarre conincidence I have a similar story that happened to me this month!
I moved house in March, changed all addresses, even notified my insurance company.
I also got a new car and swapped the insurance over from the old one (same car just a new lease)
about 2 months into ownership of the car I get a call from the insurance company telling me I need to pay the £104 difference between the old policy premium and the new car premium. this was meant to have been paid automatically as they have my card details and take payments direct.

instead of that they had sent a number of letters to the wrong address and finally cancelled my policy (even though technically I have paid £450 up front ).
so without notice they left me with no insurance

now they could argue that I gave them the wrong address but they updated the address on my other policy and it was all correct
simple fact is they got BH instead of EH in the postcode and applied an address finder to it even though they had my phone number correct.

I gave them a scenario where I had a crash in the car casuing an injury and found out I was not isured due to their administrative negligence and asked the CS supervisor to try to imagine how much he thought I would be suing them for in this scenario......

won't be paying that £104 for a start, and that is before I get my teeth into them for some more cash!!


think I would be chasing the insurance company and your company fleet manager.
why would a company car have a 30 day cover note if it wasn;t just to cover the gap between being added on a fleet policy? doesn't make sense.

on teh other hand I am glad the police are actually checking this kind of stuff!

 

[SteveTDCi]

Have you checked the MID to see if its on there database ? insures do this for private customers but I have to add the cars to the list for our company, try this ..

http://www.fleetnews.co.uk/external_link/?sl=http://www.askmid.co.uk

 

[SteveTDCi]

actually i've just checked ( searched an old post hope you don't mind ) and your car doesn't appear on it. YOu want to have a word with your insurer ASAP and tell them you will passing any fines on to them.

 

[A3NDY L]

No I don't mind. Well i'll see how it goes tomorrow. If it turns out that i haven't been insured then it'll go to court, and then it should all be the insurers fault. I just can't understand having a cover sheet, but no insurance. I'm bricking it now though, because if it is MY companies fault then I'm responsible, even though i have nothing to do with insuring the car! glad I'm not going to be dealing with the insurance company as I'd be going mental

 

[quattrojames]

The Police get their data from PNC (Police National Computer) which in turn gets its data from the MID. Something like 99% of insurance companies are registered here, but not all. Hence when the police check your car if your company is not registered with the MID then your car will appear to be uninsured.

Section 165 of the Road traffic Act allows the police to seize your car if they "reasonably suspect" you have no insurance - different forces have different policies on what the reasonable suspicion means. When you take your policy document to the station then they will see that you did have insurance in place clearly no charges will be brought.

If however your car has been seized already then you would be able to reclaim the costs of recovery from the police force in question. Harsh but true. But at least it does keep people who are genuinely uninsured off the roads.

 

[SteveTDCi]

Is the insurance your own private insurance or is it on a company policy ? if its your insurnace then there is nothing to worry about its your insurance companies problem, if its a work policy then i'd be having a word with them, technically the car is insured but just doesn't appear on the MID database, companies/insurers have 7 days to notify the MID of changes, that includes removal of them.

 

[A3NDY L]

Its a company fleet policy.

 

[RosMc]

Its MIB, not MID.

Motor Insurance Bureau.

 

[marriedblonde]

How did you get on?

J.

 

[PetrolDave]

Its MIB, not MID.

Motor Insurance Bureau.

MID is the online database http://www.askmid.com :icon_thumright:

 

[A3NDY L]

Well we rang the insurance broker, and they had no idea, so we rang Zurich, and they still had no idea, but within the terms of the insurance it says any car owned or leased to the company is insured. Which covers me, luckily. so got to keep the car. on the database thing, it still sayd its not insured - so I don't know whats happened there