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About 3 weeks ago I was pulled over outside my own home coming home from work. I was made to get in the back of the police car and informed I had no insurance for my work van. I knew this to be incorrect and gave them the name of the insurers. They rang the insurers and were told that on December 16th the insurers had tried to take payment but the card was declined. I thought there had been some kind of mix up and my wife rang them herself. It was true they had tried unsuccessfully to take payment.
The police seized my van, issued me with a summons saying I would be fined 300 with 6 points. Devasting news for someone who has never even had a parking fine in 40 years! We rang the insurers back and asked them to arrange new insurance as I needed to get my van for work, only to be told by a youth 'oh our insurers won't touch you with a barge pole now',
bearing in mind we have been on automatic renewal with them for some years.
We did get new insurance and paid 150 to get the van from the compound. It occurred to us why had no one contacted us to say the card had been declined (the company had been taken over so new cards issued) and also the police and the new insurers were quite shocked that we had not been contacted. We decided to contact the insurers again and ask them this. Actually spoke to a very sympathetic lady who gave us her name and log on details and she told us 'normally we would write to customers and tell them their card had been declined but December to March are our busiest times so we are not allowed to. Sometimes we send a text but we only have your landline number! ' quite unbelievable I think.
With this information I thought I would go to a solicitor. The first one said you are wasting your time and the next 2 wanted £1500 . I really didn't have this kind of money to risk do I decided to pay the fine and take the points. At this point I hadn't realised the implications of getting more insurance on my own vehicle once points on licence.
my wife wrote a letter of complaint to the insurers, and finished it by saying we would go to the Ombudsman.
They rang me very apologetic, saying in view of this feedback they are changing their way of working and a letter is in the post. The letter has now come and it has a headed from them stating that I was insured on the day I was stopped for that 24 hours.
Intially I thought there were insuring me again as a gesture of goodwill and that the date showing only one day was an error so I rang them. They just said send that off to the MIB and you will be fine. The will refund your £300 and quash the points. I really don't understand this. Do you know how this works. What sort of letter would I send to the MIB. I thought the Dvla dealt with this sort of thing.
any advice would be greatly appreciated
The police seized my van, issued me with a summons saying I would be fined 300 with 6 points. Devasting news for someone who has never even had a parking fine in 40 years! We rang the insurers back and asked them to arrange new insurance as I needed to get my van for work, only to be told by a youth 'oh our insurers won't touch you with a barge pole now',
bearing in mind we have been on automatic renewal with them for some years.
We did get new insurance and paid 150 to get the van from the compound. It occurred to us why had no one contacted us to say the card had been declined (the company had been taken over so new cards issued) and also the police and the new insurers were quite shocked that we had not been contacted. We decided to contact the insurers again and ask them this. Actually spoke to a very sympathetic lady who gave us her name and log on details and she told us 'normally we would write to customers and tell them their card had been declined but December to March are our busiest times so we are not allowed to. Sometimes we send a text but we only have your landline number! ' quite unbelievable I think.
With this information I thought I would go to a solicitor. The first one said you are wasting your time and the next 2 wanted £1500 . I really didn't have this kind of money to risk do I decided to pay the fine and take the points. At this point I hadn't realised the implications of getting more insurance on my own vehicle once points on licence.
my wife wrote a letter of complaint to the insurers, and finished it by saying we would go to the Ombudsman.
They rang me very apologetic, saying in view of this feedback they are changing their way of working and a letter is in the post. The letter has now come and it has a headed from them stating that I was insured on the day I was stopped for that 24 hours.
Intially I thought there were insuring me again as a gesture of goodwill and that the date showing only one day was an error so I rang them. They just said send that off to the MIB and you will be fine. The will refund your £300 and quash the points. I really don't understand this. Do you know how this works. What sort of letter would I send to the MIB. I thought the Dvla dealt with this sort of thing.
any advice would be greatly appreciated
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