Unusual car insurance situation

Columbo · 19 Apr 2018 at 11:37

Firstly sorry about the long post.

So my brother in law is a self employed plasterer and a sub contractor for a guy that owns his own building company. Because he basically solely works for this firm he added the works van to his own car insurance policy so he can use it himself because the van has different drivers at times depending upon the type of job etc.

Now at the weekend the company owner had an accident in the van and as it turns out due to an administrative error (I dont know what this is) the van insurance is invalid, so the only person legally insured on the van is my brother in law who wasn't anywhere near the accident and wasn't even actually at work.

Now the company owner has admitted liability to the accident and admits that the error was his own fault, however for some reason the other persons insurance company (LV) have somehow gotten my brother in laws details and are hassling him to admit liability.

He has told them to that he wasn't there, has nothing to do with it and to go away but he received 6 calls on Tues and yesterday received a whole load of forms to sign etc and some further calls. The company owner has in no way ever asked, mentioned or suggested to him to admit liability or passed any details about him to the LV and my brother in law didn't even know about the accident until LV called him first thing Monday morning, so....

Firstly he is obviously not going to admit liability.
Secondly I thought about going to the financial ombudsman and reporting them but would anyone suggest something different?
Thirdly why would LV even try to suggest this?

Any advice would be very helpful.

dvinell · 19 Apr 2018 at 12:07

I'm guessing that LV see extracting money from your brother in law's insurance company as an easier option than trying to recover it directly from the owner.
I'd be very wary of signing any forms that LV send through - it's not his accident, so he should keep his distance as far as possible, just keep repeating that that he was not driving at that time.
LV have no way of linking your brother in law to the accident unless he incriminates himself: after a while, they'll get bored and try another route.
Accidentally incriminating the owner could result in a frosty relationship at work, so yet another reason to keep the whole thing at arms length if at all possible.

Invertigo · 19 Apr 2018 at 12:14

So he had a private insurance policy on a company van that was also meant to be covered on a company insurance policy?

Columbo · 19 Apr 2018 at 13:06

Invertigo said:
So he had a private insurance policy on a company van that was also meant to be covered on a company insurance policy?

I don't actually the know finer details yet, he's coming round tonight. He suffers from severe dyslexia and stuff like this gives him sleepness nights.
Ironically he has never actually driven or ever even been in the van.

Martynt74 · 19 Apr 2018 at 13:13

Because of the van being insured. Could the company owner claim on his private insurance in a third party capacity?

Not sure if there's issues around it being a company van though.

andicole0 · 19 Apr 2018 at 13:16

From moneysavingexpert.com.

You can insure the vehicle on two seperate policies, however, you would not benefit from this. If dual insurance exists (more than one policy) each insurer has to pay a contribution towards any claim. Therefore, both policies would then lose their No Claims Discount anyway.1 Jul 2011

Not quite sure how this works in real life but I would expect a bit of a messy argument to come. Is there legal cover on the policy as I would invoke that.
Andi.

Rroff · 19 Apr 2018 at 13:17

Sounds like there is some information missing to me and/or the company owner not acting in as good faith as it appears face value.

tom_e · 19 Apr 2018 at 14:11

This is why you make sure to cancel any insurance when you sell a vehicle because they will come chasing if it's then involved in an accident and you're the one with insurance on it. He's in for a rough ride.

muon · 20 Apr 2018 at 00:02

Unfortunately, if the only valid insurance policy on the vehicle is your brother's then there is a serious problem here.

The question is who now pays for the claim. The Article 75 bit in the link below is important.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTA_Insurer

In a normal scenario where there is a single policy on the vehicle, even if the insurance is invalid, the insurance company will still have to pay costs to any third party. What has happened here is that the first insurer has seen there is a second policy and passed the buck to the policy that hasn't been made invalid.

Your brother needs to speak to his insurance company asap (if he doesn't then the people claiming will). Insurance liability is not simply about who was driving the car at the time.

Columbo said:
Firstly he is obviously not going to admit liability.
Secondly I thought about going to the financial ombudsman and reporting them but would anyone suggest something different?
Thirdly why would LV even try to suggest this?

Any advice would be very helpful.

There are two insurance companies for this vehicle. One of them will end up paying for the claim. The first has attempted (potentially correctly) to avoid liability by voiding the policy. The "administrative" error is either a lie i.e. the vehicle wasn't insured, or lies were told when buying the policy.

As I said before get your brother's insurance company involved so they can fight his corner.