Lack of insurance cover for not informing them of penalty points

A member of my family was recently involved in an accident. He was the second named driver. He drove into the back of someone and someone then drove into the back of him. He forwarded his driving licence on to the insurance company. He had 3 points on it for a driving offence 3 years ago that they did not know about. The company have suspended the claim. what is the likely outcome.

Many people do not realise that in the event of a speeding offence it is necessary to inform your insurers and if you are a named driver on other insurance policies within the family, all insurers should be notified. Failure to do so can result in the insurer “refusing to indemnify” , which means that not only will they not pay your claim, but they will look to you for the payment of anything they have to pay out to any other party. It is always worthwhile arguing the point with your insurer and looking very carefully at the policy conditions.

In terms of what can be done on this particular claim, the fact that there may have been no valid insurance does not affect any liability issues and therefore the rear damage will still need to be paid for by the insurers of the vehicle behind. If there has been any injury, this is more likely to have been suffered as a result of the rear impact than the frontal impact and therefore the injury claim should succeed, probably on a 100% basis. However, so far as any claim being put forward by the driver of the vehicle in front, unfortunately this would have to be paid for by your family member, as would your own vehicle’s frontal damage.

In this regard, it will be necessary to obtain an independent consulting engineer’s report which divides the total repair cost up between the frontal and rear damage.

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