Am I Insured?

[kelfoan]

I need to drive my late uncles car to bring it back to my property. My insurance policy states that I am covered to drive another car with the owner’s express consent. As executor for his will I am responsible for his estate, of which the car is part. However would I still be covered to drive his car as he is obviously unable to give consent now. If not, any suggestions how I can legally drive the car to take it to my address?

[Arrods]

No worries NJ. (I'm currently on holiday in Australia and picking up the lingo already!). We are clear on the point about the 'causing or permitting' offence.

AXA's current policy wording does indeed (surprisingly to me) limit DOC to cars already insured. And, yes, the Saga cover is worded similarly - though it doesn't seem to state who the actual underwriter is.

I have to say I'd be pretty peeved if a car I was driving under DOC was seized just because it wasn't on the MID when I was able to provide what is, currently at least, the only valid proof of motor cover I.e. my motor insurance Certificate. It would get worse, because virtually all motor insurers exclude using DOC to recover a siezed vehicle from a police pound.

I still think motor insurers that include a condition about insurance being extant on the other vehicle are doing the motoring public a great disservice. In many instances it will simply not be possible to establish whether the other vehicle is insured.

[New Judge]

The new section 144A of the Road Traffic act requires, essentially, all vehicles to be insured in their own right (the wording is quite verbose, but that’s what it means). A person keeping a vehicle on the road without such insurance is guilty of an offence.

I can’t agree that insurers who insist on this legislation being complied with before providing DOC cover are doing their policyholders a disservice. On the contrary, I believe those who do not are potentially placing their policyholders in a parlous position. I say this mainly because of the potential for seizure. It would be no fun, even if you are immune from prosecution because you have a valid DOC provision on your policy only to find your mate’s car gets seized leaving you stranded because it is not insured in its own right. It’s perfectly easy to establish whether a vehicle is on the MID. The owner of the vehicle is perfectly entitled to query the database himself and I don’t think anybody would think of taking action if the other driver did so himself (even though technically he may be guilty of a minor infringement of the Data Protection Act).

I think the reason why insurers specifically exclude the recovery of seized vehicles from the pound from the DOC facility is that the purpose of the seizure is to remove from the road vehicles that contravene S144A. It would make no sense if they were to be released, still in contravention on that Section, into the custody of a person using a DOC facility.

As I said earlier the new Continuous Insurance regulations have been a complete game-changer for some aspects of motor insurance.