insurance

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Sat 29 Oct 2011 21:20
insurance - quadrant

Can any one can help?

Hi, I may be in the wrong forum but here goes any way.

My wife left to go and visit family for a few days, she has comprehensive insurance and i drove her to the airport. I also hold comprehensive insurance for my own vehicle. both of us were under the impression that we were covered by our comprehensive insurance to drive any car. After dropping my wife to the airport i returned home and parked my wife's car on the drive and went to work in my own vehicle. When i returned home later that evening my wife's car was gone and the lights to the house were on. We had been victims of a burglary! and to top it all I was not covered to drive her car on my insurance or hers, the question i have is:
Given that my wife had left her car in the care of an uninsured driver are we still covered for the theft regardless? Please help! I get the feeling from the insurers that this is the road they are going down.

Thanks in advance to anyone that can advise

Peter

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Sat 29 Oct 2011 21:58
insurance - Ethan Edwards

My experience. I parked our car in a car park at a railway station in a reserved space where the rear was protected by a chain and posts. Several hours passed and some person swiped the side of my car. Drove off, no note or anything (Gits). The stations 'CCTV' mysteriously saw nothing. I had to have a new wing and two new door skins on a five month old car. The back door never opened smoothly after that. Anyway the company held ME responsible and I got the 'accident' recorded against me as I had been the one who parked the car many hours earlier. That really sucked.

Luckily I was a named driver.

But my opinion is that it was hardly my fault. But the company has to have someone to blame and it turned out to be me. I still resent that but thats the way the cookie crumbled.

I reckon your right and you'll have to step up and take the 'blame'. Maybe you should get some legal advice.

In any event I don't understand why you both are not named drivers on each others policies. It may cost a small amount extra but your situation is a good example of why it's essential.

Hope it works out for you.

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Sun 30 Oct 2011 14:29
insurance - quadrant

My policy is a comercial Van Policy

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Sat 29 Oct 2011 21:58
insurance - jamie745

Who owns the vehicles in question? Do you own both or your wife own both etc

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Sun 30 Oct 2011 14:17
insurance - quadrant

Hi My wife is the owner of the car

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Sat 29 Oct 2011 21:59
insurance - Falkirk Bairn

Tell the whole story to police/ins company

1) Took wife to airport and dropped her off

2) Came back home & went to work later on

3) Finished work & came home to find wife's car missing and house lights on - burgled, car keys inside house presumably used to steal the car.

4) Called police & Ins Co

No need to tell anymore detail as to who was driving what car at what timw!

Why are you and wife not on each other's policy ?

I assume you have comp on both cars . Even if you have DOC on each car policy it is 3rd party only, i.e. you are responsible for your own damage.

Unless either of you have really bad driving histories it is normally cheaper to have a couple / 2 adults on a policy than just a single driver

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Sat 29 Oct 2011 22:05
insurance - daveyjp
The car wasn't being driven so it is irrelevant who is insured to drive which vehicle. The car was stolen as a result of house burglary while you were at work.
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Sun 30 Oct 2011 14:31
insurance - quadrant

Thanks for the reply. Are you commenting from experience?

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Sun 30 Oct 2011 14:24
insurance - quadrant

Fully comp on both vehicles. However mine is a comercial policy never thought to check drivers for both policies. thats why we have seperate policies. Unfortunately when the police attended i told them the sequence of events that took place, the truth!. is it possible to change a statement? i dont recall signing anything admitedly i was in shock and my memory is not so great

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Sat 29 Oct 2011 22:04
insurance - bonzo dog

Hi Peter, sorry to hear you are another victim of the low life that inhabit our country.

As regards to the insurance, there should be no problem whatsoever:- the car was parked at home & was stolen.

Assuming everything else is in order, the insurance co should give a total loss payout (assuming it isn't found or is found in a condition deemed un-repairable)

Good luck

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Sun 30 Oct 2011 14:27
insurance - quadrant

Hi Bonzo, are you talking from experience? what i know of insurance companies any excuse not to pay and they have already asked who the last driver was and requested a copy of my statement to the police on that night.

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Sun 30 Oct 2011 17:11
insurance - martint123

All the DOC cover I have had include the phrase similar to

"Any car driven by you with the owners permission, other than owned by your or your spouse".

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Mon 31 Oct 2011 08:35
insurance - bonzo dog

Hi quadrant,

are you talking from experience?

Well if you mean have I had my wife's car stolen after driving it "illegally" then parking it in the driveway where it is kept as disclosed to the insurance co, then no (& I'm not being facetious).

I do however know a fair bit about insurance & unless your policy says that "should the car be driven by a non-insured driver then the policy is invalidated" (or words to that effect) then I would suggest that any claim for your loss should be met.

what i know of insurance companies any excuse not to pay

In most instances this is not the case. The problem people have with insurance claims going pear-shaped is that their expectations of what the policy should do are not met by what it says it will, & customers do not read policies.

Of course the other problem is that people are frequently told lies by the insurance salesman (normally NOT an employee of the insurance co) & rather than check the truth of these verbal statements with the insurance documentation, they would rather play "the 3 wise monkeys" & then complain when a claim is rejected.

Please check your policy wording & if there is nothing to invalidate it then the claim should be OK.

Good luck

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