harry hayes Posted June 20, 2011 Report Share Posted June 20, 2011 Dizzy, Bit of a wasted exercise really as it will never happen as it is too drastic, but you would merely submit your claim to a government department (ministry of transport) rather than an insurance company. Happy days Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dizzy Posted June 20, 2011 Report Share Posted June 20, 2011 Actually your posts got me thinking Harry. All car drivers need petrol/diesel. Nearly all petrol stations have number plate recognition (or so they say) but even if they don't have it they could get it. So....... a driver pulls in for fuel, the recognition system checks and withinn seconds says 'No Insurance on this vehicle' which then could equal NO FUEL SALE !!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer Posted June 20, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 20, 2011 Thought the Gov had a data base for road tax puposes, which checks that you have Insurance and a test cert? Tax discs are visible on your windscreen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazj Posted June 21, 2011 Report Share Posted June 21, 2011 for insurance: http://ownvehicle.askmid.com/ and for MOT : http://motinfo.direct.gov.uk/internet/jsp/ECSID-Internet-Status-Request.jsp and for Car Tax: http://www.taxdisc.direct.gov.uk/EvlPortalApp/application?origin=vnav_bar.jsp&event=bea.portal.framework.internal.refresh&pageid=Vehicle+Enquiry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evil Sid Posted June 21, 2011 Report Share Posted June 21, 2011 My car and bike have a tax disk displayed on them. My car also has a parking permit supplied by the council that looks like a tax disk. SO why can't insurance companies issue something similar when they send you your insurance certificate. That way any car not displaying one is not insured and therefore easy to identify. Even more simples Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazj Posted June 21, 2011 Report Share Posted June 21, 2011 Sid, I agree..... it is OK for the cop cars to have all the technology to hand and even with number plate recognition; uninsured drivers can get away with it for months and even years before they are detected.....more than long enough to run some one over or write someones car off. At least displaying a disk would be a start point if one wasn't on view. Don't they have these on display in Germany? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dizzy Posted June 21, 2011 Report Share Posted June 21, 2011 Good links Baz.... I have had it confirmed that I have insurance and am on the MID database. I can't check my mot without my mot certificate reference though... so once I find that is there any point in me checking cos I will have it infront of me. .... and the Tax link wouldn't work for me it just gave a DVLA timed out error when I clicked on it but it's ok cos I checked my tax disc. Pitty it's all not a bit more user friendly as there are a few cars that I'd like to run a check on round here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dizzy Posted June 21, 2011 Report Share Posted June 21, 2011 Evils.... the idea about having insurance discs on cars is an excellent one. I wonder why they have never done it? They could also have one for the MOT, all it would need was a little section on the certificate when the garage prints it that is removable and you stick on your windscreen. In the case of MOT's it would also serve as a reminder to drivers as to when theirs is due as mine expired twice and I didn't realise as it's the only thing you don't get a reminder for No current MOT = no insurance too if you have a bump Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wahl Posted June 22, 2011 Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 Are we being scammed by the government when they demand all cars be insured whether on the road or not? It seems to me another legalised theft concocted by DoT and insurers to bolster insurance business with a cut going to Dot. Very similar to totally unjustifiable insurance asked for for under 25 drivers. the way things are going there is going to be a lot of law breaking as more and more people just ignore the dictats and carry on regardless. Is this another step towards a lawless society? Or is it just greed from insurers and DoT? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dizzy Posted June 22, 2011 Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 They are saying that as long as you declare your vehicle SORN then it does not need to be insured. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silverlady54 Posted June 22, 2011 Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 I think they are trying to avoid the temptation that must be there if a car is on the driveway, to use it 'just to pop to the shop' when it isn't insured. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evil Sid Posted June 22, 2011 Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 If you declare your vehicle sorn it does not need to be taxed, insured or mot'ed. However you then cannot park or drive it on a public road until you have taxed, insured and mot'ed it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dizzy Posted June 22, 2011 Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 Yep and that is exactly what it is for. Surely everyone knows that and wouldn't declare it as SORN then use it.... saying that... maybe they would. Idiots !! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted June 27, 2011 Report Share Posted June 27, 2011 Drove mine without an MOT for a couple of days recently so technically I’m a criminal. I managed to back into a bin wagon and bust the back up a bit on the very day it was booked in for its MOT. They said it would fail and needed to be repaired first but the insurance company would only let me use certain repair centres and they all gave estimates of over two weeks. It was a right chicken and egg situation but with records of everything, I doubt the police would have take a hard line in cases like this. Annoyingly, my mobile details were given to the dodgey insurance claims people who according to their text could get me thousands for the whiplash that I hadn’t got! So, the only companies involved here were Polar Ford on Winwick Road or Swift Cover Insurance. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfie Posted June 27, 2011 Report Share Posted June 27, 2011 Seems that the car insurance companies have been selling driver details to claims companies, who encourage you to claim compensation for any injuries sustained in a car crash, which in turn bumps the car insurance rates up. :blink: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dizzy Posted June 27, 2011 Report Share Posted June 27, 2011 the insurance company would only let me use certain repair centres and they all gave estimates of over two weeks. You naughty boy Bill, not sure we should all talk to you now you are a criminal Lucky there though or what as if you hadn't been booked in for an mot your insurance could have said 'tough'. BUT... they have conned you in a way as they can't make you use one of their own approved repair centres. Most people just take their word and presume they have no choice are/or are getting a better repair and service etc so the the insurers are never questioned and get away with it. You can use any garage repair centre you like ... end of As for them saying estimates take over two weeks well again... ridiculous... maybe they should unapprove their own centres if this is the case unless of course you mean 'estimate' for the time it would take until they could do the repairs rather than to give you an estimate. Anyway Bill... just be more careful in future as bin wagons are huge and usually painted in bright colours so maybe you need stronger glasses Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lt Kije Posted June 27, 2011 Report Share Posted June 27, 2011 Seems that the car insurance companies have been selling driver details to claims companies' date=' who encourage you to claim compensation for any injuries sustained in a car crash, which in turn bumps the car insurance rates up.[/quote'] Why does that not surprise me :!: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dizzy Posted June 27, 2011 Report Share Posted June 27, 2011 Wolfie on first read I thought you were mistaken. Why on earth would Insurance Company A sell their fault accident details onto claims companies who would then in turn contact the other driver(s) and then file claim against Insurance Company A.... it just didn't make any logical sense to me at all AT FIRST .... and then I read the info below (as originally reported by the Times) Maybe more customers should be asking all these insurance companies what the hell they are playing at. They tell US that the huge inreases in premiums are becasue of the 'no win no fee claims companies' and yet THEY themselves are the ones fueling them in secret. Well not so secret now is it... explanation please Mr Insurers other than if 'you' dont sell them other people will. Not good enough I'm afraid. Time for a swift kick up the rear end for all these accident claims companies to stop ALL false claims and seemingly automatic payouts for lesser injuries (most of which have never actually happened in reality anyway) but insureres pay out as it is cheaper than fighting the corner. Anyway rant over for now Originally Posted by The Times Companies are selling drivers’ details to claims firms exploiting the no-win, no-fee system ‘Our records indicate that you may be entitled to £3,450 for the accident you had. To claim free reply CLAIM to this message,” went the text that my pal Phil Riley received last week. This “accident” was, in truth, a minor prang. Phil had stopped in traffic. The chap behind drove into him, with minor damage to Phil’s car; no personal injuries. The other driver’s insurer paid Phil’s repair bill. Within days of this prang, 18 months ago, Phil was bombarded with texts and personal calls to tell him that if he would make a claim, three or four thousand pounds would be his for the personal injury he had suffered. He told the callers what they were doing was amoral. He had no injury. The texts and calls continued. Phil asked me, as his MP, how the claims companies had obtained his details including his mobile phone number. He had never authorised this. Didn’t he have some basic data protection rights? I went to see the Association of British Insurers (ABI) and senior executives of two of Britain’s largest motor insurers and asked them. A long pause, a look of embarrassment, then one of the executives said: “This is the industry’s dirty secret. It’s we, the insurance companies, who sell on this personal information.” Incredulous, I asked how it could be in an insurance company’s interest to sell information to a claims company that was used to make a claim against the self-same company. “If we don’t sell this information, others in the know will do so — recovery firms, garages, credit companies, the insurance company on the other side, even the police.” (One police force made £1.3 million in 2008-9.) The income from this trade is huge, £200-£1,000 for each referral. There can be several from just one accident. Referral fees are now a crucial part of all insurance companies’ revenue streams. Phil had another question: “Why, for law-abiding folk with impeccable records, are car insurance premiums rocketing when our roads have never been safer?” The figures are stunning. In 2009 the number of road accidents involving personal injury was 31 per cent down from the average for 1994-98. Improvements in car safety mean that where there is an accident the risk of being badly injured has dropped significantly. Thefts of and from vehicles have also slumped — down by almost three quarters (72 per cent) between 1995 and 2010. Meanwhile, premiums have shot up by at least 30 per cent in the past year and in some urban areas by even more. Yet most motor insurers are still operating at a loss. The answer to Phil’s second question is that law-abiding drivers are victims of “a dysfunctional system in which everyone behaves badly”, as one senior insurer told me. The rewards for this bad behaviour can be great. The number of registered claims management companies has doubled to 3,400 in two years. Their high-pressure sales techniques have led to a phenomenal growth in the number and value of claims for personal injury. The cost of personal injury claims has doubled in ten years, from £7 billion to £14 billion. ABI analysis shows a direct link between the number of claims companies in a region and the level of claims. In the North West, with a high density of claims companies, 40 per cent of claims have a “bodily injury component”, compared with 25 per cent across the country — yet the region’s roads are no less safe. The “bodily injury” that the claims company was enticing Phil to make was for “whiplash”, which now accounts for 80 per cent of all claims. It’s perfect for the claims companies: a soft-tissue injury that no scan or X-ray can pick up, so claims rely on the patient’s description. It’s usually entirely trivial. Respectable medical websites prescribe paracetamol. The cost to the NHS of treating whiplash is only £8 million. The cost to insurers of whiplash claims is £2 billion. Very odd. The current “no-win, no-fee” arrangements for legal costs mean that it’s usually cheaper for an insurer to concede a claim than fight it. Add in the growth of “cash for crash” frauds and it’s little wonder that the law-abiding public are being milked as they are. • The senior insurance executives I met are decent people. They dislike the unwholesome trap they are in. But they know that change must be imposed externally. Here’s how: Referral fees should be outlawed, and the no-win, no-fee system speedily reformed, as Lord Justice Jackson’s 2010 review (endorsed by all parties) recommended; • The law on damages for whiplash should be changed to require proof of serious injury, as other jurisdictions do; • The Information Commissioner and Ofcom should crack down firmly on the trade in personal data and hard-selling techniques, if necessary with new powers; • Much tighter regulation of claims companies must be introduced. There will be howls from those with a vested interest in the present system, all protesting that what they do is in the public interest. It’s balderdash. This is not a system; it’s a racket. The quicker it’s ended, the better it will be for the law-abiding motorist, including my pal Phil. Jack Straw is the Labour MP for Blackburn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted June 27, 2011 Report Share Posted June 27, 2011 I didn’t realise that but in any case, the repair facilities at Polar are pretty good so not really a problem. The two week bit was made up of a week before it could be booked in and a week to do the job. I wasn’t that fussed as most of that time I was away on holiday anyway. The best part of the story though goes like this. A few weeks back, I parked at a pub and unknowingly reversed to within a couple of millimetres of a huge block of concrete. I checked and found only the drivers side reversing sensors were working. I thought I’d better get them fixed before I do some real damage and end up with a big bill. Turned out to be a big job at £440 but still better than a bump, so you can imagine my disappointment at doing this just two weeks later! The bin wagon I hit was not behind me but at the side. It’s indicators stuck out either side on extensions to clear all the gubbins on the rear and it was one of these protruding indicators that took out the rear light and bodywork.. The sensors didn’t even see them at that height. Still not bad seeing as the last time I bumped the car was thirty five years ago and even that was another minor reversing bump. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dizzy Posted June 27, 2011 Report Share Posted June 27, 2011 Pitty you didn't wait a bit longer in repairing your sensors Bill... they could have been 'damaged' somehow in your bin waggon bump and saved your own pocket Did you claim off the bin company then if their sticky out bits damaged you car or was it your own fault. Personally I would never trust a thing that beeped to warn me and I've never reversed into anything and I don't have them. Guess what I'll probably do tomorrow though Glad to hear you got it all sorted though and you were lucky that their approved garage was local,good and also known to you. For the 4 bumps we've had in almost 30 years (non of which were my fault by the way and I wasn't even in my car the two times mine was badly wacked and neither was my other half when his was smashed into... errm except for the one time as he wacked mine with his thanks to a packet of bacon) anyway the different insurers all said they had to go to approved garages in Manchester/Liverpool/elsewhere none of which we had never even heard of and certainly weren't main dealers. We refused and they just said 'thats fine'. Last one turned out to be a salvage yard and I learnt later from the insurance assessor that mine would never have been seen again if it had gone there as it would have been automatically written off due to age and I would have got a pittance for it. I'm soooo glad I knew that I could say 'NO' as I love my car Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evil Sid Posted June 28, 2011 Report Share Posted June 28, 2011 except for the one time as he wacked mine with his thanks to a packet of bacon :shock: the mind boggles. Wonder what the insurance company had to say about that one then. :mrgreen: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdrianR Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 I work in this industry and know it in great detail. Even the venerable Times has resorted to some generalisations which distorts the picture. Yes insurers do sell on possible claims information and the going rate is as indicated. It simply put was if you cannot beat them join them. However they dont just sell them to anyone and as costs intially in car accident claims are fixed and fixed low (this wasnt mentioned in the Times), then the more paid to buy the case, the less profit made. All i will say is that there is more to this than meets the eye. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dizzy Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 .... so please tell us more then Adrian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazj Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 There is more to this than meets the eye as Adrian puts it...... the rackets are probably more profitable than even Jack Straw has sussed out..... NO insurance company should pay out until proof of injury is ascertained. If the NHS only spends £8 million treating whiplash but the insurance companies pay out £2billion, then that tells you how crooked the system is. We drive in safer cars with all sorts of gizmos to avoid collisions and to lessen the impact of collisions and yet Adrians industry grasp at every opportunity to screw the system with false claims disguised as whiplash and personal injury.... I would go even further than the man of Straw and I would call for an immediate ban on no win no fee personal injury claims, a ban on anyone selling personal details and massive fines for anyone flouting the rules. A few £30k fines for some of these insurance and solicitors companies may put a frightener on them and provide a nice new revenue stream for the government! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dizzy Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 but what about the poor unfortunate person who does genuinely suffer an injury though ... Infact as I'm typing this maybe the answer is right in front of me. My insurance policy has over £1 million cover for public liability insurance incase I injure someone and free legal help. Infact all my insurance policies do... car, home, caravan.... So is that the same thing ? I dont think my seperate fridge/freezer insurance has it though so must be careful when visitors use that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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