Admiral Insurance Drink and Drugs policy

Convicted Driver Insurance
Hi, we had no third party involved as my son hit a post with no damage so no costs other than the car itself. They would not offer any support due to drink driving so we recovered the car ourselves. I guess I’m trying to understand if they will let us cancel ourselves rather than letting them void as this will impact getting insurance for years to come. I’d rather he cancelled. I wondered if anyone else had this dilemma and Admiral actually allowed them to cancel? Thanks
 
We are talking about different things! Voiding or cancelling the police will have no effect on the claim that a third party can have made, not the liability under the draconian Admiral policy re drink drive accidents...
BUT when the person comes to take out a new policy after the ban, and he has to declare that the last policy was voided by his insurance company, it will make the previous either very high or almost impossible to get cover.
If he has cancelled the policy himself then that does not have to be declared.
 
The problems with getting really insured if a devious policy has been voided applies to all companies, but the Admiral group are the ones most likely to void a policy immediately after A drink driving accident.
 
Hi, I thought I’d provide an update to try and help someone else In the same position as my son regarding Admiral. They have given him the opportunity to cancel the policy and we have SORN the vehicle. We had no TP costs to consider, only his car. This means we will not have to declare an insurer has voided a policy which will help him in the future. Some light at the end of the tunnel. I hope this helps someone else.
 
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Hi, I thought I’d provide an update to try and help someone else In the same position as my son regarding Admiral. They have given him the opportunity to cancel the policy and we have SORN the vehicle. We had no TP costs to consider, only his car. This means we will not have to declare an insurer has voided a policy which will help him in the future. Some light at the end of the tunnel. I hope this helps someone else.

Makes sense. Admiral are not out of pocket.

He'll still have to declare his accident and of course the DD conviction will be a millstone for years to come.

My son hasn't driven since his accident almost ten years ago. I think he is better off without a licence at the moment but is lucky enough not to need one.
 
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Depressed Dad, agreed regarding the info he will have to give. We have a long way to go but this thread has definitely helped shed some light along the way. Thanks for starting it.
 
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Hi, I thought I’d provide an update to try and help someone else In the same position as my son regarding Admiral. They have given him the opportunity to cancel the policy and we have SORN the vehicle. We had no TP costs to consider, only his car. This means we will not have to declare an insurer has voided a policy which will help him in the future. Some light at the end of the tunnel. I hope this helps someone else.
Hi is that because there were no TP costs or did Admiral not come after you for them?
 
Hi is that because there were no TP costs or did Admiral not come after you for them?
H
Hi, I thought I’d provide an update to try and help someone else In the same position as my son regarding Admiral. They have given him the opportunity to cancel the policy and we have SORN the vehicle. We had no TP costs to consider, only his car. This means we will not have to declare an insurer has voided a policy which will help him in the future. Some light at the end of the tunnel. I hope this helps someone else.
Hi Cat2321, thank you for sharing this. My son is in the same position as yours, he crashed his car fortunately there were no TP costs, he paid for the repairs to his car. He has just cancelled his policy with Admiral rather than let them cancel. He still had 6 months to run on the policy which cost over £1000 when we took it out. Did your son get a refund on the unused months on his policy that he cancelled? My son has been told he will get £23 back, I have no idea where they get this figure from? I was expecting nearer to £500, as he has not made a claim and according to their own policy document he should get a pro-rata refund.
Hope you are all doing ok, it's such an awful thing to be going through... not condoning their behaviour of course but it's very stressful!!
Thanks DW10
Hi, I thought I’d provide an update to try and help someone else In the same position as my son regarding Admiral. They have given him the opportunity to cancel the policy and we have SORN the vehicle. We had no TP costs to consider, only his car. This means we will not have to declare an insurer has voided a policy which will help him in the future. Some light at the end of the tunnel. I hope this helps someone else.
We had no TP costs to consider.
 
H

Hi Cat2321, thank you for sharing this. My son is in the same position as yours, he crashed his car fortunately there were no TP costs, he paid for the repairs to his car. He has just cancelled his policy with Admiral rather than let them cancel. He still had 6 months to run on the policy which cost over £1000 when we took it out. Did your son get a refund on the unused months on his policy that he cancelled? My son has been told he will get £23 back, I have no idea where they get this figure from? I was expecting nearer to £500, as he has not made a claim and according to their own policy document he should get a pro-rata refund.
Hope you are all doing ok, it's such an awful thing to be going through... not condoning their behaviour of course but it's very stressful!!
Thanks DW10
H

Hi Cat2321, thank you for sharing this. My son is in the same position as yours, he crashed his car fortunately there were no TP costs, he paid for the repairs to his car. He has just cancelled his policy with Admiral rather than let them cancel. He still had 6 months to run on the policy which cost over £1000 when we took it out. Did your son get a refund on the unused months on his policy that he cancelled? My son has been told he will get £23 back, I have no idea where they get this figure from? I was expecting nearer to £500, as he has not made a claim and according to their own policy document he should get a pro-rata refund.
Hope you are all doing ok, it's such an awful thing to be going through... not condoning their behaviour of course but it's very stressful!!
Thanks DW10
Hi, apologies for the delay in replying, the notification has just come through for some reason. My son was paying by direct debit so they didn’t ask for any more or offer any refund and didn’t charge a cancellation fee. It might be worth contacting them for a breakdown of cancellation costs if you haven’t already. I hope this helps. This thread really helped me.
 
Hi, we were on the same position and recovered ourselves. Admiral contacted my son to say they were cancelling the policy BUT gave us a two week window to cancel. I managed to get my son to ring the contact centre who put us through to claims who cancelled for us straightaway. You need to cancel if you can as you are right, big impact if you don’t. If you plan to keep the car you will need to SORN it. You can’t park a car up off-road any longer unless it’s insured or SORN. They changed the law in 2011. I hope this helps. For what it’s worth we are 5 months on and in a much better place than we were. It’s just awful at the time. Cheers
 
Hi guys! Unfortunately I am in a situation similar than the ones you guys were. Hope you can shed some light in what would be the best course of action in this situation.

I am the policyholder and my husband was a named driver in an Admiral policy. Unfortunately my husband caused a car crash under the influence of alcohol in 2019 and now admiral is coming after us for the costs of the claim. No one got seriously injured and he didn't even get prosecuted as his alcohol level was below the threshold.
First thing is there they keep trying to send correspondence in my name even though my husband was driving and was a named driver. But as they have a clause saying they can come after the main driver as well, I am a bit worried as it could damage my career, as I work with education. Can they really come after the policyholder?

After a lot of talking they have finally sent us some of the documents we have asked for: they have an engineer report, but it is from the third party insurance company. We should challenge that, right? That report says the third party car was a total loss but nevertheless they still paid for a car hire for the third party for about 32 days! And we suspect they paid a car hire that was extremely more expensive than the third party's car.
They are also charging us for 5k of personal injury claim, but they didn't even asked to see a medical report or anything that proofs the third party actually got injured. And they are claiming they can't show us any medical records as it is forbidden due to the data protection act, even when we said there was an exception in cases that could involve a court judgment.

We have never been a situation like this before and are a bit worried as paying the total amount they are asking is impossible for us. Do you have any advice of what to do or what to challenge next?
 
The only issue for your career as a teacher would be if you refused to pay, it went to county court and they won an order for you to pay Even then, it would only be an issue if payment was not made within 28 days.
Having said that, If your husband admits liability and asks to negotiate with Admiral then they will probably be content to do that.
You are right, their policy says they can go after either the policy holder OR the driver to recover their costs.
That means they will go after the one who is most likely to be able to pay up. So if you are a teacher on, say £40,000 a year, and your husband is a caretaker on £12,000 then it would make sense for them to want to try to make you pay.
If you think about it, you took out the policy and agreed to the terms that included being liable for costs if drink driving was involved. (but I doubt you read them.... your choice) All your husband did was to be placed as a named driver on YOUR policy. Did you ask him to read the terms of the insurance before he drove? I doubt it. That is why common sense says your husband is responsible for the cost of the accident, but you are the one who had the chance to read the conditions and back out if you disagreed. Admiral therefore feel that you can be held liable for the named driver on your policy causing them a loss.
I would think it is common for a rental car to be hired for 32 days. The car was eventually a write off, but they would have to get it inspected, estimates submitted and then a replacement vehicle being sought after the total loss was declared. BUT it should be like for like, not a bite car that is better than the car written off. It is quite reasonable to ask for the details of the hire car.
I doubt it will do much good to challenge the engineers report, unless you think the damage that was witnessed was way too minor to justify it being written off. You would have to pay for another report and bear the cost of that.
It is reasonable to query the personal injury element. Does your husband say that anyone appeared to be injured at the time (but things like whiplash can develop a couple of says later) You could ask that the medical report be anonymised to prevent personal details being improperly disclosed and demand that they tell you what was done to minimise the costs to them.... and subsequently to you!
One last thing, did they write to you or your husband, asking you to sign an indemnity for Admiral to negotiate the settlement? If so, was it signed and returned?
 
The only issue for your career as a teacher would be if you refused to pay, it went to county court and they won an order for you to pay Even then, it would only be an issue if payment was not made within 28 days.
Having said that, If your husband admits liability and asks to negotiate with Admiral then they will probably be content to do that.
You are right, their policy says they can go after either the policy holder OR the driver to recover their costs.
That means they will go after the one who is most likely to be able to pay up. So if you are a teacher on, say £40,000 a year, and your husband is a caretaker on £12,000 then it would make sense for them to want to try to make you pay.
If you think about it, you took out the policy and agreed to the terms that included being liable for costs if drink driving was involved. (but I doubt you read them.... your choice) All your husband did was to be placed as a named driver on YOUR policy. Did you ask him to read the terms of the insurance before he drove? I doubt it. That is why common sense says your husband is responsible for the cost of the accident, but you are the one who had the chance to read the conditions and back out if you disagreed. Admiral therefore feel that you can be held liable for the named driver on your policy causing them a loss.
I would think it is common for a rental car to be hired for 32 days. The car was eventually a write off, but they would have to get it inspected, estimates submitted and then a replacement vehicle being sought after the total loss was declared. BUT it should be like for like, not a bite car that is better than the car written off. It is quite reasonable to ask for the details of the hire car.
I doubt it will do much good to challenge the engineers report, unless you think the damage that was witnessed was way too minor to justify it being written off. You would have to pay for another report and bear the cost of that.
It is reasonable to query the personal injury element. Does your husband say that anyone appeared to be injured at the time (but things like whiplash can develop a couple of says later) You could ask that the medical report be anonymised to prevent personal details being improperly disclosed and demand that they tell you what was done to minimise the costs to them.... and subsequently to you!
One last thing, did they write to you or your husband, asking you to sign an indemnity for Admiral to negotiate the settlement? If so, was it signed and returned?
Hi 32 days is not reasonable for a hire car and the car can only be hired for the length of time it takes to write the car off. Not for a period of time for someone to go and look for another car. This is stated in Admiral's own policy i.e. you are not entitled to car hire if you car is written off. It should take less than 7 days to take a write off decision - not 32. Most of the time the care is written off on basic terms e.g. if it is worth less than a few grand it is almost certainly written off even though the car may later be repaired and returned to the road. These are known as Category D write offs. You can request and pay for an HPI report on any car - you need the regsitration number and about £25 - you can then get a full history of the car in terms of its mileage - if and when it was written off - and also if it has had an MOT Test since being written off.
 
I’m not a teacher and make less money than my husband does. So is it impossible to take my name out of this claim?

about the car hire, it was for 38 days. They are charging an additional of 20% on top of that that I don’t even know why it is being charged. The third party had a 2016 car but hired a 2018 of a well known brand. So, should I question the car hire based on the difference of the cars value and the amount of days since the car was written off?

about the injury, they are telling us we can’t see her medical records because that is private information and the data protection act forbids them to show it to us. Even when I said that they should show us as they’ve threatened to impose a court action, they still haven’t shown us anything. However, it seems the third party is claiming whiplash. On the letter they sent to them and now shown us, they specifically say they don’t need to
They’ve never sent an own engineer or medical team to evaluate anything that was being asked and only agreed to pay everything the other party wanted.

Any advice of what would be the best course of action?
 
I’m not a teacher and make less money than my husband does. So is it impossible to take my name out of this claim?

about the car hire, it was for 38 days. They are charging an additional of 20% on top of that that I don’t even know why it is being charged. The third party had a 2016 car but hired a 2018 of a well known brand. So, should I question the car hire based on the difference of the cars value and the amount of days since the car was written off?

about the injury, they are telling us we can’t see her medical records because that is private information and the data protection act forbids them to show it to us. Even when I said that they should show us as they’ve threatened to impose a court action, they still haven’t shown us anything. However, it seems the third party is claiming whiplash. On the letter they sent to them and now shown us, they specifically say they don’t need to
They’ve never sent an own engineer or medical team to evaluate anything that was being asked and only agreed to pay everything the other party wanted.

Any advice of what would be the best course of action?
I would definitely challenge why it took 38 days to write the car off. I think if you dig into your Admiral Policy and if your car were written off then I think you will find that in their own policy they only provide a hire car if your car is repairable and not if it is written off. They are supposed to minimise any costs so not sure why they are adding 20% to the bill? How long ago was the accident?
 
It was a year and a half ago. In October 2019. And during all this time, since my husband signed the indemnity form, they haven’t tried to talk to us to discuss the case at all, just came up one day telling us we should pay them 22k. Is it possible to challenge they haven’t act on my husbands best interest as they said they would?
 
The only issue for your career as a teacher would be if you refused to pay, it went to county court and they won an order for you to pay Even then, it would only be an issue if payment was not made within 28 days.
Having said that, If your husband admits liability and asks to negotiate with Admiral then they will probably be content to do that.
You are right, their policy says they can go after either the policy holder OR the driver to recover their costs.
That means they will go after the one who is most likely to be able to pay up. So if you are a teacher on, say £40,000 a year, and your husband is a caretaker on £12,000 then it would make sense for them to want to try to make you pay.
If you think about it, you took out the policy and agreed to the terms that included being liable for costs if drink driving was involved. (but I doubt you read them.... your choice) All your husband did was to be placed as a named driver on YOUR policy. Did you ask him to read the terms of the insurance before he drove? I doubt it. That is why common sense says your husband is responsible for the cost of the accident, but you are the one who had the chance to read the conditions and back out if you disagreed. Admiral therefore feel that you can be held liable for the named driver on your policy causing them a loss.
I would think it is common for a rental car to be hired for 32 days. The car was eventually a write off, but they would have to get it inspected, estimates submitted and then a replacement vehicle being sought after the total loss was declared. BUT it should be like for like, not a bite car that is better than the car written off. It is quite reasonable to ask for the details of the hire car.
I doubt it will do much good to challenge the engineers report, unless you think the damage that was witnessed was way too minor to justify it being written off. You would have to pay for another report and bear the cost of that.
It is reasonable to query the personal injury element. Does your husband say that anyone appeared to be injured at the time (but things like whiplash can develop a couple of says later) You could ask that the medical report be anonymised to prevent personal details being improperly disclosed and demand that they tell you what was done to minimise the costs to them.... and subsequently to you!
One last thing, did they write to you or your husband, asking you to sign an indemnity for Admiral to negotiate the settlement? If so, was it signed and returned?

Very few people bother to read the T&C's of their motor policy, or any 'contract' for that matter.

Comparison websites don't compare T&C's do they? But perhaps they should highlight major differences.
Admiral own Compare the Market - I doubt they'd be happy to highlight these differences.

People buy insurance on price, usually going for the cheapest fully comprehensive cover, maybe a recognisable company and maybe some profit making extras like car hire and legal expenses (see Admiral annual report).

Pursuing the policyholder is downright unfair. It's a trap. They could have done it to me but I would have I'd have done all I could to get the media interested in exposing them. The OP should contact the press, e.g. Daily Mail or Mail on Sunday to seek their help.

What's also unacceptable is this sneaky thing about not even needing a DD conviction. The law exercises some discretion, Admiral clearly don't. It's complete Bow Locks.
 
Depressed Dad,
I was just saying what Admirals position is, whilst in no way agreeing with it!
The law says that whey yow enter in to a contract, you are agreeing with the terms of that contract and it is up to you to be certain that you understand the contract before you sign it. Fast forward to the real world and if it was an offer of a mortgage, or setting up a Limited Company, of course everyone would read it thoroughly.
If it is a key fact in the contract, then I agree that it should not be buried in sub paragraph xx sub clause you. Some terms in an insurance contract are universal and can be taken as read, but The Admiral group are almost alone in having this clawback clause that can ruin a person financially and it should be in a prominent place at the top of the contract so that people thinking of taking out insurance with Admiral will be aware of it.
Having said that, even if it was the first item in the terms and conditions, if people only go on price, will they even be aware then?
In Civil law, if you make a company lose money through negligence, they could sue you to get their money back, so in theory any insurance company could decide to sue a drink drive for negligently costing them money. If admiral win a few case it might make the rest of the insurance industry jump on the bandwagon even without the exclusion in their policy.
 
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