So I did, and......my van was showing as NOT insured on the database. :no:

Just rung my insurance, and they admitted they'd got the last 3 letters mixed up from GUU to GGU, and it's been like that for the last 18 months!

Policy reads ok though.

Asked what would have happened if I'd been stopped by the plod outside their office hours, and they admitted that I could feasibliy have had the vehicle seized and impounded, and been left at the side of the road to make my own way home.

Apologies were forthcoming, but really, this whole system is wide open to extremelly costly mistakes.

Carry your insurance documents with you, that should help.

Carry your insurance documents with you, that should help.

That wouldn't help as to all intents, its not for that vehicle. I have seen in on Traffic cops or similar when they pulled someone for no insurance and swore blind he was....he went down the road to get his docs and sure enough for the last 3 years it was insured under a slightly different reg. Insurance company took no blame as it is up to the policy holder to check any documents.

So I did, and......my van was showing as NOT insured on the database. :no:

Just rung my insurance, and they admitted they'd got the last 3 letters mixed up from GUU to GGU, and it's been like that for the last 18 months!

Policy reads ok though.

Asked what would have happened if I'd been stopped by the plod outside their office hours, and they admitted that I could feasibliy have had the vehicle seized and impounded, and been left at the side of the road to make my own way home.

Apologies were forthcoming, but really, this whole system is wide open to extremelly costly mistakes.

Does your Certificate of Insurance show the right details?

Does your Certificate of Insurance show the right details?

Trade policy so no reg. numbers shown.

However, the list of vehicles on a seperate document does include the van with the correct reg. number on it.

Absolute waste of time carrying the insurance certificate anyway, as the plod will only go by what the computer tells them.

If it says you are uninsured, then in their eyes you ARE, until proven otherwise. That is normally sorted via 'phone call to the insurance company, but NOT at midnight it isn't.

If it's company insurance, then I'd refuse to drive the van until it's sorted as it would be you that cops it for driving uninsured.

Absolute waste of time carrying the insurance certificate anyway, as the plod will only go by what the computer tells them.

+1. In fairness to plod lots of insurance dodgers will take out a policy to get the certificate then cancel the cover.

+1. In fairness to plod lots of insurance dodgers will take out a policy to get the certificate then cancel the cover.

I see your point, but what this actually proves is that you can not carry out law enforcement on the basis of an assumption that a 30 million record database is 100.000_000% accurate (number of zero characters is deliberate).

Doesn't really apply in your case but my house insurance was setup for a completely different address in a town 15 miles away. They'd setup my correct address for all the documentation to be posted to (rather than the insured property).

I'd phoned them a couple of times on unrelated stuff and always passed DPA checks with my real address (which they had recorded as a forwarding address). When it finally came to light we were a couple of years in the house. I asked them to correct it, they did. I phoned back to speak to someone else to cross check, they confirmed. I asked for it in writing, it came through with the wrong property again.

Cut a long story short i invoked the DPA thing to get recordings of all my calls sent out on CD, along with a full print out of my file including any notes on my account. They sent a CD with 1 call (not the call where i'd phoned up asking for this) claiming that was all they could find, and a very short file with 1 comment.

Wrote back, they then sent out what i was asking for, went through it, put together a case highlighting the problems.

Refund cheque for £545 followed not long after so not the end of the world but could have been if i'd needed my house insurance!

Something simular happened with my car insurance with DirectLine.

They made up a reg plate (how, considering it was a renewal I don't know), then when we realised they whacked the price up. They checked all the records and calls and found that we hadn't given them the other plate but it was of their own creation but they still insisted on charging the extra, no refund for us. Wretched people insurance firms.