Freight Emergency

Rubs Transport professional & solicitor Chris Lodge has shared this article with us. Although aimed primarily at motorists, it could apply to couriers and van drivers as well.

Driving Whilst uninsured.

In my business, we are often dealing with uninsured drivers and I am not talking about a claim against an uninsured person but where my client turns out to be uninsured and didn’t realise it.

First, if you are uninsured and the accident is not your fault, you can still bring the claim against the driver at fault (but if he too is uninsured you can’t claim against the Motor Insurers Bureau).

However, if you are to blame or partially to blame, your actual insurers will have to pay the claims of others including injury but will then try to recoup all their costs including your opponent’s legal fees from you!.

Don’t forget, even if your vehicle is owned by your employer, it’s up to you to make sure you are insured to drive it!

So how come you are uninsured?

Someone may have modified the vehicle without telling the insurers, not renewed the MOT in time.

It may have tyres which make the car unroadworthy or you may have forgotten to tell your insurers about a motoring offence.

Even if you share a vehicle to drive to work with a colleague, it is worth ensuring that this would not fall into the category of “hire and reward”

These are just a few of the examples of where an insurer can “refuse to indemnify you” - in other words, they won’t pay up.

If you use insurance brokers, ask them to check if you are not sure about anything. That’s their job!

This can prove very expensive, so don’t take the risk!

You can read more of Chris’s excellent articles here

Kevin

Load rescue and freight recovery

Related articles

• Accidents with uninsured motorists
• Uninsured drivers - new penalties
• Accidents Involving Foreign Vehicles

Tags: driving while not insured, driving without insurance, Vehicle insurance

This entry was posted on Monday, October 13th, 2008 at 9:46 am and is filed under Driving. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.