|
The dangers of
using short term car insurance
This is a true story; to quote the old radio programme 'Dragnet' only
the names have been changed to protect the innocent!
David Drew was a normal, honest and hard-working family man with his
own, somewhat precarious, small business, a wife, three children and a
mortgage. His brother Peter could not be more different; a dabbler in
drugs (although he had never actually been caught by the police), living
with a woman 10 years older than himself and her three children of
indeterminate parentage, he had never done a day's work in his life.
Nevertheless he was Peter's brother and blood, as they say, is always
thicker than water.
Hardly surprisingly, Peter could not afford to have a decent holiday but
when a friend offered to lend him his timeshare cabin in the Scottish
Highlands he jumped at the chance. However, although he had held a
driving licence for more than 10 years he did not own a car, and the
idea of paying out for a hire car was quite unthinkable to him. He
approached David to see if he could borrow his spare car, a prospect
that David was not terribly enthusiastic about! Nevertheless, Peter was
his brother after all so he decided to go along with it, but insisted
that proper insurance cover was arranged for the vehicle. Peter of
course was quite happy to drive without insurance but David ignored
this, logged on to the Internet and within 5 min the car was insured
fully comprehensively though a short term car insurance
company for two weeks,
with Peter named as the main driver.
As may have been predicted, the holiday ended in disaster. Peter and his
girlfriend had a row on the way up to Scotland over his driving
technique, which consisted of completely ignoring all speed limits. They
stopped off in Carlisle on the way up, Peter parked on a single yellow
line whilst they went for a quick meal, and when he returned to find a
parking ticket under his windscreen wiper he threw it away. His
girlfriend nagged and nagged him all the way up to Scotland and just as
he was approaching the lodge that they were due to stay in he went too
fast across a roundabout, hit a lorry and succeeded spectacularly in
writing the car off completely. Since he had very little money with him
David had to drive up to Scotland to collect them, and arranged for his
car to be towed away.
That was not the end of David's woes. Peter had driven through a
succession of speed cameras, and within a few days court summonses were
landing on David's doormat, together with a demand from Carlisle county
council for a £50 parking fine! On top of that his car, which had been
worth several thousand pounds originally, was now a write-off.
To cut a long story short; David had to attend court to prove that he
was not driving the vehicle at the time that the speeding offences
occurred; Peter went along and admitted the offences, eventually
receiving a two years driving ban which, since he never drove anyway,
was not really much of a punishment for him! The parking fine had to be
paid, and since Peter was penniless David had to just shrug his
shoulders and pay up.
The only bright spot in this sad tale is that David received full
compensation for his car from the short term car insurance company; less
of course the £500 excess which he had agreed to when he took out the
policy. Peter promised to reimburse this as soon as he could; David is
still waiting yet……
Copyright Andy Foster
2009 |
