There is more to a claim than most imagine. We seek facts, try to corroborate them and present a complete, true and accurate account of events to your insurer so that they may make an informed decision.
Why do my insurers want information?
One answer to this and a relatively simple, straightforward one, is that they wish to check what you stated at the proposal is correct. Your policy was issued on the basis of ‘utmost good faith’ that is to say, your insurer believed what you told them when taking out the policy and based upon the information, provided insurance to you. This page is not a legal guide, we do not provide legal advice and more about ‘utmost good faith’ can be found online, for example, here.
No one wants to wait hours or even days to be provided with a policy for their vehicle. For the sake of simplicity, consider one aspect; if there are 24 million insured cars on the road, each renewing their policy annually, that is 2 million renewals/month, or 66,666 per day (every day in a 30-day month). Imagine, if you can, an insurer attempting to verify each aspect of the information provided for each (example below). Instead, an insurer accepts what they are told and whilst some enquiries will be undertaken where concerns are evident, at the point of a claim, the insurer will review the claim facts and take the opportunity to verify the information provided at the proposal.
CMA has likely been appointed because you have made a claim – so, what can we do to help this progress smoothly …
What can you do to help insurers help progress your claim?
- Driver Licence
Unsurprisingly, your insurers will wish to check the information held on your licence agrees with what you disclosed at the proposal. We like to see a photo card licence (front and rear) as it helps to confirm with whom we are dealing. However, the days of paper licences with an endorsement section or counterpart setting out driving offences are long behind us instead, the government has provided a mean by which we can check the information online:
To undertake an enquiry of the DVLA to confirm the current status of your licence. You will need:
- your driver licence number. This will be in the format AAAAA 123456 AA9AA:
- 5 letters – the first five letters of your surname
- 6 numbers
- two letters
- a number
- two letters
- your National Insurance Number and
- the postcode displayed upon your latest licence
Complete the process at ‘View or share your driving licence information‘ and provide us with the code generated so that we may confirm the licence information. The code can be used once and is only valid for 21 days i.e. it cannot be used subsequently by us or your insurers.
- Purchase & Registration Documentation
The following should be provided without delay. In or about 2018, the DVLA ceased displaying previous keeper details on the V5C. This not only hampered prospective buyers from making enquiries of a previous keeper and removed the indication of how long the current keeper/seller possessed the vehicle, it also prevented an insurer (or another) from making an approach to the party to corroborate the vehicle’s history.
- V5C or Registration Certificate
- Purchase receipt. In the absence of this:
- the name, address, phone number and email address (where held) of the vendor (seller)
- Proof of purchase – commonly this will be a bank transfer or evidence of cash being withdrawn from an account i.e. available
- Maintenance & Condition
- Service documentation – the service book or receipts for attention to the vehicle