tweetyduck Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 I've just asked Lancaster if i can "extend my cover to Morocco for three weeks." Their answer was "No we won't insure you, buy it from the border"....followed by "where are you going, are you going off road and doing a safari?" My answer was, "whats that got to do with you if you are not insuring me." Their answer was "the underwriters want to know". My answer was "get stuffed its nothing to do with them if they are not insuring me." "but i need to put a note on your file" they say (and i might add "she" has) I also said "since your not insuring me this won't come off my annual mileage allowance which is good for me" They said "oh yes it does"..... you can guess what i said to that....... Who the fcuk do insurance companies think they are. How can going to morocco increase their risk. They already insure me in Europe with limited mileage if i do additional mileage on someone elses insurnace thats nothing to do with them at all. Is it ? The 5000 i have is plenty anyhow to do the whole trip but they just take the wee. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plasticbadger Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 I've had the mileage arguement before, both on a track day car and a off roader, conversations similar to you along the lines of Me 'I've clocked 5,500 miles this year, but I've made a note that 800 of them were off road / on a track and therefore not covered by your insurance' Insurer 'It still counts as the car has covered more than the allowed miles in the year, you need to pay us a £xx additional premimum' Me 'wtf?' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
headhunter Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 Complain to the insurance ombudsman. They appear to want to have everything their own way. I am with the NFU, they gave me green card cover for Morocco without any issues. Without a green card from your insurer you have to buy local insurance. If you go in via Ceuta the nearest town to buy it from is Tetouan about 30 miles away from the border. I also took out recovery with the AA for Europe, (£100) however it does not cover Morocco or Ceuta (the Spanish enclave in Morocco). You will need Moroccan dirhams for the A6 toll road to Tetouan, so unless you have some (can't buy them here) and it's illegal to take it out of the country. Once across the straights you are on your own as far as get you home recovery is concerned. If you have a non repairable failure get your Land Rover back to Algiceras for recovery home from there. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 16, 2011 Share Posted January 16, 2011 One of the many reasons I stopped using Lancaster, I Needed to add another driver to my insurance when going on a trip, they wanted to know war and peace about the driver down to driving licence number and what they currently drove how many cars they had access to etc, I explained it was for a trip into Spain they wanted to know all the details, I had little choice but to tell them about it, they then increased my premium by £100 due to "change of primary use" and charged me £40 to add the driver. After two weeks of chasing them I finally got the paperwork through the day I was due to go (apparently problems with the computer system) to find they had not added the additional driver although had charged me for it!!! I phoned them up and they told me he was on "their computer" but they had "forgotten" to add it to the paperwork (printed from the computer!!) So they charged me £140.00 extra to drive my Defender to Spain on a alleged off-road policy with European cover, I know I could have complained etc but was left with very little choice at the time so had to fork out the money. Voted with my money when it became time to renew, and sent them an email leaving them with no doubt as to why, response from them was a letter saying we understand you have chose not to renew with us this year, we believe we offer great service and hope you will consider us in the future!!! Jason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mad_pete Posted January 16, 2011 Share Posted January 16, 2011 Well the limited mileage would seem a question of how do they know which is which ? In the extreme case. You have 3,000 mile policy but have done 93,000 miles. Yes but 90,000 were off road and and you don't need to worry about. How does the insurance company know it was off road ? Having had all the fun changing from third party to fully comp I expect they have had more than one instance of cars not insured for off road/ play days/ foreign travel and magically becoming involved in accidents / damage the very instant they get back on insured tarmac. In terms of 3rd party -> Comp I understood some people had third party, smashed their car up, changed to fully comp, put it in the garage for 3 months and then claimed to the insures with "OMG you will never guess what just happened...." I suspect something similar may go on in via some dishonest types cases like this too meaning everybody is then viewed with suspicion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremy996 Posted January 16, 2011 Share Posted January 16, 2011 Insurance is a special contract privileged in law as being of "utmost good faith". This means if the insurance underwriter asks and you tell a fib, the contract is voidable at the insurance underwriter's discretion. The underwriter may ask whatever questions he deems to be relevant, so long as they are actually not forbidden by statute. If you won't answer, he can decline cover; if you lie, the contract is voidable. There is an argument going on in legal circles from the beginning of time about what is and what isn't relevant, but the only way to settle it is to go to law. The insurance ombudsman will act where cover is being denied for ridiculous reasons, but only where a claim is made, not so far where cover is denied before the fact; i.e. you cannot get cover. Most insurance brokers we deal with as members of the public are acting under a "binding authority", where the broker binds the underwriter to a contract under specific terms. If you don't meet those terms, the broker is unable to offer cover, so this is what the "daft" questions are all about, (and the daft answers!). If you need insurance for a specific risk, you will need to talk to either a broker that really understands the issues or directly to the underwriter, as the usual brokers will be hopeless. Unfortunately, this level of specialism will be really expensive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave W Posted January 16, 2011 Share Posted January 16, 2011 Had a similar conversation with my insurer about taking my motor to Australia. I phoned up to see if they could offer any cover (which they couldn't). I then asked about the limited mileage and what to do about the speedo reading. As with your insurer they basically said the speedo reading was the only thing they could go off and they couldn't accept my word that around 6000 miles of the annual mileage was done in Australia. In the end the solution was simple, I happened to have the old KM/H speedo head that my motor originally came with and that I'd swapped out for a MPH version. Before shipping to Australia I simply swapped speedo heads (a 5 minute job on a Defender) which, as well as the mileage issue, made travelling in Australia a lot easier too as all the distances/speed limits are in KM/H there anyway. When the vehicle returned I changed back to the MPH speedo head. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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