Car Insurance

What makes you say that?

I can assure you that it *was* a renewal.

Stick the printout receipt in the corner of the windscreen until disc arrives - you won;t get any tickets (touch wood).

Let me try again.

I have renewed the insurance policy.

I could not renew the VED because the MID data base had not been updated to show the renewed policy.

On 31 March I could not renew VED online - no insurance for the renewal date (1 April)

On 1st April I did renew - no problem

I haven't.

Let me try again.

I have renewed the insurance policy.

I could not renew the VED because the MID data base had not been updated to show the renewed policy.

On 31 March I could not renew VED online - it said I had no insurance for the renewal date (1 April)

On 1st April I did renew - no problem

I haven't.

In message , JMS writes

So, your insurance was due to expire on 31 March.

Despite renewing your insurance on 10March, the DVLA website was showing 'no insurance' on 31 March - but was OK on 1 April (after the renewed insurance came into force).

This suggests that your previous insurance had not been entered on the MID database.

You could spend (waste?) time asking Zurich why this happened, and complain about the inconvenience, or you might decide to put it down to experience, and keep an eye on things in the future.

However, it does illustrate the fallibility of the system. It's just as well you weren't stopped by the police, or you might have had your car impounded.

You missed something.. the old one expired at 11.59 on 31st, the renewal was entered at a time a few minutes into the 1st. Technically, he wasn't insured for all of 5 minutes, despite it being a 'renewal' - so this created a bug in the MID in that - if it checked the status of his insurance as of 00.01 there was no insurance valid. If it had used a timestamp of eg 4am on 1st for the checking criteria, it would have beeen granted.

Zurichs f*ck up, but frustrating that the system wasn't able to cope.

Noted. Last year, my car insurance (renewal) also had a '1 minute gap' between the expiry (midnight) and re-start (one minute later). I was going to query it, but then remembered that I had a life. This year's renewal was OK. Probably someone else told them of the quirk.

I think it would turn on whether the expiry time is to be contstrued inclusively, or exclusively. Or to put it another way, whether the expiry time means "the final minute on which the policy is valid", or "the minute following the expiry of the policy".

No it doesn't there was a five or (or six minute gap); the car was clearly not insured during that period. I cannot believe that I am the first to spot this.

On the other hand some people like to be reasonably precise, accurate, read T&Cs etc so that they don't fall foul of them, and not leave things to chance like you do.

You would be the first to moan if you got a stuffing over such an error.

In message , JMS writes

I probably realised that, during the minute in question, I would be safely tucked up in my warm little bed. Of course, I realised that, if someone were to steal or vandalise my car (which was not on a public road, by the way) at 00:00:30am, I could really have a problem. But we all have to take the occasional calculated risk, don't we?

On the contrary. There is no doubt whatever, since this was a renewal, that the car was insured continuously *with no gap*. The problem lies with the documentation failing properly to reflect the facts.

It's time the idiots who author these documents got their heads knocked together (to phrase it politely).

You are mistaken, although a renewal, the insurer chose to leave a gap beween periods of cover.

One would hope that next year, the OP should be ok, as his insurance will run our at 12.04 - in fact he should cancel his insurance - and benefit from nearly six months of tax without insurance

"Paul" wrote

Don't be silly. Ronald is correct - the insurer will be required to cover the supposed "gap" as well.

"Paul" wrote

Eh?