Insurance - declaration

[Larry Hayward]

IMBS - But if a soldier on active service has an accident does he have to report it to his UK Insurance Company once he is home and his private vehicle needs its insurance renewing?

 

Does it depend what he drives in service? If you squash an Iraqi insurgent in his car in an APC in Basra I suppose thats OK but what if you crashed your Army Land Rover in to a tree after falling asleep on exercise in Germany?

[ashley]

Hi,

i could be wrong but i believe all "accidents" would have to be reported, this would be true also to get the vehicle repaired. In this modern computer age nothing escapes, a couple of years ago i had a minor crunch in a local authority vehicle, and though i was not to blame the local authority decided not to contest the claim ,they have a £500 excess on all vehicles :-o and my insurance company 9personal) were quick to point this out when i next tried to prove my `no claims bonus`

 

As for falling asleep and crashing i am sure the armed forces will not accept liability or blame.

 

Ashley

[AlienFTM]

From 20-something years ago.

 

As Pay Corporal, I had to go down to the bank to collect a few thousand DMs to pay the troops (because there was no Sergeant in our Pay Office and the Staff Sergeant was manning the till). I called the MT section, who promised me a Landrover by the time I got to their hangars.

 

Waiting for me was a freshly-serviced SWB LR. I jumped in, shot off as is my wont and got myself onto the main drag into Osnabruck. I stared astonished as a Landrover wheel rolled past me and smacked into a civvy car. And my wheel hub went clunk and the world went all slanty. Bugger.

 

I was banged to rights. MT came out and recovered their Landrover: I guess I must have been given another to complete my task. The memory goes with age you know?

 

The two young Craftsmen who had serviced the car were charged with failing to service the vehicle in accordance with blah, blah, blah and punished in some way.

 

I was charged with failing to check the roadworthiness of the vehicle before driving off. Because I paid them, my sentence was a three month report. "Do nothing wrong and it will never have happened." In fact the Part 3 Order publishing the charge went straight to the Commander, Pay Services, 1 Armd Div, and a day or so after being charged I was tipped the wink that nothing had happened. Being a good boy, my service record remained unblemished.

 

As for notifying my own insurance company, as far as I am aware, what goes on in the Army stays in the Army.

 

But my experiences are from two decades ago ...

[Centurion]

Before I retired from the Police all accidents in police vehicles were supposed to be notified to the insurers of your own private car.

If you look at renewal notices and proposal forms they ask you to declare any accidents you may have had wether in your own car or not and regardless of any claim made. Wether you choose to is up to you but these days there databases are fairly well up to date and they share info.

In a lot of cases they may not up your premium their checking to see how honest you are. But if you give then cause they may not meetyour claim. They want your money but arent keen on giving you any back

If you had an accident outside the UK in a vehicle you didnt own and made no claim how would they find out unless you told them.

Would the MOD provide insurers with driver info ? Do the MOD have insurers or do they make a declaration of deposit to say that they have enough GBP to meet any claims?

 

regards

Centurion

[AlienFTM]

Would the MOD provide insurers with driver info ? Do the MOD have insurers or do they make a declaration of deposit to say that they have enough GBP to meet any claims?

 

As far as household insurance is concerned, the MOD do not bother (again I am speaking from experiences of 20 years ago). If a house is damaged, it just gets paid out of the housing repair budget. Army budgets are (were!) big enough to cover this. In the big freeze of January 1987, about 1/3 of all married quarters on our estate suffered burst water pipes. Mine was in the rising main.

 

Everybody who was flooded out got moved to an empty quarter (there were plenty: they have all been sold off now). I believe that this cold snap put a severe strain on that particular budge Army-widet.

 

WRT vehicle insurance. My gut feeling is that Army take the same position but I have no concrete reason to think so. Obviously there is the small matter of legal minimum liability, but I do know that in the event of a culpable accident, debt recovery will be made direct from the soldier's pay account at source. (Apochryphal stories abound of squaddies causing damage in the millions to Chieftains etc. I believe in this case, squaddy will be crippled to the limit of his ability to pay back and the remaining liability written off.)

 

Re: giving details to civvies. I had an accident in my own vehicle in the UK whilst stationed in BAOR. I exchanged insurance details. A month later and back in BAOR I was summoned to the Squadron Sergeant Major's office and had my balls chewed off. He had received a letter from somebody (who turned out to be a policeman) who had written to him to complain that I hadn't coughed up yet. The SSM ordered me to sit down immediately and write a grovelling reply. Instead, I marched out of his office and downtown to the local Deutsche Herold office to see my insurance broker. This man was an ex-Para and honorary Sergeant's Mess member because he insured a significant percentage of the regiment. He immediately and in my hearing phoned my SSM and in turn dragged HIM over the coals. I had reported the accident to my insurers, it was in their hands and damn-all to do with him, and if he persisted in abusing his client, he'd take action via the commanding officer.

 

The upshot of all this is that yes, if you know your way around the military, you can probably get details, but IMO if you don't, it will be difficult.