- 1Read
- 2Ask
- 3Decide
- 4Ruling
Case 4 of 19 · Level 1
Car insurance · a telematics policy
Faster than the car can go
The file · about 5 minutes
The complaint
The customer had a telematics car insurance policy, with a box that records how the car is driven. A few months in, the insurer cancelled the policy on seven days' notice. The customer denies the reason it gave and says the cancellation was unfair.
The firm's answer
The insurer says the box recorded the car at 125mph on a motorway. It treats that as dangerous driving and will not change its decision.
Evidence in the file
Exhibit A · The telematics alert
A speed of 125mph recorded on a motorway.
Exhibit B · The cancellation notice
Seven days' notice, given because of the recorded speed.
Exhibit C · The customer's reply
They deny driving that fast.
The car maker's details for the model
The car is a small hatchback with no modifications. The maker's evidence puts its top speed at 112mph.
The customer's earlier driving scores
The scores were good for the first few months of the policy.
Speed camera or police records
Not in the file. No camera or police record of the drive is part of this case.
Uphold the complaint, or side with the firm?
The ruling
Given by the ombudsman
Upheld
Why
The ombudsman set the box's data against the car maker's evidence. The car could not reach 125mph, and the reading was logged at rush hour. So the data was wrong, and the policy had been cancelled for dangerous driving that probably never happened.
What the firm had to do
Remove the record of the cancellation, pay the extra cost of the customer's new policy, and pay £200 for the distress and inconvenience.
What an adjudicator takes from this. Test a machine's reading against what is physically possible. Data can be wrong, and one outside fact can show it.
Rewritten in our own words from a case the ombudsman published.
What is fair and reasonable is a judgement. The ombudsman gives one; people who read the same file often give another, and this game is about how people weigh the same facts, not about being right. Built from cases the Financial Ombudsman Service and other bodies have published, and from Docketory's own files, rewritten in our own words with every name removed. Docketory is not connected with any of them, and this game is not advice on your own case.
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