No MOT Doesn’t Invalidate Insurance

Question:

I’ve been pulled over and the police officer has correctly identified that my MOT has lapsed. He’s given me a fixed penalty for the no MOT offence but has suggested I will receive a summons to court because the lack of an MOT means my insurance was invalid.

Is he correct? I don’t want between six and eight penalty points for driving without insurance. I had a valid insurance in place as far as I was concerned.

Emma Says:

Insurance cannot be invalidated with retrospective effect. The police officer is not a party to the insurance policy. Therefore he has no right to avoid/cancel it and certainly not with retrospective effect, so that it was not valid at the time you were actually driving.

Your insurance company can deem your insurance void, but only if there is a specific term in the contract suggesting that the insurance will be invalidated if there is no MOT in place. It may also be suggested that this is a breach of the rules in relation to motoring insurance policies.

The road traffic act states that it is an offence to refuse to indemnify somebody under an insurance policy due to matters relating to the condition of the vehicle… These are complicated issues. Speak to us. However on the face of it it’s highly unlikely that your insurance was void/invalid and we anticipate that you will have a defence.

We get many similar cases withdrawn and there is good case law to support our arguments in that regard.