UK AND EU MOTOR COVER COMPARED

The following national law provision fails to conform to the minimum standard of compensatory protection mandated by Directive 2009/103/EC on motor insurance.  This undermines the social policy objectives underlying compulsory third party insurance.  

It affects the following:

·         Extensive tracts of Part VI of the Road Traffic Act 1988

·         The EC Rights Against Insurers Regulations 2002

·         The Uninsured Drivers Agreements 1999 and 2015

·         The Untraced Drivers Agreements 2003 and 2017

The problem is compounded by an extensive body of case authorities misinterpreting the above including (but not confined to) the following:

·         Delaney v Pickett [2011] EWCA Civ 1532

·         EUI Ltd v Bristol Alliance Ltd Partnership [2012] EWCA Civ 1267

·         Sahin v Havard & Riverstone Insurance (UK) Ltd [2016] EWCA Civ 1202

I paste below a couple of my lecture slides that offer a comparative law overview.

The first slide contrasts the qualified and restricted nature of the UK legislative provisions imposing compulsory third party motor cover with the holistic and absolute standard required under EU law.

European law insists that once a policy has been issued, then subject to the single permitted exclusion set out in Article 13 that applies to a passenger who enters a vehicle knowing it has been stolen, the insurer is liable to compensate the victim come what may.

This obligation is a free standing one. A third party motor accident victim's entitlement is impervious to any contractual limitation, exclusion or restriction not permitted by the Directive.

 This slide compares the Motor Insurers' Bureau's role according to conventional understanding with the highly prescriptive and limited role permitted under EU law.

I discuss these issues at some length in my forthcoming feature in Section 3 of Part 9 of the Encyclopedia of Insurance Law, published by Sweet & Maxwell (ISBN:  9780421281509).

I provide professional consultancy services on motor insurance as well as in house training on this and other related legal topics.

07968 427134