In message <t8i0pj$j2g$1@dont-email.me>, at 14:49:38 on Fri, 17 Jun
2022, MB <MB@nospam.net> remarked:
>On 17/06/2022 13:57, Roland Perry wrote:
>> And the change might put the vehicle into a "we'd rather not have your
>> business" category, for example adding an 18yr old learner to the
>> policy. Quite often the details of this need explaining by a human
>> rather than a machine.
>
>Wasn't there a very well publicised case a few years ago where a very
>wealthy family bought their son an expensive fast car and covered it
>with their own insurance but he crashed it?

I don't remember it, but enough monkeys on enough typewriters (or behind
enough steering wheels) and it's bound to have happened from time to
time. Just like there are still stories about (often overpaid
footballers) buying a brand new supercar, and writing it off literally
ten minutes later.

Back in the day I had what passed for a supercar (it was rally-enhanced
one) and when I took it in for a service the guy said with some
admiration "this is the first time I've seen one of those, not in a
ditch".

Getting back to insurance, it was in theory a company pool car, and
the policy said any employee could drive all of them (one day I did
get to drive the MD's roller [no that roller]) and people would ask
to borrow mine for the weekend, and if I had nothing better to do I'd
be happy to drive theirs instead (more luggage space and less thirsty,
for starters). Invariably they came back ashen faced saying "please
don't let me do that again".

What they didn't understand was that you were supposed to steer it
(especially in the wet, but also in the dry on the open road) with your
right foot. But to avoid a nasty incident you simultaneously had to
steer the front a little (or on gravel or in the wet, a lot) in the
*opposite* direction with the wheel.

I hasten to add I taken an advanced driving test for a previous hot
car I owned personally, and *touch wood* the only inanimate object
(including grass verges) I've ever hit in 50yrs is a pillar in a
multi-storey car park.
--
Roland Perry

MB wrote:

>We used to use our own vehicles at work and have insured for occasional
>business use. I never put it to the test but we would sometimes carry
>test equipment and other items.

I recall a period in the 70s when I had several runs to Glasgow
whilst when we were commissioning the Class 314. At the time my
brand new car was only a few weeks old, yet we were carrying test
equipment of considerably greater value.

My car was covered for such use, but the company would have had
to cover the kit.

I did feel a little uncomfortable when we had to leave it in a
multi-storey car park, but thankfully all was well.

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK
chris@cdixon.me.uk @ChrisJDixon1

Plant amazing Acers.

Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <qvvoah9er3ar6tjgeb0i1p6jeqeutru536@4ax.com>, at 14:22:43 on
> Fri, 17 Jun 2022, Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk>
> remarked:
>> On Fri, 17 Jun 2022 06:24:06 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> In message <ivsmahhkgacbm4k4t4r3l54g5mu7vuksl0@4ax.com>, at 19:19:57 on
>>> Thu, 16 Jun 2022, Charles Ellson <charlesellson@btinternet.com>
>>> remarked:
>>>> On Thu, 16 Jun 2022 07:14:17 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> In message <aj5kahh8kei34ethfj4egcbcol07f0kc7b@4ax.com>, at 18:29:39 on
>>>>> Wed, 15 Jun 2022, Peter Johnson <peter@parksidewood.nospam> remarked:
>>>>>> On Tue, 14 Jun 2022 21:44:47 +0100, "NY" <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> "mick" <nospam@junk.mail> wrote in message
>>>>>>> news:mn.73fd7e66cac3b0c8.143772@junk.mail...
>>>>>>>> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-61794798
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I wonder if the car was actually uninsured, or whether it was insured but
>>>>>>> the carrying of the dangerous load rendered the insurance invalid.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Taxed until 1 February 2023, MOT expires 5 October 2022 and it's on
>>>>>> the askMID database as insured.
>>>>>
>>>>> And yet the police are quoted as saying it's uninsured. Hmm. Or did they
>>>>> impound it, and the owner has insured it to release it?
>>>>>
>>>>>> Is there anything in insurance policies that invalidates them if the
>>>>>> insured does something stupid?
>>>>>
>>>> It was the driver who was reported as having no insurance not the
>>>> vehicle. The vehicle's insurance could be for a different driver.
>>>
>>> Is that level of detail available in a MID check?
>>
>> Yes, if you're authorised to ask for it. The MID contains full details of every
>> policy submitted to it.
>
> It must be a very big database - the last time I looked my policy and
> schedules (all of which need to be read in great detail) was at least
> fifty pages long.

Though presumably most of the text of the policy and schedules are
boilerplates that could be referenced rather than being included in every
record.

Sam

--
The entity formerly known as Sam.Wilson@ed.ac.uk
Spit the dummy to reply

In message <t8i4uv$ic4$1@dont-email.me>, at 15:59:17 on Fri, 17 Jun
2022, NY <me@privacy.invalid> remarked:
><Muttley@dastardlyhq.com> wrote in message
>news:t8i13t$mk9$1@gioia.aioe.org...
>> On Fri, 17 Jun 2022 14:49:38 +0100
>> MB <MB@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>On 17/06/2022 13:57, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>> And the change might put the vehicle into a "we'd rather not have your
>>>> business" category, for example adding an 18yr old learner to the
>>>> policy. Quite often the details of this need explaining by a human
>>>> rather than a machine.
>>>
>>>Wasn't there a very well publicised case a few years ago where a very
>>>wealthy family bought their son an expensive fast car and covered it
>>>with their own insurance but he crashed it?
>>
>> You think thats unusual? Spot the number of early twentysomethings in
>>north london driving around in flash cars. They can't all be drug
>>kingpins or startup millionaires.
>
>I remember when I was at university, the son of a man with more money
>than sense (in the Harry Enfield "I am *considerably* richer then you"
>category) bought his son, who had just passed his test, a Ferrari.

One of my contemporary students had an Escort Mexico (or was it an
RS2000), except it was the full rally version not the dumbed-down
consumer model. No idea who had paid for that, or its insurance, or
indeed shipping it from Jersey (where its number plate was from).

At the same time one of my ~19yr old school friends had a Dolomite
Sprint, and his dad was in effect a property developer. I see the
house the family lived in is estimated by Zoopla now at 2.2million.

> Goodness knows how much it cost to insure - or in whose name as
>primary driver it was insured. The son wrapped it round a lamp-post
>within a few weeks - it was alleged that he was very drunk, but he was
>never breathalysed so that may be a myth. So Daddy bought him another
>one - after all, Ferraris are dirt-cheap. And the son did the same
>thing. This time Mr Plod caught and breathalysed him. So he got Daddy
>to hire a chauffeur (*) to drive his third Ferrari (yes, Daddy stumped
>up for the third one) so he wouldn't have to mix with the plebs on the
>bus, or (heaven forbid) to walk from the hall of residence to lectures.
>
>(*) I think it may have been at the time when insurance companies were
>still allowed to cover you for chauffeur costs if you were disqualified
>for drink driving or other offences. It was early 1980s - when was that
>level of insurance cover banned?

That was special additional insurance. Probably banned because it was
deemed to encourage reckless driving. What we need instead is wreck-less
driving. (I'll get my coat).
--
Roland Perry

On Fri, 17 Jun 2022 14:52:08 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:

>In message <qvvoah9er3ar6tjgeb0i1p6jeqeutru536@4ax.com>, at 14:22:43 on
>Fri, 17 Jun 2022, Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk>
>remarked:
>>On Fri, 17 Jun 2022 06:24:06 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>>In message <ivsmahhkgacbm4k4t4r3l54g5mu7vuksl0@4ax.com>, at 19:19:57 on
>>>Thu, 16 Jun 2022, Charles Ellson <charlesellson@btinternet.com>
>>>remarked:
>>>>On Thu, 16 Jun 2022 07:14:17 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>>>>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>In message <aj5kahh8kei34ethfj4egcbcol07f0kc7b@4ax.com>, at 18:29:39 on
>>>>>Wed, 15 Jun 2022, Peter Johnson <peter@parksidewood.nospam> remarked:
>>>>>>On Tue, 14 Jun 2022 21:44:47 +0100, "NY" <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>"mick" <nospam@junk.mail> wrote in message
>>>>>>>news:mn.73fd7e66cac3b0c8.143772@junk.mail...
>>>>>>>> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-61794798
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I wonder if the car was actually uninsured, or whether it was insured but
>>>>>>>the carrying of the dangerous load rendered the insurance invalid.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>Taxed until 1 February 2023, MOT expires 5 October 2022 and it's on
>>>>>>the askMID database as insured.
>>>>>
>>>>>And yet the police are quoted as saying it's uninsured. Hmm. Or did they
>>>>>impound it, and the owner has insured it to release it?
>>>>>
>>>>>>Is there anything in insurance policies that invalidates them if the
>>>>>>insured does something stupid?
>>>>>
>>>>It was the driver who was reported as having no insurance not the
>>>>vehicle. The vehicle's insurance could be for a different driver.
>>>
>>>Is that level of detail available in a MID check?
>>
>>Yes, if you're authorised to ask for it. The MID contains full details of every
>>policy submitted to it.
>
>It must be a very big database - the last time I looked my policy and
>schedules (all of which need to be read in great detail) was at least
>fifty pages long.

A lot of the text will be boilerplate and applicable to all customers with the
same policy, of course, or even all customers, full stop. But there are
approximately 40 million vehicles in the UK. Assuming that each one is insured
on its own policy rather than being part of a multi-vehicle policy (which, of
course, will be nowhere near the case in reality), and assuming that the
database is so crude that each policy has to be uploaded in full for each
vehicle rather than being a relational database which stores meta-data
separately (which is possibly more plausible but still unlikely), that's 40
million x 50 pages of text. A typesetting rule of thumb is that there are 3,000
characters per page of text, and there are 4 bytes per character (assuming
UTF-8). So that would amount to around 22 Terabytes of data.

That's big, by the standards of home computers and small office systems, of
course. My desktop PC has a 1TB drive and I've got a file server with three 1TB
drives and a 2TB drive. So you couldn't store the MID in my house. But that's
well within the capacity of a large corporate database. Amazon ECS would charge
you $2,252 per month for that, and I'd expect that MID would have no quibbles
over that. It's less than a typical monthly staff salary. And, of course, in
reality the total storage requirements would be a lot less than that.

Mark

Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:
> … 4 bytes per character (assuming
> UTF-8). …

Surely, since most of the text in UK insurance policies is in English it
would be much closer to 1 byte per character using UTF-8.

Sam

--
The entity formerly known as Sam.Wilson@ed.ac.uk
Spit the dummy to reply

"Roland Perry" <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote in message
news:ZZ0zQXTvVJriFApq@perry.uk...

>>it is not legal for a car to be uninsured and only covered (for 3rd party)
>>by virtue of another car's drive-any-car clause.
>
> It used to be. Hence the need for the industry and police working together
> to try to close the car-pound loophole. Which they *didn't* do by changing
> the law, rather than by getting insurance companies to insert that
> exclusion.
>
>>It's to avoid you buying a cheap-to-insure car and then using the
>>drive-any-car clause of its policy to allow you to drive a more expensive
>>car which is not itself insured.
>
> While that's a potential loophole...
>
>>I think the wording at one time (and maybe now as well) said something
>>like "you are insured 3rd party to drive any car which you do not own and
>>for which you are not the registered keeper".
>
> ...it's closed by the wording you quote, and *not* by the "must be
> separately insured" wording.

Ah. I didn't realise that the car-pound problem was seen to be a greater
risk than the general problem of buying and insuring a cheap car and then
using its drive-other-cars clause to drive another, uninsured and much more
expensive car.

There needs to be a blanket "in emergency" coverage that is included in all
policies so if the insured driver is incapacitated in some way, a passenger
can drive the car to complete the journey. If the driver can't continue, you
don't want to have to take a long break while you try to contact his insurer
to arrange temporary named-driver coverage on his policy for the "relief
driver".

There's also the "main driver" loophole. It used to be common for parents to
buy a car for a son/daughter, insure it with the parent as the main driver
(to get a lower premium) and add the son/daughter as a named driver - and
then the child uses the car as their own car (ie as the main driver). Quite
how it is proved is another matter. You *could* insist that the policyholder
had to be in the car when the named driver drove it, but that would be too
severe and wouldn't cater for the perfectly moral case where a husband and
wife share each other's cars and take either to go to work etc.

On 17/06/2022 16:35, NY wrote:
> "Roland Perry" <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:ZZ0zQXTvVJriFApq@perry.uk...
>
>>> it is not legal for a car to be uninsured and only covered (for 3rd
>>> party) by virtue of another car's drive-any-car clause.
>>
>> It used to be. Hence the need for the industry and police working
>> together to try to close the car-pound loophole. Which they *didn't*
>> do by changing the law, rather than by getting insurance companies to
>> insert that exclusion.
>>
>>> It's to avoid you buying a cheap-to-insure car and then using the
>>> drive-any-car clause of its policy to allow you to drive a more
>>> expensive car which is not itself insured.
>>
>> While that's a potential loophole...
>>
>>> I think the wording at one time (and maybe now as well) said
>>> something like "you are insured 3rd party to drive any car which you
>>> do not own and for which you are not the registered keeper".
>>
>> ...it's closed by the wording you quote, and *not* by the "must be
>> separately insured" wording.
>
> Ah. I didn't realise that the car-pound problem was seen to be a greater
> risk than the general problem of buying and insuring a cheap car and
> then using its drive-other-cars clause to drive another, uninsured and
> much more expensive car.
>
> There needs to be a blanket "in emergency" coverage that is included in
> all policies so if the insured driver is incapacitated in some way, a
> passenger can drive the car to complete the journey. If the driver can't
> continue, you don't want to have to take a long break while you try to
> contact his insurer to arrange temporary named-driver coverage on his
> policy for the "relief driver".
>
>

I certainly had that on my insurance for a long time.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

In message <t8i6fa$tqa$1@dont-email.me>, at 15:26:34 on Fri, 17 Jun
2022, Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:
>Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>> In message <qvvoah9er3ar6tjgeb0i1p6jeqeutru536@4ax.com>, at 14:22:43 on
>> Fri, 17 Jun 2022, Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk>
>> remarked:
>>> On Fri, 17 Jun 2022 06:24:06 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>> In message <ivsmahhkgacbm4k4t4r3l54g5mu7vuksl0@4ax.com>, at 19:19:57 on
>>>> Thu, 16 Jun 2022, Charles Ellson <charlesellson@btinternet.com>
>>>> remarked:
>>>>> On Thu, 16 Jun 2022 07:14:17 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> In message <aj5kahh8kei34ethfj4egcbcol07f0kc7b@4ax.com>, at 18:29:39 on
>>>>>> Wed, 15 Jun 2022, Peter Johnson <peter@parksidewood.nospam> remarked:
>>>>>>> On Tue, 14 Jun 2022 21:44:47 +0100, "NY" <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> "mick" <nospam@junk.mail> wrote in message
>>>>>>>> news:mn.73fd7e66cac3b0c8.143772@junk.mail...
>>>>>>>>> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-61794798
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I wonder if the car was actually uninsured, or whether it was
>>>>>>>>insured but
>>>>>>>> the carrying of the dangerous load rendered the insurance invalid.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Taxed until 1 February 2023, MOT expires 5 October 2022 and it's on
>>>>>>> the askMID database as insured.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> And yet the police are quoted as saying it's uninsured. Hmm. Or did they
>>>>>> impound it, and the owner has insured it to release it?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Is there anything in insurance policies that invalidates them if the
>>>>>>> insured does something stupid?
>>>>>>
>>>>> It was the driver who was reported as having no insurance not the
>>>>> vehicle. The vehicle's insurance could be for a different driver.
>>>>
>>>> Is that level of detail available in a MID check?
>>>
>>> Yes, if you're authorised to ask for it. The MID contains full
>>>details of every
>>> policy submitted to it.
>>
>> It must be a very big database - the last time I looked my policy and
>> schedules (all of which need to be read in great detail) was at least
>> fifty pages long.
>
>Though presumably most of the text of the policy and schedules are
>boilerplates that could be referenced rather than being included in every
>record.

There are hundreds of insurers, and that would be very difficult to
co-ordinate. And then you'd need to train 'plod' to interpret it.
--
Roland Perry

In message <p66pahd57qsli9vg8r44e427f1s3kjr29k@4ax.com>, at 16:27:31 on
Fri, 17 Jun 2022, Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk>
remarked:
>On Fri, 17 Jun 2022 14:52:08 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>In message <qvvoah9er3ar6tjgeb0i1p6jeqeutru536@4ax.com>, at 14:22:43 on
>>Fri, 17 Jun 2022, Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk>
>>remarked:
>>>On Fri, 17 Jun 2022 06:24:06 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>>In message <ivsmahhkgacbm4k4t4r3l54g5mu7vuksl0@4ax.com>, at 19:19:57 on
>>>>Thu, 16 Jun 2022, Charles Ellson <charlesellson@btinternet.com>
>>>>remarked:
>>>>>On Thu, 16 Jun 2022 07:14:17 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>>>>>wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>In message <aj5kahh8kei34ethfj4egcbcol07f0kc7b@4ax.com>, at 18:29:39 on
>>>>>>Wed, 15 Jun 2022, Peter Johnson <peter@parksidewood.nospam> remarked:
>>>>>>>On Tue, 14 Jun 2022 21:44:47 +0100, "NY" <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>"mick" <nospam@junk.mail> wrote in message
>>>>>>>>news:mn.73fd7e66cac3b0c8.143772@junk.mail...
>>>>>>>>> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-61794798
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>I wonder if the car was actually uninsured, or whether it was
>>>>>>>>insured but
>>>>>>>>the carrying of the dangerous load rendered the insurance invalid.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Taxed until 1 February 2023, MOT expires 5 October 2022 and it's on
>>>>>>>the askMID database as insured.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>And yet the police are quoted as saying it's uninsured. Hmm. Or did they
>>>>>>impound it, and the owner has insured it to release it?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Is there anything in insurance policies that invalidates them if the
>>>>>>>insured does something stupid?
>>>>>>
>>>>>It was the driver who was reported as having no insurance not the
>>>>>vehicle. The vehicle's insurance could be for a different driver.
>>>>
>>>>Is that level of detail available in a MID check?
>>>
>>>Yes, if you're authorised to ask for it. The MID contains full
>>>details of every
>>>policy submitted to it.
>>
>>It must be a very big database - the last time I looked my policy and
>>schedules (all of which need to be read in great detail) was at least
>>fifty pages long.
>
>A lot of the text will be boilerplate and applicable to all customers with the
>same policy, of course, or even all customers, full stop. But there are
>approximately 40 million vehicles in the UK. Assuming that each one is insured
>on its own policy rather than being part of a multi-vehicle policy (which, of
>course, will be nowhere near the case in reality), and assuming that the
>database is so crude that each policy has to be uploaded in full for each
>vehicle rather than being a relational database which stores meta-data
>separately (which is possibly more plausible but still unlikely), that's 40
>million x 50 pages of text. A typesetting rule of thumb is that there are 3,000
>characters per page of text, and there are 4 bytes per character (assuming
>UTF-8). So that would amount to around 22 Terabytes of data.
>
>That's big, by the standards of home computers and small office systems, of
>course. My desktop PC has a 1TB drive and I've got a file server with three 1TB
>drives and a 2TB drive. So you couldn't store the MID in my house. But that's
>well within the capacity of a large corporate database. Amazon ECS would charge
>you $2,252 per month for that, and I'd expect that MID would have no quibbles
>over that. It's less than a typical monthly staff salary. And, of course, in
>reality the total storage requirements would be a lot less than that.

Big as in complexity of potentially n-squared interwoven inclusions and
exclusions, not the number of bytes.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <t8i6fa$tqa$1@dont-email.me>, at 15:26:34 on Fri, 17 Jun
> 2022, Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:
>> Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>>> In message <qvvoah9er3ar6tjgeb0i1p6jeqeutru536@4ax.com>, at 14:22:43 on
>>> Fri, 17 Jun 2022, Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk>
>>> remarked:
>>>> On Fri, 17 Jun 2022 06:24:06 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> In message <ivsmahhkgacbm4k4t4r3l54g5mu7vuksl0@4ax.com>, at 19:19:57 on
>>>>> Thu, 16 Jun 2022, Charles Ellson <charlesellson@btinternet.com>
>>>>> remarked:
>>>>>> On Thu, 16 Jun 2022 07:14:17 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> In message <aj5kahh8kei34ethfj4egcbcol07f0kc7b@4ax.com>, at 18:29:39 on
>>>>>>> Wed, 15 Jun 2022, Peter Johnson <peter@parksidewood.nospam> remarked:
>>>>>>>> On Tue, 14 Jun 2022 21:44:47 +0100, "NY" <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> "mick" <nospam@junk.mail> wrote in message
>>>>>>>>> news:mn.73fd7e66cac3b0c8.143772@junk.mail...
>>>>>>>>>> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-61794798
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I wonder if the car was actually uninsured, or whether it was
>>>>>>>>> insured but
>>>>>>>>> the carrying of the dangerous load rendered the insurance invalid.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Taxed until 1 February 2023, MOT expires 5 October 2022 and it's on
>>>>>>>> the askMID database as insured.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> And yet the police are quoted as saying it's uninsured. Hmm. Or did they
>>>>>>> impound it, and the owner has insured it to release it?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Is there anything in insurance policies that invalidates them if the
>>>>>>>> insured does something stupid?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> It was the driver who was reported as having no insurance not the
>>>>>> vehicle. The vehicle's insurance could be for a different driver.
>>>>>
>>>>> Is that level of detail available in a MID check?
>>>>
>>>> Yes, if you're authorised to ask for it. The MID contains full
>>>> details of every
>>>> policy submitted to it.
>>>
>>> It must be a very big database - the last time I looked my policy and
>>> schedules (all of which need to be read in great detail) was at least
>>> fifty pages long.
>>
>> Though presumably most of the text of the policy and schedules are
>> boilerplates that could be referenced rather than being included in every
>> record.
>
> There are hundreds of insurers, and that would be very difficult to
> co-ordinate. …

But it would still be O(insurers x policy variants) rather than O(total
number of policies issued).

> … And then you'd need to train 'plod' to interpret it.

Or build a system that showed the exact text of whichever policy you were
looking at, just like the insurance companies do when they issue a policy.
Of course I don’t know the details of the MID so it might not have been
built competently.

Sam

--
The entity formerly known as Sam.Wilson@ed.ac.uk
Spit the dummy to reply

On Fri, 17 Jun 2022 15:34:10 -0000 (UTC), Sam Wilson
<ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> wrote:

>Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:
>> … 4 bytes per character (assuming
>> UTF-8). …
>
>Surely, since most of the text in UK insurance policies is in English it
>would be much closer to 1 byte per character using UTF-8.

I'm being generous in terms of my size estimates. In reality, it would be a lot
lower than my back of a digital envelope calculation.

Mark

On Fri, 17 Jun 2022 16:57:55 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:

>In message <p66pahd57qsli9vg8r44e427f1s3kjr29k@4ax.com>, at 16:27:31 on
>Fri, 17 Jun 2022, Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk>
>remarked:

>>That's big, by the standards of home computers and small office systems, of
>>course. My desktop PC has a 1TB drive and I've got a file server with three 1TB
>>drives and a 2TB drive. So you couldn't store the MID in my house. But that's
>>well within the capacity of a large corporate database. Amazon ECS would charge
>>you $2,252 per month for that, and I'd expect that MID would have no quibbles
>>over that. It's less than a typical monthly staff salary. And, of course, in
>>reality the total storage requirements would be a lot less than that.
>
>Big as in complexity of potentially n-squared interwoven inclusions and
>exclusions, not the number of bytes.

Yes, but that kind of big data is the sort of thing that database administrators
are employed to deal with. Large numbers of entries aren't going to mean a
corresponding increase in complexity - it's going to be broadly the same design
of database for 40 million vehicles as it would be for a few thousand.

With my own DBA hat on, the MID database doesn't look particularly complex. I
work with databases of 40 million lines and multiple references. It's just that,
with that many vehicles and drivers to cover, you're going to need a lot of tin.
Mark

Marland <gemehabal@btinternet.co.uk> wrote:
> Peter Johnson <peter@parksidewood.nospam> wrote:
>> On Tue, 14 Jun 2022 21:44:47 +0100, "NY" <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> "mick" <nospam@junk.mail> wrote in message
>>> news:mn.73fd7e66cac3b0c8.143772@junk.mail...
>>>> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-61794798
>>>
>>> I wonder if the car was actually uninsured, or whether it was insured but
>>> the carrying of the dangerous load rendered the insurance invalid.
>>>
>> Taxed until 1 February 2023, MOT expires 5 October 2022 and it's on
>> the askMID database as insured.
>> Is there anything in insurance policies that invalidates them if the
>> insured does something stupid?
>>
>
> I think deliberately driving a vehicle into a situation that damages it
> may give an option for the claim to be rejected or reduced considerably
>
> Example would be driving an ordinary car into deep flood water or driving
> along a beach and getting stuck in soft sand with an incoming tide.
>
>
> GH
>

I’m told that drivers that write their cars off by getting stranded on and
then subsequently submerged on the Holy Island (Lindisfarne) causeway have
no recourse to their insurance. You only get stranded if you ignore the
safe crossing times.

Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <t8g6rq$k5h$1@dont-email.me>, at 22:20:57 on Thu, 16 Jun
> 2022, MB <MB@nospam.net> remarked:
>> On 16/06/2022 18:52, Roland Perry wrote:
>>> But you can't check that at the roadside on a Sunday, ahead of putting
>>> out a press release at Monday lunchtime. At the very least it needs a
>>> week for the dust to settle.
>>
>> Hasn't that always been the case etc slightly easier to check now?
>>
>> I presume the PNC has a live link, it used to be only updated overnight
>> from tape and quite likely even less frequently that at one time.
>
> Earlier, someone floated the idea:
>
> "It is possible the vehicle is insured, but the person driving
> it is not."
>
> Is that level of detail recorded on the PNC? If not, then even a MID
> check is predominantly useless at the roadside, because without poring
> through the exclusions, a car that's 'insured' might be only for certain
> subsets of driver.

Surely the police have access to the insurance database on a deeper level
than the public do, and it shouldn't take them long to answer the three
relevant questions:

Is the vehicle insured to be driven by anyone, or only by named drivers,
and is Fred Bloggs one of them?

Is Fred Bloggs insured to drive 'any other vehicle' 3rd party only, by way
of having insurance on another vehicle?

Is the vehicle owned by or leased to Fred Bloggs, which would invalidate
point 2?

Anna Noyd-Dryver

NY <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:
> "Roland Perry" <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:ZZ0zQXTvVJriFApq@perry.uk...
>
>>> it is not legal for a car to be uninsured and only covered (for 3rd party)
>>> by virtue of another car's drive-any-car clause.
>>
>> It used to be. Hence the need for the industry and police working together
>> to try to close the car-pound loophole. Which they *didn't* do by changing
>> the law, rather than by getting insurance companies to insert that
>> exclusion.
>>
>>> It's to avoid you buying a cheap-to-insure car and then using the
>>> drive-any-car clause of its policy to allow you to drive a more expensive
>>> car which is not itself insured.
>>
>> While that's a potential loophole...
>>
>>> I think the wording at one time (and maybe now as well) said something
>>> like "you are insured 3rd party to drive any car which you do not own and
>>> for which you are not the registered keeper".
>>
>> ...it's closed by the wording you quote, and *not* by the "must be
>> separately insured" wording.
>
> Ah. I didn't realise that the car-pound problem was seen to be a greater
> risk than the general problem of buying and insuring a cheap car and then
> using its drive-other-cars clause to drive another, uninsured and much more
> expensive car.
>
> There needs to be a blanket "in emergency" coverage that is included in all
> policies so if the insured driver is incapacitated in some way, a passenger
> can drive the car to complete the journey. If the driver can't continue, you
> don't want to have to take a long break while you try to contact his insurer
> to arrange temporary named-driver coverage on his policy for the "relief
> driver".
>
>
> There's also the "main driver" loophole. It used to be common for parents to
> buy a car for a son/daughter, insure it with the parent as the main driver
> (to get a lower premium) and add the son/daughter as a named driver - and
> then the child uses the car as their own car (ie as the main driver). Quite
> how it is proved is another matter. You *could* insist that the policyholder
> had to be in the car when the named driver drove it, but that would be too
> severe and wouldn't cater for the perfectly moral case where a husband and
> wife share each other's cars and take either to go to work etc.
>
>

At some point, around 20 years ago, my car was off the road and my sister
had just bought a new car, so her old one was sitting on the drive at our
parents house, uninsured. I used it for several weeks under the 'third
party' clause before officially transferring the keepership to me and
changing my insurance over to that car. With hindsight, that was probably
illegal? At the time I did have the curious realisation that the car was
insured while I was sitting in it but uninsured whenever I walked away from
it.

Anna Noyd-Dryver

Anna Noyd-Dryver <anna@noyd-dryver.com> wrote:
> Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>> In message <t8g6rq$k5h$1@dont-email.me>, at 22:20:57 on Thu, 16 Jun
>> 2022, MB <MB@nospam.net> remarked:
>>> On 16/06/2022 18:52, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>> But you can't check that at the roadside on a Sunday, ahead of putting
>>>> out a press release at Monday lunchtime. At the very least it needs a
>>>> week for the dust to settle.
>>>
>>> Hasn't that always been the case etc slightly easier to check now?
>>>
>>> I presume the PNC has a live link, it used to be only updated overnight
>>> from tape and quite likely even less frequently that at one time.
>>
>> Earlier, someone floated the idea:
>>
>> "It is possible the vehicle is insured, but the person driving
>> it is not."
>>
>> Is that level of detail recorded on the PNC? If not, then even a MID
>> check is predominantly useless at the roadside, because without poring
>> through the exclusions, a car that's 'insured' might be only for certain
>> subsets of driver.
>
> Surely the police have access to the insurance database on a deeper level
> than the public do, and it shouldn't take them long to answer the three
> relevant questions:
>
> Is the vehicle insured to be driven by anyone, or only by named drivers,
> and is Fred Bloggs one of them?
>
> Is Fred Bloggs insured to drive 'any other vehicle' 3rd party only, by way
> of having insurance on another vehicle?
>
> Is the vehicle owned by or leased to Fred Bloggs, which would invalidate
> point 2?
>
>
> Anna Noyd-Dryver
>
>

They do, and the ones that fail the tests end up in court. Being prosecuted
for no insurance is a very common offence. In other news, the “victim
surcharge” is now calculated at 40% of the fine. Another back door tax.

"Tweed" <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:t8ifod$ue$1@dont-email.me...
> I’m told that drivers that write their cars off by getting stranded on and
> then subsequently submerged on the Holy Island (Lindisfarne) causeway have
> no recourse to their insurance. You only get stranded if you ignore the
> safe crossing times.

What about if you start to cross before the last safe time (maybe a while
before it) and your car breaks down when you are half-way across? I imagine
if you get a puncture and have a serviceable spare, you break all records
for changing a wheel! And if you don't, you drive on the flat tyre if at all
possible, since damage to the tyre and maybe the wheel rim is cheaper than a
new car.

I'm always glad to get to the far side, even though I know I'm within the
safe times.

It's a shame that the illuminated signs just give a bland safety message
rather than actually having a customised message with today's times.
Expecting people to park and look at a printed sign (assuming they haven't
already checked online) seems very unhelpful.

NY <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:
> "Tweed" <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:t8ifod$ue$1@dont-email.me...
>> I’m told that drivers that write their cars off by getting stranded on and
>> then subsequently submerged on the Holy Island (Lindisfarne) causeway have
>> no recourse to their insurance. You only get stranded if you ignore the
>> safe crossing times.
>
> What about if you start to cross before the last safe time (maybe a while
> before it) and your car breaks down when you are half-way across? I imagine
> if you get a puncture and have a serviceable spare, you break all records
> for changing a wheel! And if you don't, you drive on the flat tyre if at all
> possible, since damage to the tyre and maybe the wheel rim is cheaper than a
> new car.
>
> I'm always glad to get to the far side, even though I know I'm within the
> safe times.
>
> It's a shame that the illuminated signs just give a bland safety message
> rather than actually having a customised message with today's times.
> Expecting people to park and look at a printed sign (assuming they haven't
> already checked online) seems very unhelpful.
>
>

The safe crossing times have a significant margin of safety, but that might
be part of the problem, ie perceived to be crying wolf. The illuminated
signs giving safe crossing times did lead to someone getting stuck. One day
they started giving the wrong times. Initially it was claimed they were
hacked (the standard lazy excuse). What I think really happened is they
forgot to replace the real time clock battery and after a reboot the system
thought it was in way back in the past. There’s lots of things that could
be done to improve things, but council inertia prevails. Three or four cars
come to grief each year.

On 17/06/2022 16:23, Roland Perry wrote:
(I'll get my coat).

Been taking lessons from Graeme?? ;-)

--
Colin

Anna Noyd-Dryver <anna@noyd-dryver.com> wrote:
> At some point, around 20 years ago, my car was off the road and my sister
> had just bought a new car, so her old one was sitting on the drive at our
> parents house, uninsured. I used it for several weeks under the 'third
> party' clause before officially transferring the keepership to me and
> changing my insurance over to that car. With hindsight, that was probably
> illegal? At the time I did have the curious realisation that the car was
> insured while I was sitting in it but uninsured whenever I walked away from
> it.

I don't think so. The 'drive other cars' is specifically for cars which you
don't own (so insuring a Metro in order to drive your Ferrari doesn't work),
but that applied in your case. As mentioned these days the car must have
insurance in somebody else's name (for the pound loophole as mentioned, but
also to prevent false-positives of cars that ANPR+MID says are uninsured but
turn out to be).

But pre-MID I think that was fine. Bearing in mind it's usually third party
only cover, so you would have been covered for injuries and damage to others
but had no cover for the vehicle if you had an accident.

(There might also be exclusions for cars which you have hired or driving as
part of employment and similar circumstances)

Theo

In message <t8iheh$cq4$2@dont-email.me>, at 18:33:53 on Fri, 17 Jun
2022, Anna Noyd-Dryver <anna@noyd-dryver.com> remarked:
>Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>> In message <t8g6rq$k5h$1@dont-email.me>, at 22:20:57 on Thu, 16 Jun
>> 2022, MB <MB@nospam.net> remarked:
>>> On 16/06/2022 18:52, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>> But you can't check that at the roadside on a Sunday, ahead of putting
>>>> out a press release at Monday lunchtime. At the very least it needs a
>>>> week for the dust to settle.
>>>
>>> Hasn't that always been the case etc slightly easier to check now?
>>>
>>> I presume the PNC has a live link, it used to be only updated overnight
>>> from tape and quite likely even less frequently that at one time.
>>
>> Earlier, someone floated the idea:
>>
>> "It is possible the vehicle is insured, but the person driving
>> it is not."
>>
>> Is that level of detail recorded on the PNC? If not, then even a MID
>> check is predominantly useless at the roadside, because without poring
>> through the exclusions, a car that's 'insured' might be only for certain
>> subsets of driver.
>
>Surely the police have access to the insurance database on a deeper level
>than the public do, and it shouldn't take them long to answer the three
>relevant questions:
>
>Is the vehicle insured to be driven by anyone, or only by named drivers,
>and is Fred Bloggs one of them?
>
>Is Fred Bloggs insured to drive 'any other vehicle' 3rd party only, by way
>of having insurance on another vehicle?
>
>Is the vehicle owned by or leased to Fred Bloggs, which would invalidate
>point 2?

There are more questions though: "is the person nevertheless not insured
to drive this car because of the mission they are undertaking". For
example: had they been going shopping it would be OK, but using the car
to do Hermes Deliveries not OK.

And if you are driving someone else's car on your insurance, and their
car *is* separately insured, do *both* of those policies have to include
Hermes Deliveries for the mission to be insured?

Mindful that *your* other-car cover is very like only for domestic
emergencies (if you scour the small print), but also if your friend is a
Hermes driver too, would his cover include *you*, despite not being a
named driver?
--
Roland Perry

In message <t8ifod$ue$1@dont-email.me>, at 18:05:01 on Fri, 17 Jun 2022,
Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> remarked:
>Marland <gemehabal@btinternet.co.uk> wrote:
>> Peter Johnson <peter@parksidewood.nospam> wrote:
>>> On Tue, 14 Jun 2022 21:44:47 +0100, "NY" <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>> "mick" <nospam@junk.mail> wrote in message
>>>> news:mn.73fd7e66cac3b0c8.143772@junk.mail...
>>>>> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-61794798
>>>>
>>>> I wonder if the car was actually uninsured, or whether it was insured but
>>>> the carrying of the dangerous load rendered the insurance invalid.
>>>>
>>> Taxed until 1 February 2023, MOT expires 5 October 2022 and it's on
>>> the askMID database as insured.
>>> Is there anything in insurance policies that invalidates them if the
>>> insured does something stupid?
>>>
>>
>> I think deliberately driving a vehicle into a situation that damages it
>> may give an option for the claim to be rejected or reduced considerably
>>
>> Example would be driving an ordinary car into deep flood water or driving
>> along a beach and getting stuck in soft sand with an incoming tide.
>
>I’m told that drivers that write their cars off by getting stranded on and
>then subsequently submerged on the Holy Island (Lindisfarne) causeway have
>no recourse to their insurance. You only get stranded if you ignore the
>safe crossing times.

And there are of course, as far as I'm aware, policies which only
include "the mainland" [be that UK or Green-Card countries), which may
or may not be Lindisfarne-friendly. I think the original motivation for
such an exclusion is the greater cost of recover and subsequent repair
if an accident happens on a remote island with only one ferry a week.
--
Roland Perry

In message <t8iajq$rpq$1@dont-email.me>, at 16:37:14 on Fri, 17 Jun
2022, Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:

>>>>>>> It was the driver who was reported as having no insurance not the
>>>>>>> vehicle. The vehicle's insurance could be for a different driver.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Is that level of detail available in a MID check?
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes, if you're authorised to ask for it. The MID contains full
>>>>>details of every policy submitted to it.
>>>>
>>>> It must be a very big database - the last time I looked my policy and
>>>> schedules (all of which need to be read in great detail) was at least
>>>> fifty pages long.
>>>
>>> Though presumably most of the text of the policy and schedules are
>>> boilerplates that could be referenced rather than being included in every
>>> record.
>>
>> There are hundreds of insurers, and that would be very difficult to
>> co-ordinate. …
>
>But it would still be O(insurers x policy variants) rather than O(total
>number of policies issued).

Don't forget the extra layer of expulsions as to use.

>> … And then you'd need to train 'plod' to interpret it.
>
>Or build a system that showed the exact text of whichever policy you were
>looking at, just like the insurance companies do when they issue a policy.

And then plod has to plough through two (one for the car and another for
the driver, if he claims he's using the policy on his own car, whose
number plate he might have just conveniently forgotten) 50-page
documents at the roadside and come a conclusion he's happy to stand by
in court?

In practice they'll probably issue a "producer" and a week later someone
in a nice warm office and with rather more legal training, can decide
whether or not on the day that person was insured or not.

>Of course I don’t know the details of the MID so it might not have been
>built competently.

--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <t8ifod$ue$1@dont-email.me>, at 18:05:01 on Fri, 17 Jun 2022,
> Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> remarked:
>> Marland <gemehabal@btinternet.co.uk> wrote:
>>> Peter Johnson <peter@parksidewood.nospam> wrote:
>>>> On Tue, 14 Jun 2022 21:44:47 +0100, "NY" <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> "mick" <nospam@junk.mail> wrote in message
>>>>> news:mn.73fd7e66cac3b0c8.143772@junk.mail...
>>>>>> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-61794798
>>>>>
>>>>> I wonder if the car was actually uninsured, or whether it was insured but
>>>>> the carrying of the dangerous load rendered the insurance invalid.
>>>>>
>>>> Taxed until 1 February 2023, MOT expires 5 October 2022 and it's on
>>>> the askMID database as insured.
>>>> Is there anything in insurance policies that invalidates them if the
>>>> insured does something stupid?
>>>>
>>>
>>> I think deliberately driving a vehicle into a situation that damages it
>>> may give an option for the claim to be rejected or reduced considerably
>>>
>>> Example would be driving an ordinary car into deep flood water or driving
>>> along a beach and getting stuck in soft sand with an incoming tide.
>>
>> I’m told that drivers that write their cars off by getting stranded on and
>> then subsequently submerged on the Holy Island (Lindisfarne) causeway have
>> no recourse to their insurance. You only get stranded if you ignore the
>> safe crossing times.
>
> And there are of course, as far as I'm aware, policies which only
> include "the mainland" [be that UK or Green-Card countries), which may
> or may not be Lindisfarne-friendly. I think the original motivation for
> such an exclusion is the greater cost of recover and subsequent repair
> if an accident happens on a remote island with only one ferry a week.

Lindisfarne is the mainland twice per day. It’s when it is not the trouble
starts.