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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-04-07 Daily Xml
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DRIVER'S LICENCES

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen) (15:43): I rise today to bring to the attention of the house—and I am sure it will be of interest to all members who might want to warn their own constituents—a matter that has been brought to my attention by a constituent who was about to lose her driver's licence because of doing her points over the 50 km/h zones. She is a very sedate driver (a very good driver) with no previous driving problems, but because of the 50 km/h zones—

An honourable member interjecting:

Mrs REDMOND: It is not about 50 km/h zones; I am just explaining the background. This lady, who has been a sedate driver with no problems in the background, has now got to the point where she is about to lose her licence. These days, instead of losing your licence, you can take what is called a good behaviour option. This lady took the good behaviour option. From November 2007 until November 2008, therefore, she was required to be of good behaviour—like any other good behaviour bond when you cannot have any offences—and that period expired and that was fine.

The problem arose when in January this year she had a very minor car accident. When she went to claim on her insurance, which she has had with RAA Insurance for some 30 years and which she pays monthly by automatic debit from her bank account, they said, 'We don't insure you. You should have told us about this good behaviour option.'

She appealed and recently got a letter back from the dispute resolution committee on the internal review of this decision and, amongst other things, it stated that the committee agreed that a reasonable person in the circumstances could be expected to know this good behaviour option to be a matter so relevant. They went on to say that, if she had disclosed the good behaviour option on the renewal of her policy in July 2008, RAA Insurance would have declined to insure her as the driver of the risk vehicle on any terms whatsoever.

Like this lady, I pay my insurance by the month by automatic deduction and, like her, I have the habit, when the insurance renewal comes in, of checking to make sure that it is the right vehicle, just as I check to make sure that the premium has not gone up too high; but, if I have not lost my licence, quite frankly, unless there was something on the front of the document saying, 'Are you aware that if you have had even a good behaviour option, you are not insured', I would not be aware of this.

So, the outcome for this lady has been that they have then said, 'Okay, in view of the fact that you have been a 30 year customer, we will review this. We won't give you the insurance, but we will allow you take out an alternative insurance.' The alternative insurance has an excess for her of about $1,250 and another $1,250 on the vehicle, and backdated premiums to July last year, which come to as much as the problem with the car, because it was a relatively minor bingle in the first place.

As a result of these few indiscretions with the 50 to 60 zones—and, as I said, I am not trying to debate that issue today, but it is someone who is a good driver, who does not have a bad driving history, and who has then got to the point of doing her points—she then has the good behaviour option and unbeknownst to her is uninsured for her vehicle from when the renewal came in.

I suspect that everyone of us would find people in our electorates who were in that same circumstance, where they have taken the good behaviour option, they have not been aware when their renewal has come in, because it is an automatic deduction-type policy that goes up a bit each year, of the fact that they are no longer insured. They are driving around thinking that they are insured and until they have an experience like my constituent they are not going to become aware of this fact about their insurance company, and whilst this was RAA I have a suspicion that all the insurance companies have this same attitude.

My view is that, firstly, not only should they not be accepting the premiums but they should, in fact, be putting this in bold letters somewhere so that when your renewal comes in it states that, 'If you have taken the good behaviour option'—not just if you have lost your licence, but if you have taken the good behaviour option so you have continued to have your licence—'we will consider you to be non-insurable and there is no point in you even contemplating trying to get insurance with us because we would have declined to insure you as a driver of the risk vehicle on any terms whatsoever.'

So, notwithstanding that you have been with them for 30 years and that you may have an otherwise unblemished record in terms of claims from them or anything like that, no matter what you could produce as evidence—and this lady put in to the dispute resolution committee (an internal committee) a letter explaining the fact that she and her husband had both been long-term customers—there is nothing from this insurance company.

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