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NOTHING TO DECLARE?

7th December 2000
Page 27
Page 27, 7th December 2000 — NOTHING TO DECLARE?
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

• We have been negotiating a new insurance policy for our fleet. On the proposal form we said that none of the company employees had any convictions. The Insurers wanted to see all the driving licences, so we sent them copies.

They have written back saying one of our managers has an endorsement for a drink-driving conviction in 1986 and another in 1992. He was fined and disqualified on both occasions. They are asking why we did not declare them on the proposal form. We have always believed that after five years such motoring convictions are disregarded.

• Section 1 of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 states that where an individual has been convicted of an offence and the rehabilitation period for that offence has ended, the individual shall be treated as a rehabilitated person and the conviction shall be treated as spent. Section 5 of the Act states that the rehabilitation period for an offence dealt with by a fine is five years. Section 4 deals with the effect of rehabilitation and it states, in sub-section (2): "Where a question seeking information with respect to a person's previous convictions, offences, conduct or circumstances is put to him or to any other person otherwise than in proceedings before a judicial authority, the question shall be treated as not relating to spent convictions or to any circumstances ancillary to spent convictions, and the answer thereto may be framed accordingly: and the person questioned shall not be subjected to any liability or otherwise prejudiced in law by reason of any failure to acknowledge or disclose a spent conviction or any circumstances ancillary to a spent conviction in his answer to the question."

Insurance policies are contracts "uberrimae fidei" (of the utmost good faith) which means that, at common law, all material facts have to be disclosed to the insurer so that he has full knowledge of the risk he is taking. However, Section 4(3) of the 1974 Act states: Any obligation imposed on any person by any rule of law or by the provisions of any agreement or arrangement to disclose any mailers to any other person shall not extend to requiring him to disclose a spent conviction or any circumstances ancillary to a spent conviction (whether the conviction is his own or another's)."

The uberrimae fidel rule is a rule of law so it does not apply to spent convictions.

Exemptions to Section 4(2) and (3) are given in the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975, but they apply mainly to employment in specified positions of trust and to proceeding of specified disciplinary bodies. They do not include insurance proposals or policies. I can find no High Court precedents on spent convictions and insurance policies.

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Organisations: High Court

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