As far as the law is concerned, you are not a drink driver. Your bloods came back below the limit, therefore you should not have had your insurance cancelled for being a drink driver. The roadside breath machine is not evidential as it is not fully calibrated, therefore Hastings cancelling your insurance was surely a breach of contract, as technically you had done nothing wrong. Did you tell them the breath reading as they should not have found this out from elsewhere?
I would get your legal representative to go back to them and request they cancel their reclaim of costs based on you legally not having done anything wrong in respect of their drink driving policy.
That is not necessarily the case,
this is what Hastings policy says:
You’re not covered if an accident happens while you or anyone entitled to drive under your current Certificate of Motor Insurance:
• Is found to be over the prescribed limit for alcohol in the country where the incident happens
• Is driving while unfit through alcohol, drugs or other substances, whether prescribed or not
• Doesn’t provide a sample of breath, blood or urine when required to do so, without lawful reason.
point two says ‘driving whilst unfit through drink.....’
you are right that the 51 breath reading at the roadside is not proof, but proof in criminal law. Also 79 in blood was provided several hours alter.
It still may be the case that the police will consider a back calculation to prove what the reading would have been at the time of the accident.
All that relates to criminal law, where the facts have to be proved “beyond reasonable doubt.” but the claim for the costs of the accident are based on civil law, where decisions are based on “on the balance of probabilities”.
It is quite possible for someone to be found not guilty in a criminal court and then have the case proved against them in a civil court on the same ‘facts’.