Car insurance declined

belfastgirl23

Would be grateful for any advice. My current car insurer has declined me for renewal because of a prior accident being claimed for (from a couple of years ago, the guy changed his mind). The accident involved personal injury. Has anyone had experience of getting insurance after it was declined by a company? The broker I spoke with said their other insurers on their panel had also declined to quote because of the my current company's refusal to renew. I'm worried now that I won't be able to get insurance at all or that it will be extortionate. Any advice or experiences very welcome.

belfastgirl23

Sorry to bump but I haven't managed to get any sense out of anyone yet about this - anyone any experiences?

mattymoo

Is it simply because of the accident or did you fail to notify them of the accident?

If it is the first one, then the insurer has simply declined to offer renewal because you no longer fit their customer profile - which must be pretty strict to decline after one claim.

I suspect it might be the second one, i.e. you failed to report an accident and then 2 years later somebody made a claim against you for injuries. Will be harder in this case but you should try a few of the niche firms offering cover. Try Adrian Flux and firms of that type.

dunstonh

You will be able to get car insurance but you will probably find that the direct providers wont be interested (e.g. internet or comparison sites) as they cherry pick the easy stuff. A visit to your local broker may be in order or you can try one of the specialist firms that mattymoo mentions.

JonBoy_SCFC

i don't see why there would be a problem getting a price on a comparison website - just enter the claim (you won't need to go into much detail about when you reported it etc), and my guess is that plenty of companies will quote for you

go to either moneysupermarket, confused and comparethe market and you got most companies covered - worth a try anyway!

iceicebaby

Its not that they are not quoting for the claim, they are not quoting because her current insurers are declining to cover her.

During the quote with other insurers, they will ask have you ever had insurance cancelled refused or special terms imposed and to this the op now has to answer yes. that is why other insureres are refusing to cover.

mattymoo

Just noticed the OP is in Belfast. If an insurer simply decides the no longer wish to insure risks in NI, then this would not need to be declared by the OP.

Is that what has happened belfastgirl?

anniecave

declining to renew isn't the same as having insurance cancelled or refused or special terms imposed - or is it?

I changed address a few years ago and my broker endsleigh said the provider couldn't cover at me at my new address as the area was a higher risk area. It was almost at renewal time so they gave me my years ncb and endsleigh got me a refund on the last bit and offset it against the next years premium with another provider. The other provider was mainstream, I didn't have to go anywhere special.

When getting renewal quotes in later years, I've never counted that as cancelled/refused ?

JonBoy_SCFC

iceicebaby wrote: »

Its not that they are not quoting for the claim, they are not quoting because her current insurers are declining to cover her.

During the quote with other insurers, they will ask have you ever had insurance cancelled refused or special terms imposed and to this the op now has to answer yes. that is why other insureres are refusing to cover.

thanks good point if that is the reason - would be interesting to know for certain why insurer is not continuing cover though. also, anniecove asks a good question too?

belfastgirl23

Thanks everyone.

Yes there is an issue of not having declared the accident. I did mention it when I was asking for the quote last year but the person at the broker firm seemed to think it wasn't relevant because we were almost a year down the line and no claim had been made. Alas it turns out that they should have written it on the proposal form and they didn't. And now the broker firm are claiming that I didn't mention it Nothing I can do about that now unfortunately. I think this is the reason that they are declining to quote. The broker had in the meantime run my details past the rest of their insurers panel and they had all refused to quote because my original insurer declined to renew.

And to top it all I've had no correspondence whatsoever about the claim so I don't even know if it's been settled :rolleyes: - trying to chase this up but I can't get hold of anyone. I did have a visit from the loss adjuster though so I know it's in train.

Thanks for taking the time to think about it!

dacouch

You do need to declare to any new Insurer if a previous Insurers has declined to offer renewal of your policy as this is classed as having cover "refused or declined". Some companies will even include the words similar to "Or had the renewal of a policy refused of declined"

You should then declare that you have had covered declined, in reality if it was declined because you bought a car they do not want to cover or to many convictions etc the new Insurers would almost certainly not have a problem with you. It is the people that have had cover / renew declined because the Insurer feels they had acted inappropriately eg fraudulent or exagerated claim etc as obviously most other Insurers would not want to take this type of customer on.

It would be worth just clarify with your previous Insurers as to why they are not offering renewal so you can declare it to a new insurer.