No claim made for car incident but premium still increased

lisyloo

So just to clarify (sorry but I'm STILL confused by this) - and thanks by the way.

Last June I hit my husbands car on the drive (stupid but jetlagged).
I claimed for his car (but not mine) as a 3rd party claim. He did not use his insurance (did not really need to as were married).

So am I right in saying both that I claimed (1 fault claim) and also he claimed (1 non-fault claim). Is that right or am I penalising us to heavily here?
The wording on esure is claims and not incidents.

BTW - At the time I was told by lloyds tsb call center person that my husband must declare it but it would not affect his insurance (sounded very much like she was reading from a script).
I remember complaining most vorciferously at the time about poor advice and spoke to her manager.
Her manager told me that he wouldn't be penalised and that it would be against FSA guideline for him to be charged more.
Now appears this is not the case and it is widespread, so I was right to complain about their poor advice at the time.

dacouch

I've just had a look at an Esure quote and it asks this "Have you had any motoring claims, accidents or losses in the last 3 years?" the help icon offers this advice "Have you had any motoring claims, accidents or losses in the last 3 years? "We need to know about any motoring claims, accidents or losses including damage, fire or theft, irrespective of fault or the car you were driving".

I think the person you spoke to at Lloyds did not know what they were talking about which is not unusual. I worked at a direct Insurer call centre for a year and they took on supervisors /. teamleaders who had no insurance experience but had experience supervising. One of the supervisers had been a shoe shop manager so this qualified her to be a superviser after 3 weeks of training. I used to amuse myself when we were on the same shift by ringing up and asking questions like "I have just been registered as totally blind, could you send me a brail policy book". She would either come up with an answer off the top of her head or ring through to the underwriting team which would make them laugh.

I was amazed how little anyone really knew about Insurance, they were even issuing manually written covernotes incorrectly even though they were counter signed by whoever was the most senior person on the floor.

Unfortunately most call centre staff have a couple of weeks training, if they don't know the answer they ask their "senior" who is a bit more qualified than them, if the senior does not know they ask the "team leader / supervisor, if they did not know they would ask a floor walker and so on. The nature of the game is the senior staff often don't like asking someone else for advice so they make a guess using their limited knowledge.

As you have discovered its always best to take a note of the persons name and date / time etc or record the call or as you have done request a copy of your file and calls.

lisyloo

I think the person you spoke to at Lloyds did not know what they were talking about which is not unusual

The call center person (UK) was admittedly reading from a script, but I did speak to a manager who spoke about FSA regulations.
This does not bode well for trust in the insurance industry.
Whilst I don't like pedro's approach and like to think of myself as a bit more objective, I have to say I'm very annoyed about being given the wrong information.

We have 4 lots of insurance (2 bikes, 2 cars) so if we get penalised for 3 years, then that's 12 lots of increased premiums.
I don't have an issue with the risk thing, but I do have an issue with being misled.
If we had known about this rather than being misled then we might have made a different decision about whether to claim.

So whilst I have some empathy for the insurance industry about some things, I also have some sympathy with the views of pedro, JohnBoy etc. because I think I was badly advised (and did tell them that at the time).

Quentin

lisyloo wrote: »

BTW - At the time I was told by lloyds tsb call center person that my husband must declare it but it would not affect his insurance.

Maybe the call centre person used the wrong terminology. Quite wrong of course for someone in the business, but people do mix this particular one up:

What would have been correct would have been to say "my husband must declare it but it would not affect his no claims discount".

lisyloo

No, I am certain I haven't misunderstood what they said.
I remember it because I had a "blazing row" with them about it at the time.
The manager said it would be against FSA guidelines and immoral for my husband to be penalised for something that happen whilst he wasn't even there.

I was annoyed at the time because whilst they might be able to advise what Lloyds TSB would do, I didn't feel they were in a position to advise customers what the rest of the industry would do, after all the rest of the industry can change their policies at any time.

I am pretty sure she didn't get her words mixed uip.
Firstly because we discussed it at length, but also because of the tone and speed of her voice I could tell she was reading lines off a script.

Personally I don't think it makes a difference to whether we would have claimed but my husband does not agree with me on that.
I reckon things could have changed since Jun 08 and now, but I still don't think they should give their customers advice about what the rest of the industry will do.

Quentin

No, I wasn't suggesting you had misunderstood at all. Just that they were talking about your "insurance" not being affected by the incident, when they actually should have said your NCD wouldn't be affected.

Clearly they cannot tell you what any other company's policy is over the effect of an incident on your history.

lisyloo

Just that they were talking about your "insurance" not being affected by the incident, when they actually should have said your NCD wouldn't be affected.

I don't believe so but obviously I can't give a transcript after 12 months.
I wanted to raise a complaint about what she said.
The manager would not accept my complaint.
He said they CAN comment on the rest of the industry as there are FSA guidelines and it would be immoral and against guidelines for my husband to be penalised.

I dropped it at the time as I had better things to do (like fixing the car).
I still think we would have claimed, so I don't have the motivation to take it up with anyone. I have a full life and it's not high enough up my priority list. It seems that half our insurance is affected and half not (2 out of 4 policies), so it's only half as bad as it could be and anyway I've scrapped my car now, so 1 less policy.

But for discussion I do believe that insurers are not being transparent.
My husband recently had a renewal notice from Tescos.
It was on auto-renewal as he paid by credit card.
There was nothing at all to tell him how to let the policy be lapsed.
Obviously he phoned them rather than did nothing, but they are not being transparent with their information.
He also did not know he was siginng up to a CCA (he never would have knwoingly done that).
I'm sure there was some small print somewhere but it was certainly not made transparent when it's a KEY fact.

lisyloo

What you do or don’t think of me is immaterial

It's not immaterial.
If the way you present your case means you come across as a bitter and twisted, one sided prejudiced indvidual, then people will not take you seriously.
Yes, my opinion may not be important, but I think this is a widespread opinion and you are not being heard because of the way you present yourself (and I know I'm not very good at that either).
By barging into every thread with negatives whether or not it's well thought out, does not present you in a good light.

It’s a shame really, because I am trying to encourage people to stand up to the IC and to make the IC’s to consider playing the game, being fair, not particularly for the likes of you, as you appear articulate enough to hold your own, but many cant

I admire you motivation, but trying to wind people up all the time is not the best way to win people over.

Now you may not like “how” I say what I say

I think you are underestimating the importance of presentation.
If people think your prejudiced, biased, if you insult them and wind them up then you've lost before you've begun.
I prefer to concetrate on content and not presentation and I'm not great at it at all, but I do know that it required lots of effort if you want to be taken seriously.

pedro123456

lisyloo

I will remove the above post and this one,
I have to say as I say it...........is presentation a issue......maybe......you are not privy to messages sent via PM............anyway, i'll try and address it and thanks for your observations......please carry on with your discussion

Z

lisyloo

is presentation a issue......maybe

Well, all the feedback I get all the time is that it is important.
You see I'm not very good at it either.