Car insurance question - what constitutes a claim??

thomasd

Hi,

I'm hoping someone might be able to shed some light on the practice of my insurer (i.e are they right).

I've been with my current insurer (they have a trunk and big ears) for about a year and had full protected no claims discount (10 years).

Around July last year, I left my car parked on a city street whilst visiting friends and it was damaged (bodywork only) by joyriders who scraped along the side of it.

At the time, I called the insurers to find out if I could claim etc.. and after waiting weeks for a police report to be issued to the insurers (the result of which was 'we don't know who the joy riders are') I was told that I could claim but would have to pay excess etc as there was no one else to claim against.

Of course I declined to do this and did not make a claim or get any payout from the insurance company.

It's now time for renewal and they sent me the usual renewal letter with no claims years listed and also no claims/accidents showing on the details page.

As is usual, they had also quoted a silly inflated renewal price, so I did as I normally do and got a quote online which was much cheaper and called them to match it.

They said no problem and started going through the details of the quote, and then the guy on the phone said 'ah, well these don't match as you had a claim in July last year'... to which I said, my car was damaged but I did not claim against the damage as I would have to pay an excess as there was no-one to claim against.

The guy on the phone then said, well we class that as a claim so it will increase the premium... so I then asked 'how much are you saying this 'claim' cost for the sake of the quote and he said - 'I have it down on the system as a claim costing £75'

This seems pretty messed up to me as I did not actually claim... so no idea where the £75 they are claiming is on record came from, it certainly didn't go to me and the bodywork of my car remains damaged and unfixed as I never did claim.

So - are they allowed to do this? If I get quotes from elsewhere, do I need to include this 'claim' which I didn't actually make and which my current insurer doesn't even list on my proof of no claims and new policy document?

I'm not sure what to do, I am getting much cheaper quotes without including this so called 'claim' and it seems wrong that I should have to list a £75 cost claim for something I didn't claim against and for something I never got any money or fix for.

All advise appreciated!

Thanks,
T

dogbot

The cost on the claim will have been the fee charged by the police for the report.

I think that the problem is that Elephant's (probably very badly paid and trained) employee has reffered to the "incident" as a "claim". This would be an easy mistake since he would see it as a claim reported but settled without prejudice on their system, therefore call it a claim when really it is an incident.

You must declare the incident or loss and this will have one impact on rating. A claim will have another, almost always more significant, impact on rating.

mattymoo

It should not have been recorded as a claim with a reserve set against it. A reserve (the £75) is what the insurer expects a claim to cost and £75 is very low.

So, the full NCD entitlement you had before should be intact.

However, the insurers will regard this as an incident and will probably load the base premium (premium before NC Discount applied) accordingly.

Try getting quotes with a non-fault claim, claim cost nil from Elephant and other insurers to do a comparison.

EDIT - sorry I overlooked the cost of the police report. Could you see if you could reimburse them this cost and have the claim record amended? Some insurers will do this but a lot will not.

thomasd

Thanks guys, I think I have it cleared up with them now... included the 'incident' when doing quotes and got something a lot cheaper (which the trunked ones did offer to match, but the cover was superior so I declined)

Thanks,
T