Insurance scam?

missk_ensington

Hi there,

Was confused regarding car insuarnce, here's the situation:

My mum has 7 years no claims and paid to have them protected. She put little bro on insurance, who (within 3 months) wrote the car off.

Although she's paid no claim protection, the premium is still going up, so whats the point? They still ask 'have you had a claim in the last 3 years' and you can't avoid answering that, Protected no claims or not!?

So.... was wondering, what if my brother moved out (as he is anyway) and applied for car insurance in his own right and didn't declare the claim. How would they ever find out he'd had a claim? They don't have your NI number, only an address to relate you to a claim, but he will have changed address and you might think his name will bring something up, but there could be thousands of John Smiths in the country?

They have a central database of claims and details, but as far as I can see this is the name, address of Claimant. As long as your address history doesn't relate to that where the claim was made, whats stopping everyone keeping quiet about a claim such as this?!?

Astaroth

There is a number of national databases which most insurers subscribe to which contains all the details of policies past and present.

When a new policy is taken out these are checked against this database and others (such as fraud registeries) and any possible matches are highlighted. A person or a computer program then decides if it requires further investigation or if it should be cleared.

Is it possible to get away with it? Sure, there are some that do. The risk of cause though is that you are found out which means your insurance is invalidated so you can be charged with driving without insurance. You will never be able to get insurance for less than £1,000 through insurers that specialise in criminals/ fraudsters etc. You will be loaded to the fraud registery and your bank/ credit card companies etc told that you are a fraudster... some of which may therefore decide to withdraw credit/ repossess your house etc.

malky39

alot of insurance comanies will as if you have had an accident within the last 3-5years instead of if you have claimed cause having an accident proves that your a greater risk.
As for the premium going up this can be due to natural inflation. But also she will still have 7years no claims but will still declare the claim. So this will put a bit more onto the premium. Think about its for example

Without accident

Say your quote with no noclaims was £1000, and with 7 years no claims they give you say 65% off your premium would be £1000-£650=£350.

With accident

your quote £1000
call it 20% added on for a claim you quote would be £1200
then with you protected 7 years no claims taken off again say 65% your quote would be £480

That my friend is why the price has still gone up even with the protected no claims

gyzmo

What you have is a no claims discount protcetion, not a premium protection. If you have two people who are completely identical, but one had an accidnt, then that person would be charged more money, even if they both had the same ncd. The above example is very good in describing how this works.

By not delcaring the incident in future, there is the risk of fraudulent misrepresentation, and one might as well kiss goodbye to having any chance of being insured again. even if it's not checked when the policy is taken out, you can be sure it would be if there was a claim, and the consequences are severe.