someone hit my car, reported but but never made a claim

taffy415

This was 3 years ago but ever since then I have been putting it down as a claim whenever I have looked for car insurance on them comparison websites. However one of the companies I spoke to told me that it doesn't need mentioning as I never actually made a claim, which actually sounds right really.

Someone hit my car while I went into a petrol station to pay, presumably after they had paid, I just noticed it when I came out and another driver told me someone had hit me and drove off. I informed my insurance company but never claimed as, wrongly I believed without the other persons details I couldn't claim (and the Tesco petrol station didn't bother saving the camera footage to help me)

Do I still need to mention it as I'm confused now. Since then I asked another insurance company representative and she was adamant it HAS to be mentioned as it shows up on the database. Also where can I ask what the exact dates are when my accidents happened. They are non-fault but one of them I have to guess the date and I don't wna get caught out by them over a silly technicality

Also while am at it, the cheapest quotes I keep getting are from Mymotorquote.com and insureyourmotor. I'v heard horror stories from the online reviews but everyone else is charging nearly double. Is there ANYONE who can say they weren't all that bad?

Many thanks!

Taffy

adamc260

Some companies like you to notify them for between 3-5 years

If the company you go with only asks for 3 years worth of claims... and it was over 3 years ago now then you don't need to declare it

If it's within the 3 year period you still need to declare it!

taffy415

No it was within the last 5 years and they are all asking for claims within the last 5 years

adamc260

Then yeh you gotta declare it

Each insurer is different

For example - Direct line ask in the last 3 years, Aviva in the last 5 etc

taffy415

I know what you mean, the length of time they ask you to go into doesn't matter to me I can give them that.

What I DO need to know is that if someone hit my car and I reported it but never made a claim, Should I put that down as having made a claim in the future when shopping for insurance? I don't see why it should because the question they ask is "have you ever made any claims whether your fault or not in the last 5 yrs?"

My answer should be no where someone hit me but I didn't claim, because,as I say, I did NOT claim!

This is what I am trying to find out, as some insurance companies are saying the opposite. I wish there was an industry body that I could email to clarify this with.

adamc260

Well the way we word it is

'Have you had any accidents, thefts, losses or made any claims whether fault or not in the last 3 years'.... I had one 2 years ago, no one claimed but I'm still telling them because an ACCIDENT happened.

Jane2005

It needs to be declared as a loss, which is different to an actual claim, although any loss will go against you whether it's your fault or not unfortunately.

taffy415

OK Thanks. Interestingly though when I asked to find out the exact dates of past claims (one was around may05 meaning it MAY be within the 5 years now it is may 2010 but it may not as the 05/05 was a rough guess I cant remember the date!) I was told there is no such shared database which can help me find out the exact date when it happened. I was told that the motor insurance database is mainly used by police to check if someone is insured or not but it wouldn't have my claim history dates put on there by the insurers concerned for all to share for future reference.

This prompted me to ask them how can they find out my previous claims history if they needed to, for instance say if I had an accident my fault but they wanted to go back into my history to double check if I had any others. They told me that insurance companies simply don't have a database they can go back to in order to check if I had reported all previous claims fully. The only way they can find out ANY history is say if I caused an accident and the other party was now insured by an insurance company that I had been with in the past and that company would then have my previous claim record already.

Does this sound about right guys? sounds like they don't have as much info on them as I thought they did.

adamc260

Insurance companies register claims on something called Claims Underwriting Exchange

As per their website

'CUE was established in 1994 to help keep down premiums for honest policyholders by preventing multiple claims fraud and the misrepresentation of claims histories. There are currently over 32 million claims records available to subscribers.'

http://www.cueuk.org/default.aspx#CUE_Subs