Pariah insurance

baggagemerchant

Hello, I have a bit of a turd sandwich situation with my car insurance, I suspect the only outcome will be to swallow aforementioned sandwich, but I would like to tap into fellow MSErs knowledge to see if there is anthing I can do to sweeten the sandwich:

I passed my driving test in July 10 (male aged 25), shopped round for insurance using this site's guide, best I could get was fully comp £1930 and £20 cashback.

All good til October 10 I grazed someone's car at low speed in a tight situation, I left my contact details (I know people will say leg it or leave false details but I am an honest person and there were plenty of people about).

I was hoping to pay for the repair myself and not involve insurance (barely any damage on my car and only superficial on the other guys). Anyway 24 hours go by, no contact so I notify my insurer. The guy gets in contact a week later so I pass on my insurance details and don't hear anything except standard we are investigating letter from my insurance company.

I thought I would give them a call recently to see what is happening with it and I would like to start budgeting for my renewal as I know I am going to get screwed come renewal.

Anyway they can't tell me what my next premium will be like til a month before renewal, but the cost of the claim to them was nearly £3200!! (No messing, the damage I inflicted would have cost £200-300 at most). The person in the call centre explained to me that this is why everyone's premiums are so high and that this is a fairly normal amount for minor damage. I was shocked and thats another topic.

So my question is, can I do anything to mitigate next year's costs? PassPlus doesn't apply as I'm not under 25, nor was I at the time of passing my test. No point paying the insurer's expenses as it will prob be more than my next policy.

I know you can do IAM courses but I don't know if insurers take any of these into account. Any ideas welcome, thanks in advance.

spiro

Dd you take photos of the damage to their car? Without this you can't prove how little damage you caused.

FATBALLZ

You can get an idea what your next premium will be by putting in the relevant details in compare the market.com or one of the other insurance supermarket sites, just add a year to your age and put everything as it would be next year (assuming no more accidents). This should give you an idea of how much extra you are likely to be paying. It's usually better to change insurers rather than renew with your existing insurer anyway.

As for ideas of how to keep you costs down - apart from shopping around (using aforementioned websites etc.) I don't think there's much you can do. If possible you could get a more insurance-friendly car, and try adding other drivers from your address as named drivers - this sometimes reduces premiums (god knows why).

baggagemerchant

@Spiro

I did take some pictures of the damage, although my insurers were not interested in them when I reported the damage, funny given the amount the other guy's insurance are charging!

spiro

baggagemerchant wrote: »

@Spiro

I did take some pictures of the damage, although my insurers were not interested in them when I reported the damage, funny given the amount the other guy's insurance are charging!

I would say you think the amount is excessive and you have photos of the damage. They may or may not use them but the bottom line is it will be counted as your fault. The issue will be when you next get a quote they will ask the cost of the claim and £300 sounds a lot better than £3200.

Gordon_Hose

£3200 is a bodyshop estimate to insurance companies. They always charge insurance companies more because it's guaranteed money.

mustrum_ridcully

baggagemerchant wrote: »

So my question is, can I do anything to mitigate next year's costs? PassPlus doesn't apply as I'm not under 25, nor was I at the time of passing my test. No point paying the insurer's expenses as it will prob be more than my next policy.

I know you can do IAM courses but I don't know if insurers take any of these into account. Any ideas welcome, thanks in advance.

You haven't given us any details of the car. We don't know if it's a Group 1 VW Fox or a Group 20 Golf GTi. Is it a company car? Depending on your situation the advice will be different.