First car renewal

greyster

Hi.

My car insurance with screentrade (NIG) is up shortly and they posted me renewal price. In the renewal offer it said my no claims bonus was 0 years.

Is this because my year isn't up yet? I have made a non fault claim which I hope hasn't affected it. The booklet I got with my insurance at the beginning of the policy said it wouldnt affect it.

I have another question - can an insurer prevent a no claims bonus from being transfered to another insurer? If yes how do they do it?

Thanks!

impy78

What happened with the non fault claim?

Has it been confirmed as non-fault, has your insurer been reimbursed by the other insurance company?

greyster

The other party admited liability immediately and both insurers know this.

I have been paid however my girlfriend who was injured is making a claim under my legal cover. She has only recently gone to a medical examination which was arranged by the legal cover.

impy78

Unfortuatley, pain in the bum though it is, until the personal injury claim is settled, it will still be classed as an open claim, and therefore a fault claim.

When the persoanl injury claim is settled, then you will get back your no claims discount.

greyster

What happens if I take out a policy with a cheaper insurer (although still quite expensive) ..... and then say 2-3 months in, the claim is settled. What can I do?

Do I have to cancel the policy with a penalty and start a new one with the correct no claims bonus?

impy78

No, this shouldn't be the case. You should just be able to ad the no claims discount onto the policy when it comes through.

Ask the new insurer about their policy on this though.

greyster

Impy thanks, your a star.

Can I ask about the no claims transfer process to another insurer?

I read in the screentrade booklet that the bonus can not be transferred. Are they trying to pull a fast one?

impy78

I think that may refer to transferring between policies with them, or between drivers.

Once you have the No claims discount, it is yours to do with what you will, your policy with screentrade will have ended, and you have no obligation to them beyond that.

Astaroth

It may be worth checking with your current insurer on what the situation is. If they have already received reimbursement for their losses they may well be willing to consider it a non-fault claim even through it is still technically open. This is at their discretion and they are under no obligation to do so - wouldnt mention saying you are thinking of going else where as companies generally dont give gestures of good will to people who will very shortly become non-customers

Bossyboots

I am a bit puzzled by the explanation about the legal expenses cover although it may be that companies do things differently.

I am currently making a claim using the legal expenses cover on my husband's policy. Our cover is renewed with the main policy, but is charged as a separate premium and as such has no effect on the main policy. My OH's no claims discount was unaffected by my ongoing claim when his policy came up for renewal.

Astaroth

Many insurers, particularly those in the direct market, will underwrite both the motor insurance and the legal expenses insurance. Given that 90% of cases are simply farmed out to solicitors it isnt worth them paying a separate claims advisor and creating a separate IT system simply to monitor the actions of the solicitor and so typically you will have 1 system and 1 advisor who will handle both the recovery of the insurance companies own money and review the situation with the sols.

Fault as far as an insurer is concerned revolves around if they manage to recover all their monies or not. The problem with a single system is that as the file is still open (for monitoring the sols) the computer has no idea if this is because it is expecting to pay out more money which it will have to then recover or because it is just monitoring the sols. In addition to this it is possible for a solicitor to cause costs which cannot be recovered therefore making the claim a fault claim (though most insurers would absorb this loss themselves unless it was a direct result of a PHs actions).

Some insurers have processes in place to prevent this issue automatically, others manually and some wont take the risk of the last point or their system simply cant handle the issue