Can a car insurance company pay out without contacting the policy holder?

trayle63

I found out yesterday that my car insurance company had paid out nearly £3000 for a claim last year, that they never contacted me about.
My son was a named driver on my policy and he slid into a parked car in the snow. He left his phone number and the guy rang me. I said we were happy to pay the damage if he got a few quotes, as my son said he was only doing about 10 mph, and he had a witness.
Never heard another thing from this guy, and nothing from anywhere else, so we concluded the damage wasn't that bad and he'd paid for it himself.
Yesterday i rang my insurance company for a different matter and was told about the payout. I was fuming, how can they pay out this sort of money, without first contacting me or my son? They have absolutley no proof that my son put that number on the car, it could have seen anyone, and it seems they have paid out on the strength of that.
Any ideas would be appreciated.

Quentin

No point fuming.

Your son did the damage and can still pay for it if he wants to reinstate any lost NCB by reimbursing your insurer.

lisyloo

No point fuming.

Agreed, but isn't there an obligation on them to at least inform the policyholder.
Policyholders are expected to declare all claims/accidents.
How can we declare a claim if we don't know about it? (agreed the accident should be declared)

System

OP - There are two problems with what you have said in your post.

1) After the accident it is your responsibility, as the policy holder, to inform your insurance company of any accident irrespective of if you intend to make a claim or not
2) I would have expected your insurance company to contact you to verify the details of the claim, but, if the claim amount is low, they may have a threshold below which they simply pay out without too many questions.

If you had contacted your insurer after the accident, then you would have more grounds for complaint. However, if you want to persue it (and risk the repercusions of not fullfilling the terms of your contract by not informing them of the accident), then you could write a letter of complaint asking the insurer to explain what they have done.

You expected your insurer to contact you before making this payout, yet you did not contact them to inform them of the accident, what goes around comes around

Expect your premium to increase at renewal, and if you get quotes from other companies you must inform them about the accident.

trayle63

I understand he did the damage and needs to pay, my NCB was protected. My point was that unless they contact me or him, how do they know it was one of us that put the number on his car. I was fuming because i didnt know about the payout, regardless of amount. Surely that can't be right. If i hadn't have called them yesterday i wouldn't have known, and this was feb 2010 we are talking about, not recently.

System

trayle63 wrote: »

I understand he did the damage and needs to pay, my NCB was protected. My point was that unless they contact me or him, how do they know it was one of us that put the number on his car. I was fuming because i didnt know about the payout, regardless of amount. Surely that can't be right. If i hadn't have called them yesterday i wouldn't have known, and this was feb 2010 we are talking about, not recently.

If it was Feb2010 then you must have renewed your policy since the accident. Did you check the renewal documents to see if there was a mention of an accident / claim ?

lisyloo

I think the OP has a point.
Regardless of declarations or not the insurer did not check that the OP had been involved in an accident at all !!
What if it was a totally made up claim??

trayle63

I have just looked at the renewal from November 2010 and there is no mention of it.

trayle63

lisyloo wrote: »

I think the OP has a point.
Regardless of declarations or not the insurer did not check that the OP had been involved in an accident at all !!
What if it was a totally made up claim??

Precisely, this is my concern, not the payout itself, although the damage caused was only at most a couple of hundred pounds. How can they pay out £3000 without checking with me first.

System

lisyloo wrote: »

I think the OP has a point.
Regardless of declarations or not the insurer did not check that the OP had been involved in an accident at all !!
What if it was a totally made up claim??

I agree.

An idea - not sure ....
I wonder if it is possible that the insurance company did write a letter, which could have been lost in the post and the letter may have said something like, if we do not here back from you by (a date) then we will pay out.

lisyloo

although the damage caused was only at most a couple of hundred pounds

I don't think you can possibly know this.
It might have meant new bodywork plus paintwork (it can't always be repaired).
There could also have been damage to parts like a catalytic converter.
Parts & labour are expensive.
Repairs are usually more expensive than people think which causes a lot of cars to be written off.
Paintwork can take several days which means a courtesy/hire car may well have been involved.

Nevertheless it could have been a totally fradulent claim.

I would put in a formal complaint (but you are in the wrong if you have not declared an accident when asked on a quote).