Car insurance question

newbefactor

Hi all was wondering what everyone thinks i should do about my car insurance. Basically i had a non fault accident in march this year. I managed to claim from the others person insurance they accepted full liability. Now the problem is i got my re-newel papers today because my insurance is due for re-newel in 3 weeks and they've taken off my no claims discount because they apparently haven't received the money yet that their trying to reclaim from the other insurance company.
So i've lost what would of been my two years no claims and my insurance is now over £1000 because of it. I've spent ages on the phone today saying that they've had enough time to have sorted this. Accident was reported 14th of march and was told they accepted liability in early april. Spoke to about 4 different people on the phone and was just told that i'd have to pay the premium and wait till this money is recovered for my no claims to be reinstated then claim for a refund for the difference on my insurance.
What do you think i should do ? i'm gonna have to withdraw money from my credit card to pay this premium (then i'm going to get charged interest from my credit card for making cash withdrawals) so either way i'm going to be out of pocket because they couldn't be bothered to sort this out. Sorry for the long rant i'm just so annoyed at the moment.

Thanks in advance for any advice
Gemma

Thrifter_2

Did you have legal cover? If so, i would consider contacting your insurer and threatening with the legal cover (might as well make some use of it) so that they get their backsides into gear.

newbefactor

Yeah i do have legal cover, the one helpful person i spoke to said he was sending a letter over to the other company stating they would take legal action if the bill is not meant. But he said that could still take a few weeks. But i will be ringing them again this next week to see if there's been any further development. Once this is all sorted i will be writing a complaint letter asking for a good will gesture in the form of tesco's vouchers

anniecave

Get quotes for every company for your details as present (non-settled claim, 0 NCB) and also quotes from the same companies with your details when the claims goes though OK (however many years NCB, a settled non-fault claim). Then take a view on how long the claim is likely to take to be settled when chosing who to insure with.

You may find other companies that are similar prices with no NCB etc but not so high in your situation at the moment. You might want to check out admin fees if you go with another company though.

Why take out cash on a credit card? Do you not have any other borrowing options?

Quentin

Thrifter wrote: »

Did you have legal cover? If so, i would consider contacting your insurer and threatening with the legal cover (might as well make some use of it) so that they get their backsides into gear.

One of the conditions you usually get with "legal cover" that you take as an add on to an insurance policy is that you cannot use it to resolve any dispute with your own insurer.

Dynamic_Panda

What you wrote in your original post is correct in that your NCD will be reinstated once the costs are recovered..............some companies even when liability is admitted are very long winded about paying out.........I have known straight forward cases take 6 months or even longer to sort out...............

Personally I would bite the bullet and stay with who you are with now............you still have to declare a non fault claim when getting quotes and it could work out substantially more than your renewal.............

DP

newbefactor

I think the company i'm with now is the cheapest for me, i looked at insurance with my bank and that was over £1000 and that was with the 2 ncb. The reason i'm so annoyed is because i was never told that my ncb would be suspended - I've had my car two years and this is the first claim i had to make and no one told me about the claim process. But i rang them again and apparently the notice they sent saying their going to take legal action has a cut off date of 14th of september. So this could be resolved by then and could have my ncb reinstated before the 18th which is when i need to renew.

And anniecave - i don't have any other ways i can borrow money, have no family to ask. So it's either use the credit card or borrow money from a payday loan site with their super high interest rates, so i'll opt for the credit card.

Quentin

newbefactor wrote: »

...... apparently the notice they sent saying their going to take legal action has a cut off date of 14th of september. So this could be resolved by then and could have my ncb reinstated before the 18th which is when i need to renew.

Hopefully this is done for you by then, but realistically this 4 day window is too tight!

They will have threatened that if no resolution is agreed by 14/9 they will proceed with legal action. But even if they do agree to pay up 100%, then it's highly unlikely the money will have been processed within the short timeframe - and more likely is that more stalling will go on! (And if your insurer decides to call their bluff and start legal proceedings, then the resolution will still be months away).

Shop around for the best deal for your renewal.

Then approach your chosen insurer before buying the policy and explain the situation, and get them to agree that once the issue is resolved and that means your NCD is reinstated they will alter your premium and refund any extra that you have to pay from the begining of the policy year.

newbefactor

Well the women on the phone said the company their having to deal with are normally pretty good, she said that they should send the money as soon as they get this letter. She also said that because they company have already agreed to pay up they probably wouldn't want to go to court as they would have to pay my companies legal expense's. Well I'm still holding out hope that it could be sorted in time. I don't really want to go with another company because they might not give me the partial refund. And i think that £1061 is actually a pretty good quote for a woman (because of the new European court ruling) with 0 ncb. MY first year insurance i paid £900. The cheapest i found insurance for this year with 2 ncb was £737, so just gonna check a quote with who i'm with now to see how much roughly it should of been.