No fault incident which was not even claimed increasing my premiums

pmpm

Can somebody please advise me?

I had a small incident in august 2010 when a driver hit the rear of my car. When exchanging insurance details he said that he was very poor and can't afford for his premiums to go up and and if he can settle this outside the insurance. Since it was a small scratch I didn't get it repaired or took any money from him. But I made a big mistake by reporting this incident to my insurance company(first direct) (I was trying to be bit honest there :mad:!!!)

Today I just took a quote from another company online today and it didn't let me take the policy online and when I rang them they said that since I haven't put that incident on my policy it wouldn't go through. After putting the incident my annual premium goes up by £45. Now I think that's bit unfair when I didn't claim and it wasn't my fault even. Obviously this will keep on happening for next 4yrs now. The lady on the phone suggested me to call my old insurance company and see if they can remove that incident from experian database.

I called my old insurance company (First direct) but they were closed today. My current car insurance has already ended (as i was on holiday and couldn't extend it) and need to get the insurance today or will have to go to work tomorrow by taxi.

My question is - is it worth contacting first direct to see if they can get that incident removed from experian or will I be wasting my time? Has anyone ever tried this? or Am I basically stuck with this incident (and higher premiums) for next 4yrs?

I've tried taking policy from other companies without mentioning this incident and it goes ahead fine. Will I be doing something illegal if I don't mention about that incident if I go ahead with other companies?

TSx

pmpm wrote: »

Can somebody please advise me?

I had a small incident in august 2010 when a driver hit the rear of my car. When exchanging insurance details he said that he was very poor and can't afford for his premiums to go up and and if he can settle this outside the insurance. Since it was a small scratch I didn't get it repaired or took any money from him. But I made a big mistake by reporting this incident to my insurance company(first direct) (I was trying to be bit honest there :mad:!!!)

Today I just took a quote from another company online today and it didn't let me take the policy online and when I rang them they said that since I haven't put that incident on my policy it wouldn't go through. After putting the incident my annual premium goes up by £45. Now I think that's bit unfair when I didn't claim and it wasn't my fault even. Obviously this will keep on happening for next 4yrs now. The lady on the phone suggested me to call my old insurance company and see if they can remove that incident from experian database.

I called my old insurance company (First direct) but they were closed today. My current car insurance has already ended (as i was on holiday and couldn't extend it) and need to get the insurance today or will have to go to work tomorrow by taxi.

My question is - is it worth contacting first direct to see if they can get that incident removed from experian or will I be wasting my time? Has anyone ever tried this? or Am I basically stuck with this incident (and higher premiums) for next 4yrs?

I've tried taking policy from other companies without mentioning this incident and it goes ahead fine. Will I be doing something illegal if I don't mention about that incident if I go ahead with other companies?

It's unlikely that you will get first direct to remove the incident, as something actually did happen.

Whilst the other companies may allow the purchase to go through, they may well check the data once the policy is set up and you could find yourself being asked to pay more money.

Alternatively, if they don't check and you then make a claim, there is a chance they could void the policy.

In my opinion, it shouldn't be allowed, but you are likely stuck with increased premiums I'm afraid for the next few years.

pmpm

Thanks for the reply. It looks like I'll have to pay a price for being honest and helping somebody... What a shame...:(.... A lesson learnt for future....

chanz4

this is why they like you to report things, to stich you

InsideInsurance

By "to stitch you" I assume you actually mean to charge you the correct premium based on the perceived risk you represent?

Insurance purely works on statistics and statistics shows the more accidents you are in the more likely you are to be involved in more. Hence insurers require you to declare all accidents irrespective of fault or if you claimed or not.

With the insurer in question the £45 loading could partially be to do with the fact they now know you've attempted to defraud them by saying you've had no accidents (irrespective of fault or if claimed or not).

When I have done quotes on confused.com in the past with a clean history and then gone back and added a small non-fault accident I would guestimate that about 40% of insurers add a loading and the other 60% returned the same premium.

Of cause rating is getting ever more sophisticated and so if you have other high risk issues (young driver, high risk post code, points on license etc) then the impact of even a non-fault claim is going to be bigger than if you were a middle age female driver in suburbia with a clean license.

pmpm

InsideInsurance wrote: »

By "to stitch you" I assume you actually mean to charge you the correct premium based on the perceived risk you represent?

Insurance purely works on statistics and statistics shows the more accidents you are in the more likely you are to be involved in more. Hence insurers require you to declare all accidents irrespective of fault or if you claimed or not.

I would disagree with this. If a person is driving in a slow moving traffic and the car in front of you suddenly stops and you stop to save your car hitting it and another car hits from behind.. how does that increase the risks of your accidents 'statistically'.

chanz4

insurance is just one big ripoff, they know you cant not have it

paddedjohn

pmpm wrote: »

I would disagree with this. If a person is driving in a slow moving traffic and the car in front of you suddenly stops and you stop to save your car hitting it and another car hits from behind.. how does that increase the risks of your accidents 'statistically'.

Statistics show that once you have been involved in an accident, at fault or not, you are more likely to have another. Statistics also show that tossing a coin has a 50/50 chance of it landing on heads but you could toss the coin 50 times and land tails and the next toss is still only 50/50.

McKneff

The point is OP, if you arent honest with them, and it comes out that you have a non disclosure in the future, your claim will be thrown out and you will have the devils own job trying to get any kind of insurance when the new companies say 'have you ever had insurance cancelled etc' you will have to answer yes, because its on the national data base and they will not insure you.

Not all companies raise your premium, some do, some dont.
Ive had 2 non faults and my premium hasnt been affected, I was with the Coop at the time.

InsideInsurance

pmpm wrote: »

I would disagree with this. If a person is driving in a slow moving traffic and the car in front of you suddenly stops and you stop to save your car hitting it and another car hits from behind.. how does that increase the risks of your accidents 'statistically'.

Because you look at your book of 10 million customers over the last 20 years and use statistical analysis to see what happened to those with clean claims history have an accident.

What you notice is that on average the probability of someone having another accident is higher than those that maintain a clean history.

Now you can try and rationalise it, it could be that on average these people drive on roads more prone to accidents, or use a badly designed car park more often etc but for "known" factors insurers dont try to rationalise, they 99% rely on statistics.

dunstonh

I would disagree with this. If a person is driving in a slow moving traffic and the car in front of you suddenly stops and you stop to save your car hitting it and another car hits from behind.. how does that increase the risks of your accidents 'statistically'.

There can be a number of reasons. Consistently bad parking giving greater odds of being hit. Heavier on the brakes which blames the person behind but you increase your odds of causing it. Maybe an aggressive driver who may technically be in the right but drives in a way that causes an accident (e.g. when lanes filter, you dont give a gap). Another reason is that people in accidents may drive more wearily or nervously after an accident and that can create another incident. You then have the serial claimers who just have claim after claim.

Whatever the reasons, the figures show that statistically, a second claim is more likely for someone who has recently had a claim than someone who has not. Pricing is based on statistics. it doesnt mean everyone will. If you have a pot of drivers iwth a clean history and a pot of drivers with a recent claim, then the clean history drivers will have less claims going forward.