Car insurance non-disclosure and other rants

InsideInsurance

Gossy68 wrote: »

What I'm saying is they add the admin costs to your policy so you'll pay for the charges.

So rather than an admin fee if you do fail to disclose something you'd rather everyone pay more because all insurers have to change their systems to do a series of checks in real time plus all the data providers having to change their systems to enable this volume of realtime queries to be processed which results in further costs being passed back to the insurer and thus the consumer.

Add to that we now start having to declare all previous addresses and vehicles we have driven in the last 5 years, mileage of your car and a statement of condition etc to allow these checks to occur.

It comes back to the old question, is it better than everybody pays an extra £10 a year or is it better than the X% of people that make changes pay an extra £30 per change?

Personally, as someone who knows they have a clean license, knows when my claim was etc I'd much rather pay a lower premium than fund those who are more careless/ forgetful/ deceitful etc

Gossy68

InsideInsurance wrote: »

1)
3) As you say, insurers use the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act for when they need to be told about road traffic offences. If the offense is considered spent then it doesnt have to be declared. The points however come off our license sooner than the RoOA dictate and so it can cause some confusion to individuals but to be honest that is more an issue of a disconnect between two pieces of government legislation rather than insurers behaviour.

I am just concerned that some insurers bend the rules when asking questions (good faith?) over the phone for example "Can you tell me whether you have been convicted of a motoring offence that resulted in you having points added to your license" and not adding the crucial "...within the last 5 years" to the question or otherwise explaining carefully to me that its the non expired points currently on my license now. This is a little sneeky on their part. I got a TS10 12 years ago and told them about it, doh!! And being caught riding a red light on my bicycle. Perhaps I was being "too" honest. Plus they are happy to ask me over the phone about my wife's license record and not her directly.

Gossy68

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Personally, as someone who knows they have a clean license, knows when my claim was etc I'd much rather pay a lower premium than fund those who are more careless/ forgetful/ deceitful etc

Well, I suggest that we are all already paying for the careless/forgetful/deceitful among us.... such is the nature of insurance.

Listen, thanks a lot for your replies and opinions. As you can see I enjoy a healthy debate

REgards
Gossy

InsideInsurance

Paying for those that get away with it.

There always will be those that get away with it just in the same as any other form of deception (intentional or otherwise) as there is always going to be the case of diminishing returns. You ultimately get to the point where checking/ policing costs more than the fraud is actually costing.

Always happy to debate, its a big part of what I do for a living after all

dacouch

Gossy68 wrote: »

I am just concerned that some insurers bend the rules when asking questions (good faith?) over the phone for example "Can you tell me whether you have been convicted of a motoring offence that resulted in you having points added to your license" and not adding the crucial "...within the last 5 years" to the question or otherwise explaining carefully to me that its the non expired points currently on my license now. This is a little sneeky on their part. I got a TS10 12 years ago and told them about it, doh!! And being caught riding a red light on my bicycle. Perhaps I was being "too" honest. Plus they are happy to ask me over the phone about my wife's license record and not her directly.

If an Insurer penalised you for a conviction that has been rehabilitated, have a read of this and use it against them if applicable.

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/25/25-disclosure-of-spent-motoring-convictions.htm

Rupertg

Hi
I have been levied with s30 and three points in 2009 which I may or may not have disclosed at the time.When I called them recently to make changes to my policy I was asked about the penalty and I told them about the 3 points in 2009. Immediately I was told that I have not disclosed this and informed I would have to pay a penalty of £300. What are my options to avoid this fine. No payout has been made by the insurance company

dunstonh

Immediately I was told that I have not disclosed this and informed I would have to pay a penalty of £300. What are my options to avoid this fine.

It wont be a fine. Insurers do not have the ability to fine you. It will be a retrospective pricing of the premium to what you should have paid had you owned up to them at the time.

It is too late to avoid it now. Ideally you should have changed insurer at renewal and declared them with the new one.

Quentin

Rupertg wrote: »

Hi
I have been levied with s30 and three points in 2009 which I may or may not have disclosed at the time.......

Check your policy details (if you still have them).

Under your personal details, (check the schedule), details of any convictions will be shown.

If these points appear anywhere on your docs since you got the points then you can show you did disclose this and contest the charge!

vaio

dunstonh wrote: »

It wont be a fine. Insurers do not have the ability to fine you. It will be a retrospective pricing of the premium to what you should have paid had you owned up to them at the time.

It is too late to avoid it now. Ideally you should have changed insurer at renewal and declared them with the new one.

as dunstonh says it should be what they would have charged at inception had they known about the conviction and not a penalty or fine.

You really have no way on not paying it but for peace of mind I'd be tempted to run a couple of dummy quotes with your insurer just to check that it is broadly the extra that they would have charged at inception.

In the really unlikely event that they are taking advantage of your "captive punter" status and over charging then you still need to pay but put a complaint in about unfair treatment with a view to getting the excess charge refunded