Car Insurance - Cancelling a claim - effect on renewals

ummy

Just had an accident (no one else involved) - hit a kerb. The cost seemed to be too much for us to handle ourself, so we contacted the insurance company - Assessment has now been done and we need to decide whether to continue with the claim or pay for it ourselves.

My question is, if we now pay for it ourselves and cancel the claim, when we come around to renewing the insurance next year, do we need to mention this accident when looking for quotes (as the insurance company do "know" about it, although no claim was eventually made) ?

And if we renew with the same insurance company as we have now, will they load the insurance cost because there was an accident even though no claim made ?

If we claim, the NCB goes down to 1 year and we will have 2 claims to own up to (another very minor shunt last year when someone claimed against us). If we don't claim the NCB goes to 3 years and we will just have the 1 claim.

Don't want to do anything fraudulent, but dont want to mention the accident if we dont really have to, to protect the NCB and extra loading.

Thanks for any advice

forgotmyname

You need to declare it for 5 years as an incident where no claim was made.

So likely to increase the premium anyway.

Its probably already on the database so needs to be declared.