No fault accident a week before renewal date

Question_Mark_?

Hi all,

My wife was involved in a fairly serious car accident today, which will probably write off the car (hit at speed (40mph +) from behind whilst she was turning off main road into our driveway). The car, a Rav4 has massive rear impact damage, plus side impact damage from spinning 150 degrees and hitting steel post.

Most importantly she and our eighteen month old little girl, escape with just shock and bruising, and the other driver appears also to amazingly be ok.

Police and paramedics attended and all detail exchanged, lots of photos taken and everyone properly insured, taxed etc.

Our insurance company have said given the clear and admitted liability of the other driver it should be fairly straightforward and we won't even need to pay and claim back the excess.

The car will be taken away tomorrow to their garage for assessment.

The insurer has said a new renewal quote will be sent out replacing the renewal we already have, as the premium will now have risen.

My wife has protected no claims and has never been involved in a fault claim in her 18 years of driving.

My questions are this

1) Why would our premium rise if todays accident is clearly not her fault ?
2) Do we actually need to renew, as the car will be off the road for quite a few weeks, if not written off ? It seems we'd be paying for an renewal of an insurance policy for a car we can't drive.
3) We are being given a like for like courtesy car from tomorrow, until either 4 days after car written off, or until our car is returned repaired. Would this service stop if we didn't renew next week ?
4) Must you renew the policy whilst a claim is underway, or does it not matter, so long as the accident occurred whilst the current policy was in force ?

A slightly unusual situation given the current policy was shortly to expire, and I don't mind renewing (but bit miffed as to why the premium should increase), but don't want to be pushed into renewing a policy by the insurance company (LV) if it's unnecessary, especially given the car will most likely be written off in the next week or so anyway (but probably after the renewal date).

Many thanks to anyone who has experience or knowledge on this situation, who can share it with us here,

Question Mark

Quentin

1) Her history is now changed with this claim. Most insurers load the premium following any claim.

2) No you don't need to renew if you have no car to insure

3)Possibly as the car may be insured via your policy. Check with your insurer. As the incident seems down to the third party, see if your insurer can find a way to let you keep the car, as all costs will be ultimately paid by the third party.

4) Not renewing won't affect the claim (apart from the query over the replacement vehicle)

BertTheRaccoon

If the car is going to be off the road, I personally don't see any point renewing cover for the vehicle which is still taxed and will be off the road in a repairers or sat in a salvage yard soon.

Because your claim is not yet finalised and your insurers won't have their outlay back from the other side for a month or so, they will still probably have a cautionary reserve for any surprises on your own claim until the other side have actually admitted liability (the insurers not the driver), so although it seems a straight forward non-fault claim, it will probably be treated as fault until their balance sheet is clear. So premium may then come down a little more.

But annoyingly insurers do still seem to want to penalise non-fault motorists and even though this sorry story will probably all turn out well for you, your premiums, even with the claim adjusted as non-fault and the NCD still intact will probably be higher than if this incident did not happen. The bean counters at insurers will have a formula they apply that tells them someone who has had a non-fault accident still statistically has a higher chance of having another prang.

Protected NCD is not an immunity to premiums rising. All the protected NCD guarantees is that you'll still get say a 65% reduction from the gross premium. BUT they'll still load up the gross premium before applying the NCD = rise in premium.

Question_Mark_?

Thanks.

It will be interesting to see just how much they try and load the premium by.

Quentin

Question_Mark_? wrote: »

Thanks.

It will be interesting to see just how much they try and load the premium by.

Do some virtual quotes online with and without this claim to see what difference it makes to the premium.