Car insurance auto renewal and claiming.. Advice please

fergieforever

Hi, I have had a rather unfortunate run of events over the past few days and wondered if anybody on this forum could offer some advice as to my rights.

I have an Admiral multicar policy. It was set on auto renew for the 4th November 2012. Of course they wrote to me a notified me of the new cost, which they increased from £1,200 per year to £2,100 per year for both cars. Now I did some comparisons and found that I could get both cars insured for £1,400 from other insurance companies.

The problem was that I misttok the auto renewal date, in my head I thout the renewal date was the 11th November 2012, when in fact it was the 4th.

To make matters worse I had an accident in my car on the 6th November, costs of repair are estimated at £3,500.

I know that I have a 14 day cooling off period with my Admial auto renew policy, so my question is, if I claim for an accident on the 6th, will I be compelled to keep (and pay) the premium that they have set up in my auto renew policy? Or am I within my rights to claim for the accident on the 6th and then move to another insurance broker, and pay just pay for the 2 extra days cover that I have received from Admiral?

I have one other option, which is to pay for the repairs myself (I have a friend who can do the repairs for £1000) and then I could move to the cheaper inurance compnaies without any issues.

Any advice that people can give would be very much appreciated. Thanks

dunstonh

I know that I have a 14 day cooling off period with my Admial auto renew policy, so my question is, if I claim for an accident on the 6th, will I be compelled to keep (and pay) the premium that they have set up in my auto renew policy?

Yes. Normally, if you have a claim in the policy year then you are required to pay the full premium for the year even if you cancel early.

Or am I within my rights to claim for the accident on the 6th and then move to another insurance broker, and pay just pay for the 2 extra days cover that I have received from Admiral?

You are within your rights to do that but it would be daft seeing as you would have to pay £2100 to admiral anyway.

As the new policy hasnt kicked in yet, you would be required to tell them about the incident and it would affect premiums.

fergieforever

dunstonh, thanks for your help. So my other option could be to pay someone else to fix it, for £1000, then I could get the cheaper insurance from other companies, saving me £700, I would also save £350 from my excess and not have a claim on my insurance.. am I right in thinking this? Either way I stand to lose £1000 either through a repair bill or by increased premium and excess charges.

fergieforever

One other thing I should add, I was about to sell the car too. If I do sell it, can I claim back the premium for the remainder of the year?

Quentin

dunstonh wrote: »

....As the new policy hasnt kicked in yet, you would be required to tell them about the incident and it would affect premiums.

No.

The new policy is in force.

But your current premium won't be affected by this.

Quentin

fergieforever wrote: »

One other thing I should add, I was about to sell the car too. If I do sell it, can I claim back the premium for the remainder of the year?

Yes (assuming you don't make a claim.)

Check the policy wording to see what charges they make for early cancellation.