Insurance listing a claim never processed!

Infotrontof

I'll try to explain my situation, hopefully someone here has some good advice

I was on the phone to my insurance company a few days ago after I received my renewal notification.
The premium having increased, I checked the details of the new policy to see they had added a claim for £500 in January 2012.

To keep everything short, I did call them with regards to a storm damage on the house (a few tiles got blow away from the roof).
Their surveyor came round and assessed / quoted the damage (as far as I know I'm entitled to such services), however he told us to check with local contractors to see if prices were right for us to deal with the repairs ourselves and not claim.
In the end this is what we did, the repairs were carried out by a local roofer and we paid for the repairs entirely.
At the time we though we were better off not claiming to make sure the premium would not increase.

Now it is unfairly being counted as a claim for £500 even though they never paid for anything.
Is this even legal to do that?

What they are doing is they are adding a claim that was never even processed by their services on the basis I simply called them.!
That in turn allows them to increase their premium and make more money simply because an 'incident' happened and even though they never covered it.
Besides I never ever paid any excess for anything so to me, a claim simply cannot be justified!

I had a 5 years no claim history on my building insurance and all of a sudden I'm back to square one simply because I called and even though I paid everything out of my pocket.
The insurance representative I talked to now tells me I'm legally bound to notify any new insurer of this incident because it counts as a loss.

I see on some insurers' websites that any claims, losses or damages have to be reported.
I understand for a claim but why would I have to report a damage I dealt with myself?

I just feel I'm stuck because that so-called claim is now registered against me


Thanks for you time and looking forward to reading you.
Any advice or info appreciated!


Tof

InsideInsurance

In most cases insurers ask about "incidents" not claims and therefore the fact you decided not to proceed with it as a claim and deal with it yourself is immaterial. You did make a claim by getting them to send a surveyor, you just withdrew the claim before they paid for the repairs.

Of cause many people have "incidents" and never bother to inform their insurers and the majority get away with it. Because you have informed your insurers it is most likely now stored in the CUE database which many insurers check and so you are likely to be caught if you "forget" to mention it to another insurer/ broker in the future.

For future minor damage, check repair costs first, then its down to your morals if you report or not after you discover its cheaper to pay yourself

As to why you have to report incidents.... because it shows how good a risk you are or not. Its easier to illustrate with cars, if every few months you miss judge it when reversing and clip the garage wall but fix it yourself it is basically only a matter of time before you miss judge it a lot worse and cause significant damage to the car and the garage. The insurer would obviously rather know that to price your policy accordingly.

McKneff

Always ring an insurance company as a last resort.

Someone had to pay the surveyor.........