Car insurance claim refused

b1gphil

Vaio,

I've run three dummy quotes :-

1) As close to the "statement of fact" sheet from the original proposal (i.e. daughter as proposer as well as legal owner and registered keeper - these two fields start with a default setting or proposer)
2) As above but with daughter as proposer, and legal owner, but partner as registered keeper
3) as 1, but with partner as legal owner and registered keeper.

All three gave me a valid quote, and all three with the same costs.

I went directly onto the One Call website for the quotes, whereas the original quote would have been done through a comparison site.

The dummy quotes, although all the same price, were a lot more expensive than the original proposal, £511 for original, but but dummy quotes all come out at £978.

Is there something strange here, or could One Call have a very different pricing structure for quotes directly onto their website compared to quotes through comparison sites ?

I've used input as close as possible to the original, so a little surprised to see such a big difference.

At least it seems that they're not making different ratings no matter which one of the two drivers are legal owners or registered keepers.

So I'm hoping this will help me challenge their original decision.

What do you think ?

vaio

I'd say the fact that they would have offered cover at the same rates means that it doesn't matter whether you get innocent or inadvertent.

get your complaint letter written & good luck with it

dacouch

What exact reason does the letter they sent you declining the claim / cover say. We especially need to know if they used the words "Innocent" or Inadvertent

b1gphil

dacouch,

I think the key parts of the letter are :-

.... your underwriter has established that you have the following undisclosed items:

** Undisclosed owner and keeper of vehicle

As the policyholder it is your legel duty to provide true and accurate information at the time that the insurance cover is arranged. The informantion that has been withheld would have influenced consideration of the risk at inception and had we been aware of the incidents, One Insurance Limited would have declined to accept the risk.

So I'm hoping that the 3 dummy quotes I've produced covering all the possibilities of either of the the two drivers named on the policy being noted as "legal owner" or "registered keeper" show that One Insurance would have accepted the risk.

Quentin

What are the "incidents" they refer to being unaware of?

claret_mike

Ultimately, the FOS will ask whether they would have accepted the risk in his name and if the answer is yes, then they will tell them to settle.

If they say no and why then they would agree.

If you have quotes showing that the cover was offered under both parties as owner/keeper of the car then the ins co will struggle to say no..

Sounds to me like on face value a nailed on case. The only issue is that you have a car in storage, that is likely to be scrapped if not collected or paid for. It can take 8 weeks to get to the FOS and then your complaint could take months after this to be looked at.

Ensure you have copies of engineers reports and images of the vehicle. If you do not, I would look to get one because when it is finally sorted out, you will need to quantify your loss.

norbet

Oh I really hope this goes in favour of the OP's daughter - I read "OneCall Insurance" and my heart sank.

vaio

OP, in your first post you say "renewed", was it previously with the same company and he made the changes because he now has a van? what NCB do they each have?

b1gphil

Norbet - thanks for your thoughts

Vaio,

Their policy was up for renewal, so her partner got a new policy via a comparision site. Their poloicy wasn't with One Call previously.

I'm not 100% sure of the no claims, but guess it's probably 3 or 4 years each.

Daughter is very much the main driver and he only drives the car occassionally.

b1gphil

claret_mike wrote: »

Ultimately, the FOS will ask whether they would have accepted the risk in his name and if the answer is yes, then they will tell them to settle.

If they say no and why then they would agree.

If you have quotes showing that the cover was offered under both parties as owner/keeper of the car then the ins co will struggle to say no..

Sounds to me like on face value a nailed on case. The only issue is that you have a car in storage, that is likely to be scrapped if not collected or paid for. It can take 8 weeks to get to the FOS and then your complaint could take months after this to be looked at.

Ensure you have copies of engineers reports and images of the vehicle. If you do not, I would look to get one because when it is finally sorted out, you will need to quantify your loss.

Claret_Mike,

Thanks for your support and for the tip about the engineers reports. I'll certainly ask for a copy.

As there's still some chance that the Insurance Company may not pay out I'm hoping to collect the car from storage and bring it back home to reduce the risk of having to pay a large storage bill, as this could take many weeks to sort.

I'd rather waste the time and effort in bring the car home than take the risk of a huge bill if the claim goes pair shaped.