Car Insurance Appeal??

cakeyk8

18 months ago I was involved in a slight bump with another car. I say slight bump, as at the time there was no damage to either car. I was driving down a road that was wet due to a few dry days and then a buttload of rain, the car in front of me slammed on their brakes so I did too. This caused me to skid into the car in front and literally bump off the back of her, again, causing no visible damage. (I was probably going about 25/30 mph when I put on the brakes but couldn't have been going more than maybe 10 mph when I hit?) We exchanged insurance details at the side of the road, but as there was no damage I didn't take any photos, the lady in the other car said she was ok and I agreed that there was no harm done to myself or my 2 year old son who was sitting in the back seat. My insurance was with Tesco and a few weeks after the accident I received a letter saying that the lady in the other car was pursuing a claim against me for damage to her vehicle. I disputed this, but admitted liability for the accident as it was me that had bumped into her in the first place. I said that there was no damage to the car at the scene and neither party was believed to have suffered any personal injury. They said that the lady claimed I had shunted her up the kerb at the side of the road and damaged her alloy wheels, I said this wasn't true as if it was I would have taken photographs of the damage for my records. They said not to worry as they would look into it and get back to me should they require any more details. I didn't hear anything else so assumed it had been dealt with. I went to renew my insurance in the following July, and decided to go with another insurance company as my renewal had increased with Tesco by around 250%, I thought this was ridiculous and rang them to tell them so. They then informed me that this was due to the fact that they had paid out on the claim from the previous September, to the tune of around £2700!! £1500 for personal injury and £1200 for damage to her car. Am I within my rights to dispute this as Tesco never once came to inspect my car, nor did they request any further information about the incident, or inform me that they were paying out. This obviously affected my no claims discount (as I stupidly didn't have it covered!) and has now pushed my insurance premium from around £20 a month to around £60. Add to this the new legislation about equality for car insurance and i'm pretty much screwed! Is there anything I can do or do I just have to put up and shut up?? Any help would be appreciated xx

Quentin

You can appeal this (using your insurers complaints procedure set out in the policy), and escalate to the FOS if unhappy with their response. You won't face any costs by appealing.

However when you take out a policy you do agree to allow the insurer to deal with claims as they think fit, so don't be too hopeful an appeal will succeed.

InsideInsurance

The actual consequence of how much the claim is tends to be next to nothing for you. Many insurers dont even capture it as ultimately there is much more to do with luck if you run into the back of a Citroen C1 or Aston Martin DB9 but the cost difference would be massive.

If you do want to dispute it then follow the advice above but even if you win the case the effect on your premium may well be identical