Don't EVER notify your car insurance of an 'incident' if you don;t intend to claim!!!

calisto

Thanks Raskazz,

Just to be sure I will phone my insurance company and inform them of every item I have inside my car. Every time I fit my sat nav by suction cup I will inform them. Every time my pen is replaced it will be informed.

All this will happen until they run out of space on their useless database "changes" field, when I will then replace the engine with a 10 litre W12 and turbo, nitro, and supercharge the mofo!

The insurer will have lost space to keep notes and be so !!!!ed off with my constants mods that they will not know what they let themselves in for! Certainly no underwriter will have a chance at looking at the risk.

If an insurer can pursue a "Gary Hart" for millions just because they had to payout and he had a "Save the Whale" decal on his window, why should anyone bother playing the game?

marble

calisto wrote: »

Hi - found it: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=65328&highlight=parking+sensors

Let me know what you think?

I have to agree that the increase in premium does sound pretty extreme ... but I suspect 'admin' fees are a large chunk of this. To be fair, the policy document does state that optional extras aren't covered unless specifically agreed. After all, my BMW M3 with all extras (I'm dreaming here) is going to cost about £10k more than the base model in the event of a write off. A car costing 20% more than a base model is likely to attract a higher premium (get a quote on a Group 10 £10k car ... then one on a Group 10 £20k car ... which one is higher?).

Ok, so legally, where does this put us? Let's assume that the insurance company has voided my cover because I have parking sensors. The FSA (ombudsman) also agrees. I take this matter to court (:O).

The only reason my cover can be voided is if I have deliberately misrepresented the vehicle or have deliberately failed to disclose material facts when I took out the policy. What does this mean in English? A judge or jury would have to decide that a 'reasonable person' would have come to the conclusion that me having parking sensors was an important fact rather than a trivial fact.

Exactly how many people do you know who would agree that having parking sensors is an important thing to disclose to an insurance company? They'd all think to themselves 'oops ... I have parking sensors too'. I'd win easily and it would cost the insurance company lots of money.

In reality, the case would never get this far. The ombudsman would agree with me. The insurance company know enough not to try and void cover for something like this (they're all about minimising loss ... not splashing cash on court cases).

On the flip side, how many reasonable people would agree that adding nitrous to my 1.1 Fiesta is not an important fact to tell the insurance company? Probably only members of the MSE Nitrous Club ... and your policy would definitely be voided for something like this.

The point I'm trying to make is that there is a difference between not being covered for something excluded by your policy (please read that boring document you get with your insurance!) and your policy being voided and you being left seriously out of pocket.

If you don't like something ... vote with your feet! If you get your policy in the post and you don't like it, you legally have a number of days 'cooling off' to cancel the policy in. Get other quotes and move!

Despite having worked in insurance, I agree that it is not fair. A UPS lorry crashed into my car while I was inside my house sleeping ... I paid £75 extra in premium the next year despite claiming full costs off UPS. Surely I shouldn't have to pay because I was sleeping at the wrong moment?

At the end of the day, the best policy is to disclose everything you can think of ... who cares if they think you're a nutter ... at least you're covering your own back. Of course your policy goes up if you're a little 'out of the ordinary'. Insurers don't like people who have little 'incidents' ... they want the guy on the street who drives for 50 years and never makes a claim.

Two statistics before I stop my rant (only wanting to help people understand things from a different point of view).
1) £20 million is paid out in car insurance claims each day. That's alot of Ford Fiestas (which is what I am stuck with, rather than a BMW).
2) 82% of your premium goes on claims. So, of your £400 premium, £330 is given to accident prone drivers. The other £70 is for the insurance company ... admin mostly but some profit.

Al

Tao81

I've read through this thread and got increasingly confused (too much complex information!)

This evening a car reversed into me, what is the general concensus of opinion? Do I report this to my insurers if I am not making a claim on my insurance or on the other party's insurance??
Do I need to inform them in case the other party gets nasty and wants to apportion the blame on me! and decides to make a claim?
Really can't afford for my premium to go up, struggling to keep my car on the road already?!!!!:rolleyes:

marble

Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where you should inform the insurance company (a third party was involved).

Did you swap details with the thrid party (was there enough damage to make a claim worthwhile or either car?). If you both looked at your car and there was no damage and didn't swap details, then it's probably up to you.

If the other car was badly damaged and they're likely to claim, with the possibility of them saying you drove into them (rather than them reversing into you) then I'd get your story in quickly to the insurance company.

Al

fimonkey

marble wrote: »

1) I wouldn't bother notifying your insurers about the incident with the birds. No third party was involved and it's not a road traffic accident.

Al

So on that basis I shouldn't have notified MY insurance company that a garage roof fell on my car as it is not an RTA and no TP was involved? .. however I DID notify them, and paid an extra £80 for the privilidge.

Now then clever underwriters, WHY am I MORE of a risk because a STORM happened overnight whilst I was parked? I'm no more a risk than the man in the moon! It was PURE CHANCE. In fact the insurance company should give me a discount for being honest with them!

I understand the calculation of risk, I also understand that insurance companies are there to make money, they're a business after all. From that I now understand EXACTLY when to NOTIFY and when not to, and hope if others have read this thread and understood the deal about a TP NOT being involved, then they too will make an informed decision as to whether they NOTIFY their insurance comapny and have to suffer an increase in premiums for their honesty.

fimonkey

raskazz wrote: »

I don't know why this is such a big issue - it's not too much to ask to quickly inform your insurer of any extras is it?

.

It's a blummin big deal to me, to be conned out of an extra £80 for merely NOTIFYING them of something I had no intention of claiming for and which doesn't make me any more of a risk. - I don't deliberately park in area's whereby, if a STORM were to happen, my car would be damaged, which is just about anywhere in the whole world and makes everyone else the same risk as me.

Wish I had have claimed for the scratches now, would have cost the insurance company more to put right than it would for me to pay an increase in premium.

raskazz

fimonkey wrote: »

It's a blummin big deal to me, to be conned out of an extra £80 for merely NOTIFYING them of something I had no intention of claiming for and which doesn't make me any more of a risk. - I don't deliberately park in area's whereby, if a STORM were to happen, my car would be damaged, which is just about anywhere in the whole world and makes everyone else the same risk as me.

Wish I had have claimed for the scratches now, would have cost the insurance company more to put right than it would for me to pay an increase in premium.

That was actually in response to a question about modifications.

How were you 'conned' out of £80? Why did you not just take your business elsewhere if you were so unhappy with this adjustment?

fimonkey

I DID take my business elsewhere, But even so, all the quotes I obtained from confused.com and money supermarket ALL increased by approx £80 when I couldn't proceed online and had to phone them instead (due to the lack of being able to put £0 in the amount of claim section once I realised my NOTIFICATION was actually a CLAIM)

raskazz

calisto wrote: »

If an insurer can pursue a "Gary Hart" for millions just because they had to payout and he had a "Save the Whale" decal on his window, why should anyone bother playing the game?

Many people have the impression that insurers void policies at will for any reason at all. This is not the case.

Where the non-disclosure is inadvertent and minor, they are expected by the FOS to rewrite the insurance rather than voiding.

So, for example, if you did not inform the insurer of a minor motoring conviction, then the insurer will not generally be able to void the policy for this alone. They will recalculate the premium that would have been charged had the conviction been disclosed, and charge the policyholder the difference between this and the lower premium that was actually paid, before they proceed with the claim.

raskazz

fimonkey wrote: »

I DID take my business elsewhere, But even so, all the quotes I obtained from confused.com and money supermarket ALL increased by approx £80 when I couldn't proceed online and had to phone them instead (due to the lack of being able to put £0 in the amount of claim section once I realised my NOTIFICATION was actually a CLAIM)

This is because claims data that shows that policyholders who suffer a non-fault/no payout claim are statistically more likely to submit a fault claim.