Advice on predicament - Car Ins

money_free_2011

Ok, so not wanting to brand the age old saying of 'women drivers' but my wife has reversed our car into a lamp post causing £800 worth of damage.

Our insurance runs out next Jan and I usually shop around each year paying in full at the start of the term. I am currently protected no claims on this vehicle with my wife as a named driver. We both have 10 years no claims.

Now the car is now only worth approx £3K but with the damage I would not expect £1K in a trade so could do with it being fixed, but do not want to spend £800. It does not seem worth it.

I assume I can claim on the insurance and pay my £150 excess. but what would be the after effect? I want to shop around for my next insurer so will my protected no claims transfer to another insurer. Will my premium go up as I have no claimed?

Or is the damage done?? any advice would be great.

MrsPBikerChick

If you claim on your insurance you will have to declare it as a fault claim (unless the lamp post was to blame?) when you look for renewals and this will almost certainly load your premiums - Insurers have direct evidence that you/your wife are a higher risk than someone who hasn't claimed and will price accordingly.

Your protected NCB means you should still get whatever discount each insurer offers for your level of NCB but it doesn't get you out of declaring the claim or the resultant premium increase.

Edit: just had a thought - can you haggle on the cost of the repairs (or even do some of them yourself) to lessen the overall total cost before you go to the insurer? You might find its more affordable than you think and then not worth going to the insurer and having to declare the claim for the next 5yrs.

Quentin

money_free_2011 wrote: »

I assume I can claim on the insurance and pay my £150 excess. but what would be the after effect? I want to shop around for my next insurer so will my protected no claims transfer to another insurer. Will my premium go up as I have no claimed?

Or is the damage done?? any advice would be great.

Strictly speaking the damage ought to be reported as a loss to your insurer, though it's your call if you don't want to make a claim over the loss whether you want to stick to the conditions or not.

You can get a good idea of the impact on your future premiums by doing dummy quotes online now with and without this as a claim in your wife's history. You will still have 5 years ncd to transfer.

Armed with the impact on your premium you can do the sums on whether or not to make a claim.

money_free_2011

Quentin wrote: »

Strictly speaking the damage ought to be reported as a loss to your insurer, though it's your call if you don't want to make a claim over the loss whether you want to stick to the conditions or not.

You can get a good idea of the impact on your future premiums by doing dummy quotes online now with and without this as a claim in your wife's history. You will still have 5 years ncd to transfer.

Armed with the impact on your premium you can do the sums on whether or not to make a claim.

Thank you for the replies. I have done this and the damage is only about £50-80 so could be worth it in the long run.

Just a thought though, if I claim and as it was my wife who did the damage would it impact her no claims, or would it also affect me?

NonGeographicalMan

money_free_2011 wrote: »

Now the car is now only worth approx £3K but with the damage I would not expect £1K in a trade so could do with it being fixed, but do not want to spend £800. It does not seem worth it.

Where was the £800 repair quote from? If it was from a large body shop doing a lot of insurance company work and the quote was on the basis you claim on your insurance then you are quite likely to be able to get the repair done at a small (possibly UnVATed in some cases) body shop for around half this amount or less. You would then find the gap between your excess and that repair cost much more attractive.

I recently had minor scrape damage along a couple of panels for which the most expensive quote was £950 Inc VAT and the typical quote around £800 Inc VAT yet finally got the respray work done (there was no panel bending involved) for £400.

I don't suppose you live anywhere near Luton Airport as if you do I can PM you details of a small body shop that does work at extremely competitive rates but that also does it properly with decent quality paint etc. I do not run the body shop - I merely use them.

As to Quentin's suggestion that you must put in a claim well from experience I had in another thread he clearly aggressively patrols these forums looking for opportunities to quote statutory regulations at people to show just how clever he is. However people have been striking their cars on hard fixed stationery objects like concrete walls etc that do not themselves sustain damage and not claiming for them since the dawn of insurance for motoring. The main reason for this is because of the crude and primitive No Claims Bonus system run by the insurance companies where absurdly three minor claims for £200 each will do far more harm to your insurance record and future insureability than one total loss write off claim for £25,000.

So long as the insurance companies continue to run this backward system for charging premiums then the average motorist who also has funds in the bank is not going to make a claim for a few hundred quid that does not involve a third party in the form of another motorist or worse still cyclist, motorcyclist or pedestrian. I am however of course assuming that your wife has not already contacted the local council providing all her contact details tto suggest that they had situated their lamp post in a dangerous location!

NonGeographicalMan

money_free_2011 wrote: »

Thank you for the replies. I have done this and the damage is only about £50-80 so could be worth it in the long run.

In general fault claim 1 is never too disastrous in its premium impact on an insurance policy (the main exception is very young drivers under 25 and especially under 21 where even one claim could put off many insurers from quoting on renewal and also drastically raise the premium) and does not immediately imperil Protected NCD etc. But if you then have fault claim 2 (i.e. all your fault or liability split 50/50 with the other party ) for another small incident but one where you do not have an option not to claim whilst claim 1 is still in the last 3 years (or with many insurers up the last 5 years) its impact on increasing premiums is more drastic. And at that point your NCD is no longer generally protectable (it might still be if you are insured with Admiral/Bell/Elephant/Diamond or MoreThan and have Guaranteed NCD) so a third claim will start knocking your NCD discount. And your Gross Premium (which the NCD discount then comes off) will also have shot up drastically at that point with many insurers refusing to quote. So what you do really depends on how much of a rarity or otherwise it is for you or your wife to make a car insurance claim

Just a thought though, if I claim and as it was my wife who did the damage would it impact her no claims, or would it also affect me?

NCDs are associated with insurance policies and not with drivers (even though the records of the drivers on the policy are taken in to account in the Gross Premium which the NCD then discounts from). So if you and your wife are covered by the same policy on the same car then that policy has one claim against it if you claim. A second claim means you can no longer protect the NCD and a third claims drops the NCD level.

So if you have your own car on your own insurance policy then your wife's accident has no impact on the NCD for that car. If however you share one car with your wife on one insurance policy then her accident also affects the NCD on the insurance policy you share with her.

Quentin

money_free_2011 wrote: »

Thank you for the replies. I have done this and the damage is only about £50-80 so could be worth it in the long run.

Just a thought though, if I claim and as it was my wife who did the damage would it impact her no claims, or would it also affect me?

If you claim then it will impact your no claim discount (not hers if she has some on another policy). If you are with a company that allows no claim discount to named drivers then hers will be impacted too.

(If the repairs are just £80, then don't bother claiming or informing your insurer! Or do you mean the "damage" to your future premium? In that case a claim looks worthwhile, assuming the £150 excess is reasonable to you, and she should pay it anyway!!)

Quentin

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

As to Quentin's suggestion that you must put in a claim .....

Where have I said that??

Are you referring to me saying "Strictly speaking the damage ought to be reported as a loss to your insurer,"?

That is not a "suggestion" to the OP he "must" put in a claim at all!! You lose any credibility you think you have by misquoting then trying to make an issue of the misquote!

You are "upset" with me for pointing out your shocking advice in another thread (that after having been informed his policy had been cancelled, the poster should continue to drive uninsured as the MID would not be updated, so the police won't know! Completely misleading and forgetting the financial consequences of driving uninsured and having an incident which would not be covered by insurance), and have posted this incorrect reference above just to prolong your personal crusade!

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/61468873#Comment_61468873

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

In spite of the notice QuoteMeHappy have sent you telling you that your insurance is cancelled ...... it might not actually be cancelled yet in terms of what the Police see on their little computers in their cars...

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

.....Check the Askmid database as indicated above and see if you are still shown as covered there for today and if so print out proof and take it with you on your journey.

NonGeographicalMan

Quentin wrote: »

You are "upset" with me for pointing out your shocking advice in another thread (that after having been informed his policy had been cancelled, the poster should continue to drive uninsured as the MID would not be updated, so the police won't know! Completely misleading and forgetting the financial consequences of driving uninsured and having an incident which would not be covered by insurance), and have posted this incorrect reference above just to prolong your personal crusade!

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/61468873#Comment_61468873

The thrust of my post was actually against the unreasonable actions of QuoteMeHappy in cancelling insurance policies with immediate effect by text and with no ability to dispute or challenge their decision over the whole Bank Holiday weekend. This was not for lieing by the policyholder that they did not in fact have previous criminal convictions for insurance fraud or any previous convictions for causing death by dangerous driving (where an immediate cancellation by the insurance company once the information came to light might be understandable and acceptable) but purely because the policy holder had not yet provided proof of bonus to QuoteMeHappy's satisfaction (they are the most difficult company in the whole car insurance industry to satisfactorily prove a bonus to - some might say this is because of the excessive cancellation fees this then allows them to charge for a policy set up entirely online so with near zero admin costs on their side) . A more reasonable action by QMH would be to quote a longer deadline of another 3 weeks to provide the bonus by and to then state that either the policy would be cancelled or otherwise the policyholder would have to pay the gross amount without bonus and providing an immediate online means for them to do so. If QMH did this then if someone was having trouble getting hold of bonus documents but knew they could get it in the end then could always pay the gross premium and get QMH to refund them in due course.

QMH are acting outrageously in the way they treat customers in respect of insurance cancellations and I look forward to a future extremely adverse finding against them by the Financial Services Ombudsman.

There was a soothing and a friendly way for you to have posted pointing out that no one should actively look to drive while uninsured (even though QMH seems quite determined to put as many of its customers in that position as it possibly can just as Ryanair cynically asks customers to put hand luggage in the hold at their own expense that it knows full well is not over the 10kg weight limit or size limits but is how they deal with a full up flight where all the luggage lockers in the cabin will be full by picking on those customers who have gone closest to the 10kg limit or dimensions limits but are not actually over them) but you did not choose to go down that road and instead launched a nasty unpleasant personal attack on me. You then cynically accused me of actively encouraging to drive uninsured when you knew perfectly well was not my intention.

In my experience of posting on forums vicious personal attacks on other forum members usually beget a similar response and since you are a very experienced forum member you clearly must know this. I can therefore only presume therefore that playing forum boss and chief knowledge expert is more important to you than trying to work in a friendly and constructive manner with other forum members.:eek::mad::mad::mad:

Quentin

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

In my experience of posting on forums vicious personal attacks on other forum members usually beget a similar response......

Well.......you maybe correct, but where is the relevance, and where have I posted a "vicious personal attack" on you"? Your dangerously incorrect advice was pointed out, that's all! You did, of course, immediately start your personal abuse of me.

(When answering, please do quote rather than merely post up something I haven't said as in your post #5 above which I have pointed out to you - though needless to say you haven't corrected)

rs65

money_free_2011 wrote: »

but my wife has reversed our car into a lamp post

Was there any damage to the lamppost? If there was, then Quentin's advice that strictly speaking the incident ought to be reported to your insurer is very pertinent. If your car was identified as causing the damage, and you haven't reported it in accordance with your policy, your insurers may be entitled to refuse indemnity.