What happens to no claims bonus if you don't claim

mizzbiz

Long story short - guy in a motability car reversed into us in his brand new car last week and scratched our bumper. His car also scratched. He says he has to claim it on his insurance even though he was at fault. H doesn't want to make a claim for repair in case it affects NCB but does he also lose this just because the guy hit him in the first place? Even if we don;t get it repaired?

Totally confused:o

daveyjp

If the other party was 100% at fault your NCB won't change as you haven't claimed, but your premium may well go up as you have been involved in an accident.

If yours is only a scratch sort out liability before deciding to claim. If his insurance accept liability they will pay. As he is claiming anyway your details may well be on the insurers claim database so you will have to declare the incident whenever you renew.

chrisw

You won't lose your NCB because you will be claiming off his insurance. You can either get you insurance company to claim off his insurance for you if you have comprehensive cover or you can claim directly from him and his insurance. Either way you will not lose your Ncb, but there is a view that some insurance company premiums may rise slightly even though no claim is made on your insurance. However, not much you can do about it really.

mizzbiz

Thanks both. So our financial position is the same whether we have it repaired or not. Still keep no claims bonus but pay more insurance. That's a pain but might as well get his insurers to fix it.

It's such a pain as the car is a banger anyway but now we have no incentive to save anyone any money so might as well get an Audi-class professional repair (it's an ageing audi!).

Crabman

mizzbiz wrote: »

Still keep no claims bonus but pay more insurance. That's a pain but might as well get his insurers to fix it.

It may be possible to negotiate a payment from his insurers to cover future increases in your premiums, caused as a direct result of the insured incident.

YorkshireBoy

Crabman wrote: »

It may be possible to negotiate a payment from his insurers to cover future increases in your premiums, caused as a direct result of the insured incident.

That's interesting.

I'm in a similar position to the OP at the moment (except I was shunted by 32 tonnes of road tanker!). It's looking like they'll be settling outside insurance (£900 damage, but their excess is much higher), but just in case negotiations break down and I have to claim directly from their insurers could you tell me a little more about this?

I'd already figured I'd be 'loaded', even for a non-fault claim, but how do you put a value on it?

Crabman

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

That's interesting.

I'm in a similar position to the OP at the moment (except I was shunted by 32 tonnes of road tanker!). It's looking like they'll be settling outside insurance (£900 damage, but their excess is much higher), but just in case negotiations break down and I have to claim directly from their insurers could you tell me a little more about this?

I'd already figured I'd be 'loaded', even for a non-fault claim, but how do you put a value on it?

Doesn't sound like a pleasant experience, hopefully no injuries :eek:

Not sure as I don't have any direct experience, but have seen several reports of it happening on here. Hopefully someone with more info will see this and respond.

The way I'd calculate a figure is to obtain quotes from a comparison site/broker/insurer, one with the incident in question & one without. It may transpire that the increase in premium is marginal.

Ultrasonic

Crabman wrote: »

It may be possible to negotiate a payment from his insurers to cover future increases in your premiums, caused as a direct result of the insured incident.

Do you have any knowledge or even better evidence you can share of this ever having been done successfully?

I had damage to my car repaired by the insurance company of the other driver, who accepted full liability for the accident (they didn't put the hand brake on and their car rolled into mine). Comparing quotes with and without declaring this made a difference of about £5 if I remember correctly. So in my case at least certainly not enough to get overly stressed about.

YorkshireBoy

Crabman wrote: »

Doesn't sound like a pleasant experience, hopefully no injuries :eek:

No, thankfully. Car was parked on work premises and tanker was manoeuvring. I saw it happen but couldn't do anything about it. Thankfully it was all caught on CCTV.

The way I'd calculate a figure is to obtain quotes from a comparison site/broker/insurer, one with the incident in question & one without.

Never used a comparison site (I know, shameful!). Assume I'd enter ficticious personal details? Otherwise I'd end up on a (albeit non-fault) database wouldn't I?

And if I did use ficticious details it wouldn't be an accurate indicator would it?

Please excuse my ignorance...until this incident I was 30+ years at-fault claim free and 20+ years non-fault claim free.

Crabman

Only know about it through multiple mentions on this and the Insurance board.

I have found a case study from the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) to show that the principle for paying out for increased premiums for future years exists and is something the FOS will ask a financial institution to do:

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/111/111-older-people.html#cs8

Obviously this case study refers to home insurance and doesn't elaborate on how a specific figure is calculated but the principle for an insurer paying out for future higher premiums is there.