Does an accident with a hired car abroad affect insurance at home?

techno79

A group of friends and I are going abroad and planning to hire a car there. We're planning on taking out the extra excess waiver cover for peace of mind. If an accident does happen, I understand we'd need to report it to local police and the car hire company etc. But would I need to inform my UK based car insurance company too? Hypothetically speaking, if I did need to inform them but chose not to in that situation, how would they find out?

Quentin

You are bound under your policy conditions to disclose all losses/claims etc.

So it's your call.

If you choose to breach the conditions and (fraudulently) not disclose material facts, then you are at risk of having your policy voided, and having a cancelled policy on your record for evermore.

techno79

Quentin wrote: »

You are bound under your policy conditions to disclose all losses/claims etc.

So it's your call.

If you choose to breach the conditions and (fraudulently) not disclose material facts, then you are at risk of having your policy voided, and having a cancelled policy on your record for evermore.

Thank you for the answer to the first question. Does anyone know the answer to the 2nd hypothetically question? How could they find out if the information wasn't volunteered?

richardw

Insurers have developed ways of sharing information to double check details put on claim forms and application forms and that interweb thingy has helped out a lot.

zagfles

techno79 wrote: »

Thank you for the answer to the first question. Does anyone know the answer to the 2nd hypothetically question? How could they find out if the information wasn't volunteered?

Insurers share information for the prevention of fraud, they'd probably share information with foreign insurers too (inc car hire companies' insurers).

Your UK insurer may not check until the time they get a claim from you where some ambulance chaser has put in a claim for 10 years lost earnings from a minor shunt which "put his back out". Personally I wouldn't risk my house on it...

You may be surprised how little declaring a claim costs - my insurers messed up with my last renewal where there was a non-fault accident they wrongly recorded as a fault accident, and it only made about £60 difference when they corrected their records.