Insurance - not declaring accident

dacouch

rev_henry wrote: »

How can they do that?!

I know we've had this conversation before but I still think its outrageous that an insurance company can ask for more money to cover a pro rata difference in premium - its like buying a lottery ticket already knowing you've won. Insurance is a gamble essentially. You pay a premium and the insurance company is gambling that you won't have a claim. After the policy has lapsed they already KNOW you won't have a claim. OK I know there's the 6 year thing but still...

You asked the Insurer to Insure you for which they assess the risk based on the details you supply and come up with a premium to reflect that risk.

If you subsequently declare other information you should have at the start of the contract or they discover it. They are entitled to charge the premium they would have had they know the information.

Whether you've had a claim or not, the premium reflects the risk of a claim for the twelve months from the start of the policy.

Buellguy

Yes, you should have checked your docs, BUT, wait till they have reviewed the calls, ask for a transcript from them, it DOES happen that you may have told them and they haven't included it, it's called human error

KayJay

Thanks all for your views. I just needed to get it off my chest!


Well, I know my no claims isn't affected anyway as I have protection.


Update is that they listened to the 2012 call and they forgot to ask me the question about whether I had had any accidents! So they have deducted 'some' of the charge that relates to 2012. So now I just have the amount on the 2013 renewal and they cannot check that or play it to me as their IT system is down. So they are saying I have to submit a SAR (chargeable!) to hear it.


Well I am not. They are not charging me to hear something when the likelihood is that they just said something like "have there been any changes since your last renewal" in which case I would of course have said NO. They already made one mistake.


So I am going to request the transcript.


I will report back again if anyone's interested.

bigjl

AdrianC wrote: »

Drivers who have been involved in a claim - even a not-at-fault - are statistically more likely to be involved in another, and therefore a higher risk. So the premium is higher.



It wouldn't have been paid anyway.

I read that if a driver has an accident then they are statistically less likely to have an accident.

The same statistics were going to be used in the US to increase the premiums of accident free drivers. But it was stopped as was to controversial.

Statistics never show the true story.

Yes, the longer a driver goes without an accident they are indeed more likely than not to have an accident. But it is also more likely to be a non fault accident due to them being a careful driver.

dacouch

KayJay wrote: »

Thanks all for your views. I just needed to get it off my chest!


Well, I know my no claims isn't affected anyway as I have protection.


Update is that they listened to the 2012 call and they forgot to ask me the question about whether I had had any accidents! So they have deducted 'some' of the charge that relates to 2012. So now I just have the amount on the 2013 renewal and they cannot check that or play it to me as their IT system is down. So they are saying I have to submit a SAR (chargeable!) to hear it.


Well I am not. They are not charging me to hear something when the likelihood is that they just said something like "have there been any changes since your last renewal" in which case I would of course have said NO. They already made one mistake.


So I am going to request the transcript.


I will report back again if anyone's interested.

There may be a note on the renewal documents asking about accidents or claims.

rev_henry

bigjl wrote: »

I read that if a driver has an accident then they are statistically less likely to have an accident.

The same statistics were going to be used in the US to increase the premiums of accident free drivers. But it was stopped as was to controversial.

Statistics never show the true story.

Yes, the longer a driver goes without an accident they are indeed more likely than not to have an accident. But it is also more likely to be a non fault accident due to them being a careful driver.

I've often thought this. Assuming driver skill increases with age and experience (up to a point, 70 years old or whatever), the risk of an at fault accident decreases in correlation with this, so premiums go down.

However being involved in a non fault accident is mainly down to luck (ok there are other factors). Someone would have to be very unlucky to have several truly non fault accidents a year, but would be very very lucky to never have any non fault accidents. On that basis the probability of a non fault accident surely increases with the time one has gone without being involved in one, so premiums should increase accordingly.

Having said that though, a truly non fault accident shouldn't result in any loss to the insurer should it? So by increasing premiums after a non fault accident insurance companies are actually saying you are more likely to be involved in an at fault accident? Which surely implies an element of you being at fault in said accident which was decided to not be your fault.

When it comes to at fault accidents, surely there's an element of luck here too, one would still be very unlucky to be involved in several at fault accidents a year, unless one was incapable of driving properly. Yes I know there is no such thing as an accident etc etc, one would have to be very unlucky (or incompetent) to make a mistake and NOT get away with it (i.e. causing an accident) several times per year.

On the basis that premiums increase after an at fault accident, one can only assume the incompetence element vastly outweighs the element of luck. Or my theory is total nonsense!

Does any of that make sense?!

rev_henry

dacouch wrote: »

You asked the Insurer to Insure you for which they assess the risk based on the details you supply and come up with a premium to reflect that risk.

If you subsequently declare other information you should have at the start of the contract or they discover it. They are entitled to charge the premium they would have had they know the information.

Whether you've had a claim or not, the premium reflects the risk of a claim for the twelve months from the start of the policy.

I get that, but at the end of 12 months they know they haven't lost anything, they know there won't be a claim. If there was a claim then it would seem perfectly reasonable to demand the difference, but there wasn't, so why should they? They've just been given X amount of virtually free money as their gamble has paid off.

dacouch

rev_henry wrote: »

I get that, but at the end of 12 months they know they haven't lost anything, they know there won't be a claim. If there was a claim then it would seem perfectly reasonable to demand the difference, but there wasn't, so why should they? They've just been given X amount of virtually free money as their gamble has paid off.

Whether there is a claim or not is completely not relevant.

You ask the Insurer to guarantee to pay an unlimited amount for your claims. They in turn ask you for the correct details and provide a premium which is based on the chances of a claim based on that data. If you have convictions or accidents that they subsequently discover it may have affected the chances of a claim so they will want the extra premium paid.

If they did not work this way Insurers would just pressure the Ombudsman to allow them to decline to pay all claims where they discover undisclosed information