My Low impact collision position

Aretnap

Indeed. The only difference between having 12 years NCD and having 5 years is that you get a slightly warmer, fuzzier feeling looking at your policy documents. Oh, and a few insurers whose marketing trumpets that they recognise up to a squillion years NCD will give you an extra 2% off what was probably a higher premium to start off with.

InsideInsurance

arcon5 wrote: »

TO 3 yrs? Not BY 3 years??

Please say I'm misunderstanding here? If not I don't see how no claims can go down so drastically. Although ncb does seem to work in wierd ways, surely ncb is a matter of fact more than anything... You've done 10 whole years of the 15 you've had your license of driving without claiming?

Most insurers max out at 5 years NCD so having 5, 15 or 50 years is exactly the same.

Even those that do count up to 9 or 10 years dont typically actually give any more discount its just at 5 years they give less and slowly creep it up to about the same when you hit maximum

Evidently a lot of this is marketing ploys as people think its great their insurer recognises up to 10 years -v- say Churchill that only represents up to 5 but then Churchill hits back saying they give 80% discount for max NCD where as the former only gives 75% (and it takes you longer to get there).

The other difficulty is there is no industry standard, there are certain common processes but each company can create its own rules as they see fit. Generally all insurers will drop to 3 years NCD after a fault claim from Max unprotected NCD irrespective of what the Max is for them - really goes back to the non-linear way the discount is earned.

usignuolo

There was a time when a lot of ambulance chasing lawyers were persuading people with minor injuries (postman slipped on path twisted ankle etc) to claim the minimum amount that would be paid by the insurance company to avoid the inconvenience of going to court. (It was around £3500 if memory serves.) Wonder if this scam is still going.

OnanTheBarbarian

usignuolo wrote: »

There was a time when a lot of ambulance chasing lawyers were persuading people with minor injuries (postman slipped on path twisted ankle etc) to claim the minimum amount that would be paid by the insurance company to avoid the inconvenience of going to court. (It was around £3500 if memory serves.) Wonder if this scam is still going.

Urban legend

Each injury claim is valued on its own merits, so there is no rule as to a minimum amount that applies.

In relation to the original post, insurers have a pretty poor record of successfully defending low velocity impact claims and usually, unless the claimant comes across as an unreliable witness or the credibility can be significantly undermined, usually they will succeed in their damages claim.

Crazy_Jamie

usignuolo wrote: »

There was a time when a lot of ambulance chasing lawyers were persuading people with minor injuries (postman slipped on path twisted ankle etc) to claim the minimum amount that would be paid by the insurance company to avoid the inconvenience of going to court. (It was around £3500 if memory serves.) Wonder if this scam is still going.

As has already been said, there is no truth in that for a number of reasons.

OnanTheBarbarian wrote:

In relation to the original post, insurers have a pretty poor record of successfully defending low velocity impact claims and usually, unless the claimant comes across as an unreliable witness or the credibility can be significantly undermined, usually they will succeed in their damages claim.

Indeed. There has been mention in this thread already of congratulating the insurance company for 'not rolling over on this one' or words to that effect, but insurance companies run Low Velocity Impact cases all the time. They are by no means unusual, and as Onan has already said the insurance companies lose the vast majority of them. A string of case law developed in this area just under ten years ago and as a result these sorts of cases became expensive to run and really more complicated than they should have been. The balance is shifting now with the introduction of the Jackson reforms and these cases come down to what they really always have been about; whether or not those claiming injury are telling the truth or not. In most cases judges find that they are.

londonTiger

the insurance company is only fighting it ebcause it will be something like 20 grand per person for whiplash.

My brother is a blak cab driver and he was doing a paralllel park. Impatient driver decided to not wait and just try and drive on in the small gap that was there, ended up hitting my brothers tyres. brothers taxi wasn't affected at all but other car got his passenger door dented.

Insurance company just said "we're just going to accept liability and pay out as withholding this will increase the costs as time goes by".

Inch_High_2

londonTiger wrote: »

the insurance company is only fighting it ebcause it will be something like 20 grand per person for whiplash.

My brother is a blak cab driver and he was doing a paralllel park. Impatient driver decided to not wait and just try and drive on in the small gap that was there, ended up hitting my brothers tyres. brothers taxi wasn't affected at all but other car got his passenger door dented.

Insurance company just said "we're just going to accept liability and pay out as withholding this will increase the costs as time goes by".

What scale are you working from?

elsien

Relatives who put in a whiplash claim got more like £1500 -3K each. It obviously depends on circumstances and severity but 20K seems unlikely as an average.

londonTiger

well 20K is a max. depends how much the claimant wants to drag it out. They can complain about injuries and go for treatments over sevewral years and claim for loss of earnings due to injuries.

Crazy_Jamie

londonTiger wrote:

the insurance company is only fighting it ebcause it will be something like 20 grand per person for whiplash.

londonTiger wrote: »

well 20K is a max. depends how much the claimant wants to drag it out. They can complain about injuries and go for treatments over sevewral years and claim for loss of earnings due to injuries.

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. You're clearly just guessing and that helps no one.

For the record, there is no 'maximum for whiplash'. Most whiplash cases are for injuries that resolve within two years, for which the bracket is up to £5,800 for general damages (damages awarded solely for pain and suffering), but the average is likely much lower than that. When you bring special damages into play (out of pocket expenses including loss of earnings) there is no maximum, and indeed the more serious whiplash cases can easily see awards of more than £20,000 in total.

Your assertion that the insurance company are only fighting it because it because they would have to pay around £20,000 is equally nonsensical. LVI cases by definition involve whiplash injuries at the lower end of the scale in terms of severity. They are actually relatively cheap to settle because the injuries are usually minor. Running such cases to trial costs many, many times more in legal costs than an early settlement would cost, so any suggestion that they run these cases to trial to save money is nonsense.