Windscreen Chip - Why is Repair Free?

Glassman

Custard_Pie wrote: »

My Fiance called out Autoglass for Her's. The landed up replacing the whole windowscreen at £70 excess (Churchill). The Guy claimed that the chip had been filled before and could only be filled once. How would they know that?

A repaired chip will always be visible to some degree, some more than others, and especially if the repair wasn't good or 'filled' completely to begin with.

Didn't your to-be notice it before?

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

Bongles wrote: »

Exactly. If protecting your no claims discount meant your premium was not affected by risk factors, how on earth would it be calculated?

If you expect no increase in premium after making a claim, do you also expect no reduction in premium after, e.g., reducing your annual mileage or moving house to a lower risk area?

It may seem obvious to you, but I don't see why it is obvious. You get a premium, you then get a discount over a number of years. If you make a claim, you expect to be punished by the loss of your no claims bonus. However, as you (and I) are aware, certain other factors will be taken into account to calculate the premium.

Now it might be naive, but when you pay for a protected no claims bonus, it feels like you have struck a bargain that having an accident will not affect the cost of your insurance.

The problem is that any protected no claims can simply be clawed back by an increase in base premium. Take that to the extreme and there is no benefit in a no-claims discount because you simply adjust the base premium to compensate (and hope that the driver doesn't jump ship to the next insurer who also needs to be made aware of the claims history and may operate a similar premium scheme).

The issue is whether it is clearly stated which events represent a perceived increase in risk and will therefore increase your base premium regardless of NCD. Having a stone chip repaired or a windscreen replacement due to normal driving events should not change your perceived risk of another event - but I bet it does, so then it is simply clawing back the cost rather than a "free" offer - mis-selling. Of course, you are then in the game that if you have something happen where you think it does change your perceived risk, you commit a fraud by not declaring it. However, if you decided just to get a windscreen replaced because you didn't think of it being an item to claim, is it just maintenance.

Try this for size. You are driving and due to a momentary lapse you clip the kerb. You mess up the steering alignment, take it to the garage and get it repaired and pay for it. In your mind it is just maintenance. Actually, the insurers might deem that an accident and you have not declared it.

Arguably my case, the break-in claim, does change the perceived risk, but on the other hand in 30 years of driving it is the only time it has happened, in a place I did not regularly use, so a £100 increase in base premium for a £300 claim is hardly a fair claw back for a protected no claims offer in my book, that is simply getting their money back.

Rather than stating that these repairs do not affect no-claims bonuses, it should be made crystal clear that window repairs may be deemed to represent a perceived increase in risk, must always be declared and may affect the base premium in future years. Have you ever seen something that tells you that a windscreen claim may cause the cost of your insurance to rise? It's deception by omission. And if the offer is "free" repair, or the offer is that the cost is £50 windscreen replacement, they cannot reasonably then tack on further charges through a hidden premium increase.

Whiner

Stoke wrote: »

I said about the accident I had, and then they turned round and said "oh yes, and you also have a windscreen claim".

Did they actually turn around? Like, spun around in their seat before they told you about the windscreen claim?

Pointless turn of phrase.

Bongles

IanMSpencer wrote: »

It may seem obvious to you, but I don't see why it is obvious. You get a premium, you then get a discount over a number of years. If you make a claim, you expect to be punished by the loss of your no claims bonus. However, as you (and I) are aware, certain other factors will be taken into account to calculate the premium.

One of which is your claims history. Nobody believes their claims history has no impact on their insurance, do they?

IanMSpencer wrote: »

Now it might be naive, but when you pay for a protected no claims bonus, it feels like you have struck a bargain that having an accident will not affect the cost of your insurance.

Why does it feel like that? I think that is naïve. Using that logic it should feel like you have struck a bargain that they don’t have to reduce your premium if you reduce your risk either. Does anyone who pays for a protected no claims bonus think that?

How much of an accident do you think you should be able to have without it affecting your premium? I rolled my car through a hedge and wrote it off, injuring my passenger in the process, while I had a protected no claims bonus. Do you think I should have expected my premium the following year to have been unaffected by that episode?

I wonder whether what you’re actually objecting to is not the general principle that claims affect your premium, but the specific principle of a glass repair/replacement claim affecting your premium. If so, I would agree with you, but I think it has nothing to do with NCB protection. If I made a glass repair/replacement claim after stone chip damage, I would expect two things:

1) No loss of NCB, whether it was protected or not.
2) No increase in premium next year, regardless of how much NCB I had or whether or not it was protected.

I would expect 1 because my insurer states that such claims will not affect my NCB (whether it is protected or not). There are no grounds whatsoever for expecting 2, other than my experience. I have made glass repair and replacement claims for stone chip damage before, and as far as I can recall, every insurance company I’ve subsequently declared them to has said, “Thank you for letting us know. We’ll keep a record, but it doesn’t affect the premium”. However, I fully understand that that’s the insurer’s choice – they are not obliged to take that view at all.

Your experience is clearly different. Maybe that’s because your insurer takes a different view on these claims to any of the insurer’s I happen to have asked. It’s not like I’ve surveyed the entire market – far from it. But maybe it’s because, although the repair work you needed was a replacement window, the incident was somebody breaking in to nick stuff, which is a very different sort of incident to stone chip damage.

If I got a £100 increase after a £300 claim, I’d be peeved too. But the solution is simple. Shop around and you’ll quickly discover whether your insurance company is ripping you off – in which case there are loads of others out there – or £100 is actually the going rate.

Bongles

Whiner wrote: »

Did they actually turn around? Like, spun around in their seat before they told you about the windscreen claim?

Pointless turn of phrase.

Did the phrase actually turn around?

Pointless phrase.

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

Bongles wrote: »

One of which is your claims history. Nobody believes their claims history has no impact on their insurance, do they?



Why does it feel like that? I think that is naïve. Using that logic it should feel like you have struck a bargain that they don’t have to reduce your premium if you reduce your risk either. Does anyone who pays for a protected no claims bonus think that?

How much of an accident do you think you should be able to have without it affecting your premium? I rolled my car through a hedge and wrote it off, injuring my passenger in the process, while I had a protected no claims bonus. Do you think I should have expected my premium the following year to have been unaffected by that episode?

I wonder whether what you’re actually objecting to is not the general principle that claims affect your premium, but the specific principle of a glass repair/replacement claim affecting your premium. If so, I would agree with you, but I think it has nothing to do with NCB protection. If I made a glass repair/replacement claim after stone chip damage, I would expect two things:

1) No loss of NCB, whether it was protected or not.
2) No increase in premium next year, regardless of how much NCB I had or whether or not it was protected.

I would expect 1 because my insurer states that such claims will not affect my NCB (whether it is protected or not). There are no grounds whatsoever for expecting 2, other than my experience. I have made glass repair and replacement claims for stone chip damage before, and as far as I can recall, every insurance company I’ve subsequently declared them to has said, “Thank you for letting us know. We’ll keep a record, but it doesn’t affect the premium”. However, I fully understand that that’s the insurer’s choice – they are not obliged to take that view at all.

Your experience is clearly different. Maybe that’s because your insurer takes a different view on these claims to any of the insurer’s I happen to have asked. It’s not like I’ve surveyed the entire market – far from it. But maybe it’s because, although the repair work you needed was a replacement window, the incident was somebody breaking in to nick stuff, which is a very different sort of incident to stone chip damage.

If I got a £100 increase after a £300 claim, I’d be peeved too. But the solution is simple. Shop around and you’ll quickly discover whether your insurance company is ripping you off – in which case there are loads of others out there – or £100 is actually the going rate.

I wasn't being very clear in my pre-ramble, but I was specifically thinking of the window clauses affecting premiums based on clarifying the previous post. However, we are also straying into the territory of consumer and financial legislation and the insurers cannot simply hide behind things being assumed to be understood. So generally, I don't see why insurers should not explicitly list the sorts of incidents that do and do not affect premiums regardless of no claims. For example, does a no-blame crash affect your premium? I think it might, but I don't know.

However, for the main point, these bonus window repair/replace clauses, which I think we agree on. If they are offering these as a service to their customers, they should be absolutely explicit about the total cost of using them. I believe that they are not, and any
insurer offering this and seeking to claw back through premium where this has not been explicitly made clear that there is a further cost to using their services through future premiums is acting dishonestly. If they make a distinction between wear and tear damage and vandalism for example, (which is not unreasonable) then they need to explicitly state that.

Bongles

IanMSpencer wrote: »

I wasn't being very clear in my pre-ramble, but I was specifically thinking of the window clauses affecting premiums based on clarifying the previous post. However, we are also straying into the territory of consumer and financial legislation and the insurers cannot simply hide behind things being assumed to be understood. So generally, I don't see why insurers should not explicitly list the sorts of incidents that do and do not affect premiums regardless of no claims. For example, does a no-blame crash affect your premium? I think it might, but I don't know.

There won’t be a simple yes or no answer to that though. Some insurers might take it into account, some might not. It might depend on the nature of the incident or the size of the claim. It might depend on some of your other circumstances. It might depend on how strongly the insurer wants to keep you as a customer. If it does have an affect, is it £5 or £500? An insurer who tends to increase premiums for non-fault claims today may change their mind in future for whatever reason (or vice versa). It might depend on all sorts of other factors I haven’t thought of.

You can’t know what factors will affect your premium, but it’s easy to get the answer to what factors might affect it. I think you already have the list you want: it's the list of things insurers ask for when they quote premiums. For example, if they ask you about glass repairs (or if, when they ask for your claims history, they don’t say, “you do not need to tell us about glass repairs”), then you know that glass repairs are one of the things that might affect your premium.

I said all the companies I’ve declared glass repairs to have told me that it won’t affect the premium. That’s in the context of the quote they are providing there and then. To be clear, no insurance company has ever given me a guarantee that a glass repair will never affect any premium they might quote in future. Every time I ask the question, I'm prepared for them to say that it will affect the premium, because that's their prerogative.

IanMSpencer wrote: »

However, for the main point, these bonus window repair/replace clauses, which I think we agree on. If they are offering these as a service to their customers, they should be absolutely explicit about the total cost of using them. I believe that they are not, and any insurer offering this and seeking to claw back through premium where this has not been explicitly made clear that there is a further cost to using their services through future premiums is acting dishonestly. If they make a distinction between wear and tear damage and vandalism for example, (which is not unreasonable) then they need to explicitly state that.

I don’t agree that they are acting dishonestly because you are under no obligation to buy next year’s insurance from the same people as this year’s, so any claw back they try and achieve, if that’s even what they’re doing, is entirely at your discretion. I’m not sure what you mean by ‘offering these as a service’? A glass claim is a claim like any other. OK it has a different excess, but different excesses for different types of claim is fairly normal - I have different excesses for accident damage, theft, glass repair, glass replacement, claims when the driver was under 21, and possibly others I can't remember off the top of my head. There is one specific way in which a glass claim is treated differently to any other claim - NCB being unaffected - but that's highlighted as a difference precisely because it is a difference when in all other respects a glass claim is no different to any other claim.

As I say, if an insurer told me my premium was affected by glass claims, I would be annoyed. But only because that's never been the case before, not because I think I have any entitlement to make glass claims without it affecting my premium.