Car accident 2 days into policy

SephirothXI

So I got my license a month ago, got a car sorted and thought I was ready to drive in morning rush hour traffic. I was wrong and made an observation error at a junction. There were 3 cars ahead of me, a clearing opened and the front two cars went. I assumed the guy infront of me was going as well since the road was still clear, and I looked left to see if I could get out myself. While I was looking the guy breaked to a stop and I hit the back of him at around 5mph or less. He says he stopped because a car was about to turn left into our road and he didn't want to go out as a result (we were turning right).

I accept fault for that but I can't help thinking he is making a fraudulent claim for whiplash. There was next to no damage to either car and the only personal injury he could have suffered was to his fist when he launched it at a road sign, which bent it round. Anger is understandable but the !!!!!!! behaviour he displayed suggests the whiplash claim he put in is probably fraud. The guy wasn't a frail old man and must have been very fit and healthy considering he was a member of the armed services. But I have done my research and know whiplash is difficult to prove or disprove so it usually goes in their favour. My insurance company has decided to settle rather than fight it and most likely lose. I've had much bigger bumps on the dodgems so I find it hard to believe it would have caused whiplash. No point discussing that any more as we all know how that works.

My main reasoning for coming here are my concerns about my insurance. I have 0 years no claims bonus to lose since I am a new driver, but I have been told I won't get a bonus for this year, which sucks because I could potentially go 363 days without an accident. I understand the rule is a year and that's just tough luck, but is there anything I can do to salvage the rest of this year?

Would a company be willing to restart my policy from say next week so that I could start building up that year? Or would cancelling my policy be worthwhile? I just know that missed year is going to cost me lots over the years, since a year lost is a year missing from each successive year.

Oddly enough I don't think my insurance will go up next year. I did a dummy quote and listed the accident as though it happened last year with me having driven for a year, just to try figure out what impact it would have on my insurance, and my cheapest quote was about £140 less than I'm paying for this year. That has removed a lot of the worry but I know having a 1 year claims bonus would have saved me another £70 or so, and that will be on every year since the year after next I potentially have 1 year instead of 2, 2 instead of 3 etc.

I know you have to declare it for 5 years too, but I'll probably work that so the renewal dates are past the accident date, IE go uninsured for a few days between policies (and not drive of course).

What would you guys recommend?

rs65

SephirothXI wrote: »

Or would cancelling my policy be worthwhile?

Check what your policy says about cancelling. If you have made a claim, the full premium may be payable.

Quentin

SephirothXI wrote: »

........Would a company be willing to restart my policy from say next week so that I could start building up that year? Or would cancelling my policy be worthwhile? I just know that missed year is going to cost me lots over the years, since a year lost is a year missing from each successive year.

I know having a 1 year claims bonus would have saved me another £70 or so, .......

Forget going to a new company (do dummy quotes to see what the premium will be after your fault claim with injury, then realise that you have to pay your full year's premium to your current insurer too!)


You are mistaken over a year's NCD = £70.


Your first year of NCD is usually worth 30% off - should be far more than £70.

Aretnap

You may be able to salvage this years NCB by offering to reimburse your insurer for their costs arising from the accident, effectively meaning that you pay the costs of the claim yourself. If it was only a few hundred pounds for a cracked bumper that might be worthwhile... but a successful whiplash claim is likely to make it a few thousand rather than a few hundred, so very unlikely to be worth doing.

As above, if you cancel this year's policy having already made a claim you will probably not get any refund on your premium (or have to pay the full remaining premium if you're paying monthly) so cancelling and starting again is very unlikely to work out cheaper than putting it down to experience and carrying on. Effectively you'd have to pay a full extra year's premium (plus a bit extra now that you've had a fault accident) and it's not worth doing that in order to have a chance of a 30% discount on next year's.

The one slightly positive piece if news is that not all insurers require you to declare accidents and claims for 5 years, some (eg Admiral, Direct Line) only ask about the last 3 years.

mattyprice4004

You crashed into him, so you're not really in a position to tell him what he can and claim for - that's your insurer's job.
Also, you won't get any no claims bonus because you've had a claim in this year - if you cancel you'll be liable for the years premium in most cases.

McKneff

It doesn't matter if he is claiming whiplash or not, it is irrelevant, a claim is a claim, simple as that, it makes no difference to you if it is £1000 or £50,000.


You will have to disclose any incident to any new insurance company anyway. For around 5 years. Your accident will now be on a nationwide data base.



Just put it down to experience and keep your eyes front......

Parking_Trouble

You cannot prove or disprove whiplash so the insurers just take it on the chin and won't fight it. Insurers just shift the money around.

Easier to pass the costs on to the consumer to fund the PI gravy train.

Without it there would poorer or unemployed call centre operators, "lawyers", Doctors and Physios.

[Deleted User]

McKneff wrote: »

It doesn't matter if he is claiming whiplash or not, it is irrelevant, a claim is a claim, simple as that, it makes no difference to you if it is £1000 or £50,000.

It certainly does make a difference. Many insurers want to know how much past claims cost. Most comparison sites ask for that information.

Smi1er

Don't work yourself about whether they had genuine whiplash or not. Bottom line is you weren't paying attention.


Like the idea of going uninsured for 3 days so accident falls into a different insurance year.

keith1950

I know you have to declare it for 5 years too, but I'll probably work that so the renewal dates are past the accident date, IE go uninsured for a few days between policies (and not drive of course).

Don't do anything to try to massage the truth.......if you lie or upset an insurance company you are liable to have a policy voided.

Your story about the other driver is irrelevant.

You made a mistake.

If you cancel you will most likely still be liable for the full years premium , so that's a non-starter.

Oddly enough I don't think my insurance will go up next year. I did a dummy quote and listed the accident as though it happened last year with me having driven for a year, just to try figure out what impact it would have on my insurance, and my cheapest quote was about £140 less than I'm paying for this year. That has removed a lot of the worry but I know having a 1 year claims bonus would have saved me another £70 or so, and that will be on every year since the year after next I potentially have 1 year instead of 2, 2 instead of 3 etc.

I hope you didn't use your own details to generate this quote or you may find they consider that you are trying to alter facts to obtain betterment.

The value of a quote now means nothing when you are over 11 months from renewing. I think your next years premium will almost certainly be higher than this years. You need to stay with your current insurer and bite the bullet.

SephirothXI

I don't know where to start with the replies to this thread. So much negativity. The conclusion seems to be that:

Cancelling is a no-go because I may not get a partial refund due to the claim. Fair point, I guess this is the main thing I needed to know. Just sucks knowing I will potentially have not claimed for 2 days less than a year and I will have to drive accident free for pretty much 2 years to get 1 year NCB. It doesn't feel right that it doesn't go from the date of the accident.

Car insurance comparison websites lie to you. Either that or some of you are seriously misguided regarding the value of NCB. It's pointless trying to argue who is right on this however. When doing dummy quotes I did find insurance seemed to be around 30% less than the previous year but the majority of the saving was down to having my license for a year rather than a no claims bonus. It makes sense to me that having a year's driving experience is worth more than having not made a claim for a year. Your driving skills vastly improve over your first year as you rack up the hours and this makes you less likely to crash and make a claim. Having not made a claim on its own doesn't make you less likely to not make a claim.

Lying to an insurer is bad. Oh really? I never knew! Glad I never had any intention of doing so. I don't see going uninsured to put the claim into a different year as lying either. I can think of far better reasons to go uninsured after a policy expires anyway, such as timing a holiday then. It's a good way to save money and I have done this with travel insurance, bus passes, phone top ups and whatever else that I can get away without paying for those 2 or 3 weeks of the year. Chances are in 5 years time my renewal date could be well over a month past the accident date due to this. Surprised no one else has thought of timing renewal dates of monthly/annual outgoings this way.

The accident was my fault, well yeah I said that in the first post no need to remind me. I accept full responsibility for the tap. What does annoy me is that you can pretty much claim for whiplash these days if a fly lands on the back of your car. This is pushing up policies for all of us.