Don't make a claim if you can avoid it.

oldtoolie

My old Honda was flooded in the storms at Christmas 2013. It still ran but wouldn't dry out and suffered electrical issues. So I decided to file an insurance claim. My mistake.

I thought the car was worth about £1000 but after the insurance adjustor marked down all the parking dings and subtracted the deductable I only received about £350.

With my no claims bonus trashed, my insurance increased about £200 last year and about £100 this year. And I presume it will cost £50 next year. So net result is £0 for my good old Honda.

I could have driven it over to the local breaker and received £100, maybe more for it. And kept my NCB.

jimjames

Same experience here.

Got hit by third party when car was parked, claimed on their insurance but as we now have to report a claim for any new policy it's increased our premium. Would have been far cheaper to have sorted damage ourselves and kept quiet.

gilbert_and_sullivan

Yes, i wouldn't bother making a claim for less than about £1000, and that's with protected NCD, not worth losing a claim 'life' over a cracked bumper.

EssexExile

My van's not worth £1000 so I just insure it 3rd party.

arcon5

Some posters repeat the same old nonsense
'you pay for insurance to cover you in such situations so its silly not to use it when you need it'

Well this is exactly why it's nonsense.

It's not always moneysaving to make a claim or even declare an incident if there is no TP involved.

I'm only TPF&T but if it was set alight or stolen I wouldn't be making a claim

boatman

Its also against the policy to not disclose info if you have an accident...
Just saying...
Sometimes fully comp can be cheaper than 3rd party, not often admittedly.

Herzlos

EssexExile wrote: »

My van's not worth £1000 so I just insure it 3rd party.

Might be better insuring it fully comp with a huge excess. Might give you a lower premium and will likely include windscreen cover too. I'm not sure if the the same applies to vans though in the same way as it does for cars.

mcjordi

my excess is £450 the cars probably not worth that.. fixed my own for £20 plus a couple of hours of my time..
still a claim though as the other party claimed for her scratched bumper.
offered her the chance of her choice of body shop and id pay for the bumper repair but nope she claimed..

in_my_bumble_opinion

oldtoolie wrote: »

My old Honda was flooded in the storms at Christmas 2013. It still ran but wouldn't dry out and suffered electrical issues. So I decided to file an insurance claim. My mistake.

I thought the car was worth about £1000 but after the insurance adjustor marked down all the parking dings and subtracted the deductable I only received about £350.

With my no claims bonus trashed, my insurance increased about £200 last year and about £100 this year. And I presume it will cost £50 next year. So net result is £0 for my good old Honda.

I could have driven it over to the local breaker and received £100, maybe more for it. And kept my NCB.

Was £350 their first offer?

If it was, you should have turned it down (they you may not have known that option was available).

Who was your insurer?

InsideInsurance

Herzlos wrote: »

Might be better insuring it fully comp with a huge excess.

A huge excess often also increases your premiums in the same way that TPO/TPFT is often more expensive than Comp.

Insurance works on statistics, your average good driver doesnt want a £2,000 excess and the people who do choose that tend to be the bad risk drivers hoping to reduce their premiums hence when the stats are looked at the highest excesses often have the higher total claims costs despite the higher deductible and so premiums also go up - plus with excesses not being payable on TP claims it doesnt have the amount of impact you'd think on claims costs.

Often the cheapest premium is for a mid level excess.

in_my_bumble_opinion wrote: »

Was £350 their first offer?

The OP says they received £350 which means that is net of their excess, the actual offer could have been many hundreds over that but they'd opted for a large excess to attempt to reduce premiums.

peter_the_piper

Same for house insurance, I fell out of the loft and damaged the front door. Just enquired if covered by insurance, found it was under excess so sorted it but premium doubled next year.