Current Insurer won't insure new car

REDDDRAGGON

So I'm getting a new car, effectively a comparable vehicle to my current one (Juke -> Countryman), but apparently I don't have enough NCD to be insured on the Vehicle. Fair Enough, I'll have to cancel the policy, and pay whatever cancellation fee they want.

I have plenty of good quotes from other insurers. However my main problem is that I had a no fault accident last December and the third party insurers claimed responsibility, but now they seem have gone AWOL and my insurers are contemplating taking them to court to recover the costs. I don't yet know what the cost was - what effect will this hanging in the air have on my purchasing new insurance?

InsideInsurance

How are your current insurers treating the claim?

Normally an open claim is treated as a fault claim and so if you were to cancel the policy whilst the claim is open then cancellation fees apply but you'd also have to pay the remainder of the premium (assuming you are paying by installments) and would lose the NCD if it isnt protected. This will all be put back right once the TP insurers pay up but it will be more complex if you've moved insurers.

colino

I had a similar problem many moons ago when I bought my first 944 and then with money paid and keys in hand, thought I'd better phone my insurance company. They said no, but bizarrely transferred the call to one of their other brands who were happy to insure the car with not much change in premium and the deal done as a change of car, no admin fee or refunds, even though it was different company and policy.
Put on your most charming voice and see if they can shuffle you to another part of their empire (they all seem to have different companies for different risks) and when the dust has settled next time, you can go cleanly to a new insurer.

AdrianC

Since it's not resolved, then it's still effectively "at-fault", with your NCB suspended. You'll need to declare it, and tell any new insurers that it's not resolved.

Remember, it's not "fault" that matters, but whether your insurer have ended up dipping their hand in their pocket. And, at the moment, they certainly have.

REDDDRAGGON

Oh boy. Sounds like I am screwed then.

With 0 NCD and an At-Fault I can't afford the insurance.

I'll have to get onto my insurer.

InsideInsurance

AdrianC wrote: »

Since it's not resolved, then it's still effectively "at-fault", with your NCB suspended. You'll need to declare it, and tell any new insurers that it's not resolved.

It does depend and needs clarification with the existing insurer.

Certainly in my claims days in a very clear cut case where we had all the TP detail, all the TPI details, no dispute on liability, UK based insurer etc then we would set the claim so that it was treated as non-fault despite the claim still being open and our outlay not yet recovered.

Due to the wording of the letter that was sent when that setting was applied if we failed to make a recovery or something changed we couldnt go back and change it. I remember that there was a push to change the letter wording but due to the archaic system it'd cost silly money to do it and it never got to the top of the IT priority list.

REDDDRAGGON

I've rung my insurer, and they have an admission of liability from them already it's just the outlay they are seeking to recover now. They are expecting it to be sorted within the next week or so.

Fingers crossed things go smoothly. Both insurers are pretty much household names, so I'm not expecting any funny business. It seems to be a paperwork issue so hopefully all sorted soon.

InsideInsurance

REDDDRAGGON wrote: »

Both insurers are pretty much household names, so I'm not expecting any funny business. It seems to be a paperwork issue so hopefully all sorted soon.

These things tend to take much longer than people believe they will. Claims is a moderately technical role taking a fair amount of training but is fairly seasonal. They always run up backlogs during the peak claims period as they cant hire all the extra heads they need to keep up and then dismiss them in 3 months time and temps arent appropriate for these types of area so they are in effect under staffed.

We used to cross train Sales people to take claim notification calls as that was all system driven and so fairly easy but the true claims handling was just an acceptance of you being stuffed.

Add to that the large caseload that people have it just adds to the problems. Prior to moving into personally injury cases I typically had around 700-800 claims in my name and that was lower than average as I used to pick up the complex disputed liability cases.

Quentin

REDDDRAGGON wrote: »

Oh boy. Sounds like I am screwed then.

With 0 NCD and an At-Fault I can't afford the insurance.

I'll have to get onto my insurer.

Get on to your proposed new insurer and explain the circs and ask if your NCD gets reinstated they will amend your premium and refund the difference back to your policy start date.


If they agree get it confirmed in writing.

gilbert_and_sullivan

Just a thought, might it be feasable to sell your current car and buy a banger acceptable to your current insurer for the duration of the current policy, then buy the new car when all this is sorted out and you can move insurers easily and with another full years NCD.

patman99

Depending on how long you have to run, then might be worth putting the new car on your insurance as a temporary additional vehicle.