Insurance more than double in a year

Cpu2007

Hi everyone

I hope someone can help me on this.

I have been with cis for 2 years and I have now received a letter for renewal for the third year.
my premium is of around £700 and I have received a renewal quote stating that the new price is of £2300

I called them up and they said the reason why my insurance has gone this high is because of a fault claim and also because of their price change from first of june.

The claim was in regards to the car being stolen and recovered and if I understand this correctly, even though it doesn't make sense to me, the insurance said that because they can't get money from anywhere else (people who stole the car) they put this claim as my fault as they have to pay for the repair cost of my car.

What I want to know is, is it normal for them to increase the price so much? are their reasons justified?

Thank you

Magpie170808

Yes, I'm afraid this is standard practice; you are paying the price of being a victim of crime and the insurance company does not care. My advice is simple: Shop around! You should get back fairly close to the £700 you originally paid. Loyalty does not usually pay with car insurance, especially if you have had a claim go against you in the last year.

Aretnap

Claims are classified as "fault" or "non-fault". "Fault" in this context is a bit of industry jargon which has nothing to do with its usual meaning of blame - but as you note it refers to whether or not the insurer is able to recover its payout from another party or not. In a normal car accident this does roughly correspond to "blame", as if someone else is to blame for the accident your insurers will be able to recover their money from the other person's insurers. However it does mean that things like having your car stolen, being hit by an untraceable driver, or having a tree fall on your car all go down as fault claims as there's nobody else to claim from. It's counter-intuitive, but it's the norm.

As for whether it's a good price for your circumstances, the only way to tell is by shopping around. There's a good chance that you'll find a better price because (a) insurers tend to offer better prices to new customers, and it rarely pays to stay with the same company for more than a year or two and (b) insurers have different pricing structures and different target markets - the company which was cheapest for you when you were claim free is not necessarily the same as the one which is cheapest for someone with a claim or two.