Hail damage claim

pinklady1961

Hi Everyone, I'm new to this site but wondered if anyone could shed any light on a problem I'm having with regards car insurance claim.

Last week we had a hail storm and hail the size of golf balls came down resulting in my and lots of other neighbours cars being damaged.

I've never made any claim before so it's all new to me. My insurance excess is £300. I have about 8 dents in total to my car. On contacting my insurer they advised due to the circumstances of my claim (hail damage) I would have to speak to the underwriter. I spoke to them and they said its a "fault claim", when I said I didn't understand that term they said it's because they can't claim off anyone else. I find this odd. Furthermore, I asked if my making a claim would affect my premiums. I wanted to know so I could make a decision whether to claim through my insurance or bite the bullet and pay myself. The underwriter could not tell me and said I would only find out at renewal. This is totally unacceptable. I thought it would be classed as an "act of god/nature" and therefore I should not be penalized. Has anyone else experienced this?

Eve

InsideInsurance

"Fault" is an unfortunate word to use but its an industry standard term and too late to change.

Fault does not equal blame. As they have alluded to, a fault claim is simply one where the insurer cannot recover their outlay from another party. This can be because its a hit and run so the other side is unidentified, can be because you are to blame for the accident, can be as the thief is never caught or is and doesnt have the means to repay and, as your example, are storms/ wind/ wild animals etc.

As you cannot sue God or Mother Nature etc then a claim would result in a net outlay for your insurers and so it will be a "fault" claim.

The actual impact on your premium cannot be judged more than X days before your renewal. A fault claim normally will increase your premiums but by how much depends on overall how good a risk you are, if your NCD was protected or not etc.

You can always do dummy quotes on Confused.com or such using fake details that are fairly similar to yours and see what the premiums comes out as with (a) a fault claim and X years NCD and (b) a fault incident and Y years NCD