Car insurance dilemma

tonyd25

So after renewing my car insurance the other day I get a letter today about an undisclosed claim from my new car insurance company. It turns out that from a motorway crash I had involving just myself I have a £7000 claim made against me for damaging the barrier between the motorway. This happened almost a year ago and I knew nothing about it, haven't received any letter. Turns out my insurance is now void and my current company needs to cancel it because my no claims bonus no longer exists and the claim is still open

I'm after some advice if any one could help me it would be much appreciated. It was a shock to me because I thought my no claims still stood because there was no one to claim against me but it turns out there is. Obviously I caused some damage, but 7000 sounds insane for a barrier.

rs65

tonyd25 wrote: »

It was a shock to me because I thought my no claims still stood because there was no one to claim against me but it turns out there is.

Did you disclose that you had an accident?

Was your NCB affected or was it protected? How many years did your renewal notice say and how many years did you put in the new quote?

tonyd25

I didn't think I needed to because there was no claim, but I disclosed it at the time and they told me that it would not affect my future insurance

My NCB is not protected as far as I know, and I do not know if the NCB is affected yet or not because the claim is still ongoing a year later and they aren't being very helpful

I put 3 years no claims in because I was under the impression that there was no claims made against me, I was not notified at all of this until I had to chase up the info for myself.

rs65

How many years NCB were shown on your renewal notice?

forgotmyname

You need to notify insurers of all claims, incidents and losses even where no claim has been made.

And now you need to declare having an insurance policy cancelled.

If they claimed from your policy then you will lose your no claims or some of it.
If you had 5 then they may have dropped it to 3. But did you have 3 including the last year?
If so then you will have zero no claims for future policies and will need to delcare the incident for upto 5 years, another but.. you may have to declare the policy being cancelled for much longer.

tonyd25

Will they still treat it as a proper cancellation even though the policy started yesterday?

I had no idea of this claim obviously I would have mentioned it if I knew there was an ongoing claim. I don't know what to do, my insurance will literally triple now and in answer to your question rs65 I didn't get a proper renewal form they just told me to call them to discuss renewal but by then I had already sorted new insurance

Quentin

tonyd25 wrote: »

Will they still treat it as a proper cancellation even though the policy started yesterday?

Yes this is a "proper" voiding/cancellation of your policy and will have been put on your record.


So you now need to disclose the claim against you and the cancelled policy on your record - otherwise you are wasting money buying insurance as it will come to light (either routinely, or worse after you are involved in a claim when your non disclosure would give them grounds to again void your policy and reject any claim. If a third party is involved and you were to blame then your insurer would deal with the third party then turn their sights on you to reimburse them their outlay to the third party)


You may have problems finding any off the peg/online insurers, but a local broker (not Swinton) may be able to help find you cover.

tonyd25

All this time I was under the pretense that I still had my no claims bonus because I was NEVER notified of a claim for this accident. No correspondence or anything. I had to chase up the underwriter myself today to find out who the claim was from because I had no idea what was going on. The claim is still unsettled, surely my new insurance company will understand this as it is a reasonable mistake? I would of never left out that information otherwise if I knew there was a claim and so early into the policy as well. They found out before me. Also I made a mistake not mentioning the accident I also thought because no claim was made it didn't need to be mentioned when I apply for new car insurance. Usually I get a call after I take out the insurance to make sure everything I said was correct but not this time it was all done online.

rs65

tonyd25 wrote: »

All this time I was under the pretense that I still had my no claims bonus because I was NEVER notified of a claim for this accident. No correspondence or anything.

You notified them of the accident. Good practice would say that they inform you once settled.

You need to have a good look at the questions asked when you took it out. You are usually asked for all incidents, claims etc..

tonyd25

It has not been settled yet, that's why there was confusion when the new insurance company asked for my NCB details. I did not know of any claim because it was a crash that involved no other cars, the claim is for the damage to roads which I had no idea about. Was a mistake on my part not mentioning the accident but I thought because no claim was made I didn't have to and was told it wouldn't affect my insurance and it was an honest mistake. Hopefully they understand this when I ring them tomorrow as it's really stressing me out

rs65

tonyd25 wrote: »

and it was an honest mistake. Hopefully they understand this when I ring them tomorrow as it's really stressing me out

That's the hope.

Have a read
https://www.abi.org.uk/Insurance-and-savings/Tools-and-resources/How-to-buy-insurance/What-the-Consumer-Insurance-Act-means-for-customers