Insurance Company Shenanigans

CreditWarrior

Hello all,

I recently had an incident whereby a cyclist came round a corner entirely out of control and slammed into my car. Apparently it is automatically an at fault accident because the cyclist is a 'vulnerable road user'. Fine. Of course, said cyclist is making a lot of spurious claims, etc... and my insurance company is in the process of settling. Fine.

As if my magic, I received from the insurer today a letter claiming that the disclosures I made when I took out the policy do not match their records. As a result they have added £1,500 to the cost of my premium and are seeking to take it back by direct debit over the next 7 months!!!

What they have claimed is absolute rubbish and I am going to ring them tomorrow to get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, does anyone have any advice about what my rights are? Let's say I got the date of a speeding fine wrong, hypothetically. Surely there is no justification for quadrupling the cost of my annual premium?!?!

I would really appreciate some guidance if anyone knows about this stuff.

Thanks.

Strider590

CreditWarrior wrote: »

Hello all,

I recently had an incident whereby a cyclist came round a corner entirely out of control and slammed into my car. Apparently it is automatically an at fault accident because the cyclist is a 'vulnerable road user'. Fine. Of course, said cyclist is making a lot of spurious claims, etc... and my insurance company is in the process of settling. Fine.

As if my magic, I received from the insurer today a letter claiming that the disclosures I made when I took out the policy do not match their records. As a result they have added £1,500 to the cost of my premium and are seeking to take it back by direct debit over the next 7 months!!!

What they have claimed is absolute rubbish and I am going to ring them tomorrow to get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, does anyone have any advice about what my rights are? Let's say I got the date of a speeding fine wrong, hypothetically. Surely there is no justification for quadrupling the cost of my annual premium?!?!

I would really appreciate some guidance if anyone knows about this stuff.

Thanks.

That's not true at all, cyclists rarely come out better off unless they have helmet cameras or independent witnesses.

When you say "out of control", was the cyclist coming the opposite direction?

arcon5

If you wasn't at fault then don't just let them bend you over. Sounds like 1500 was the cost of the claim

Quentin

If you gave them false information when taking out the policy which they have now discovered then they hold the upper ground.


They look to be taking the view that this was not a deliberate attempt to defraud them (otherwise they would be voiding your policy)


You need to challenge them formally if you disagree with their accusations using their complaints procedure


(This £1500 won't have anything to do with the claim against you, though they may have discovered the issue when they checked up on your original application now as a result of the claim)

AdrianC

CreditWarrior wrote: »

Apparently it is automatically an at fault accident because the cyclist is a 'vulnerable road user'.

Not true at all.

Of course, said cyclist is making a lot of spurious claims, etc... and my insurance company is in the process of settling. Fine.

In other words, it's the cyclist's word against yours, and your insurance company have to choose which to believe.

As if my magic,

They've checked the driving record from your proposal against DVLA. Not unusual in the event of a claim.

I received from the insurer today a letter claiming that the disclosures I made when I took out the policy do not match their records.

...which won't help them believe you one little bit.

Let's say I got the date of a speeding fine wrong, hypothetically.

By how long? "Hypothetically"?
And are we talking a three-point, £100 FPN, or are we talking a court date, even a ban or licence revocation?

Johno100

AdrianC wrote: »

By how long? "Hypothetically"?
And are we talking a three-point, £100 FPN, or are we talking a court date, even a ban or licence revocation?

That's the question. Unless he is already paying silly money as a young driver I can't see how a straightforward 3pts fixed penalty could raise the premium by £1,500.

CreditWarrior wrote: »

Apparently it is automatically an at fault accident because the cyclist is a 'vulnerable road user'.

Not at the moment, but cycling groups are pressing for presumed civil liability (AKA strict liability) for accidents between cyclists and motor vehicles. Where as the name suggests there will be a presumption that the motorist is at fault and we know how insurance companies prefer to pay out 3rd party claims rather than argue the toss.

CreditWarrior

Just to be absolutely clear here (since a number of people have jumped to the conclusion I am deceitful it seems), I am talking hypothetically. I have not provided false information to my insurance company; to do so you would have to be a complete idiot.

That said, I am human. Maybe I got the date of a fixed penalty notice from 2 years ago wrong? Who knows.

The insurance policy is a renewal too, not a new policy.

If I have got the date wrong, I do not see how that would affect my premium at all, for instance. The information is there still.

A jump of £1,500 seems extortionate and smacks to me as an attempt to recover their loss. If they don't back down I will be taking them to the ombudsman. Their letter doesn't even provide any information about what it is alleged I have done.

Quentin

Your posts are unclear.


Is the £1500 a increase in your current policy premium due to them discovering the original information you gave was incorrect (which is what it appears to be in your OP), or their price for renewing your policy which you now mention (which you can expect to be higher as a result of your claim and loss of any unprotected NCD)?


Alternatively if you have been with the same company for a number of years, and they have now discovered your original application was incorrect then they will be wanting the correct premium off you right back to when you first became a customer andn gave incorrevt information.


(You need to first exhaust their complaints procedure before being able to escalate this to the FOS)

AdrianC

CreditWarrior wrote: »

Just to be absolutely clear here (since a number of people have jumped to the conclusion I am deceitful it seems), I am talking hypothetically.

So your insurer _haven't_ asked you for another £1,500 because of a difference between your proposal and the reality?

I have not provided false information to my insurance company; to do so you would have to be a complete idiot.

ITYM "knowingly" - not that it makes a difference - but you'd probably be surprised to find that there ARE a lot of "complete idiots" out there who do do exactly that.

That said, I am human. Maybe I got the date of a fixed penalty notice from 2 years ago wrong? Who knows.

DVLA do.
https://www.gov.uk/view-driving-licence

You, presumably, have a copy of the information you gave them? Compare the two.

Are you also sure that the problem doesn't lie in accident/claim differences or in NCB differences. Talk to them - they'll tell you the problem.

shaun_from_Africa

CreditWarrior wrote: »

If I have got the date wrong, I do not see how that would affect my premium at all, for instance. The information is there still.

Getting the dates wrong could easily affect your premium if you had more than one offence spread out over time.
For example.
Speeding offence 1. Jan 2012
Speeding offence 2. Mar 2014.
Two offences over 2 years apart might indicate that you rarely speed.

Speeding offence 1. Jan 2014.
Speeding offence 2. May 2014.
Two offences close together might indicate that you didn't learn your lesson after the first offence.


Also, if the date of your offence was stated as something like June 2013 and nothing since, the insurers might conclude that as you have had a clean record in the past two years, you no longer speed after being caught.
If however the real date was June 2015, they wouldn't know how you now drive and might bump up the premium for a while.

InsideInsurance

CreditWarrior wrote: »

Just to be absolutely clear here (since a number of people have jumped to the conclusion I am deceitful it seems), I am talking hypothetically. I have not provided false information to my insurance company; to do so you would have to be a complete idiot.

That said, I am human. Maybe I got the date of a fixed penalty notice from 2 years ago wrong? Who knows.

The insurance policy is a renewal too, not a new policy.

If I have got the date wrong, I do not see how that would affect my premium at all, for instance. The information is there still.

A jump of £1,500 seems extortionate and smacks to me as an attempt to recover their loss. If they don't back down I will be taking them to the ombudsman. Their letter doesn't even provide any information about what it is alleged I have done.

£1,500 will not touch the cost of a claim from a cyclist being run over.

The fact you say its a renewal could mean that the £1,500 isnt just for this policy year but the prior policy years where you were also insured on what they believe is false information.

Clearly you need to discuss with them what they have "discovered" and in the first instance see if you agree that it was an false declaration by yourself or if what they have found is erroneous - these days a fair new of these occur when people "play" on aggregators like Confused.com to see what would happen if they had a claim or criminal conviction etc but use their real personal details.