Fraudulent claim on car insurance

cyberchick

On 1st Jan 2016, our car was supposedly in an accident,although we were many miles away at the other end of the country, at home with friends.
After being contacted by our insurance company we explained that we were not in the car that day, oh they said no problem forget it, 3 months down the line another letter about this claim, we got in touch and were asked to send photographic evidence, we provided this, One Call accept that we are not involved , but are waiting for the other insurance company to clear the claim..
However we now have renewed our insurance with a penalty because there is still claim against us costing us and extra £150 which we are told we are not 100% sure of getting a refund.
Has anyone else had a similar experience and have you any help or suggestions as to what we can do?? We are being penalized for someone else's accident. Help!!!!

teddysmum

I would buy elsewhere.


My husband was accused of an accident a few years ago, but he could prove that he was in another part of the country, doing a delivery for his employer.


The mistake was the result of an office person mis- typing one letter from a number plate. The car in the accident was the same make and model as ours, as the garage batch registered a number of cars.


The insurers (not ours) explained , but didn't apologize.

Aretnap

It's more likely to be a mistake than a fraudulent claim - possibly the victim of the hit and run (or a witness) misread the number plate of the offending car, and you were the unlucky owner of the number plate as he read it.

Your insurer will have to treat this as an open claim until the other insurer formally drops it - until then there's still a (theoretical) possibility that they'll come back with CCTV footage or some other evidence that you were involved. And unfortunately these things tend to move rather slowly, and in the meantime the unresolved claim will have an effect on your premium - they don't have separate categories for "unresolved but probably won't pay" or "unresolved and might well pay".

You should expect to have the extra premium refunded when it eventually is resolved in your favour though. When they say they can't guarantee this do they mean that they can't guarantee that it will be resolved in your favour (because of the possibility of new evidence emerging) or because even if it is resolved in your favour they might not give you a refund?

You can always take your business elsewhere (though it may be a bit late if you've already renewed) but you'll have to declare the unresolved claim to any new insurer, so that won't necessarily solve the problem.