Innocent Party But Car Insurance Loaded

MichaelJohn

My car insurance is due in a couple of weeks. Just after renewing last year a car coming towards me ran wide (left hand bend) and clipped my car which was stationary at the time. Everything was, I thought, settled quite quickly. However my renewal has come through and is nearly 150% higher despite full, and protected, NCB. It appears the other drivers company, despite accepting liability, have not yet paid my company. As a result of this they have classified it as an open claim and apparently loaded my premium before applying the NCB. The sum involved is under £1000. As the innocent party I feel somewhat aggrieved by this and having protected NCB it seems like sharp practice to me. When I was younger someone rear-ended my car a couple of days before renewal and my NCB was reduced by two years but was reinstated and a refund given once it was sorted

Faith177

Protected NCB is just that it protects your NCB from being lost it doesn't stop you getting a loading from the claim.

One your insurer has made a recovery they will be able to adjust your policy accordingly as if the claim was non fault at renewal

Nasqueron

Protected NCB doesn't stop premiums rising, it just stops you losing your discount

Imagine your insurance is £1000 and you have 70% NCB discount - premium is £300

Now imagine premium goes up to £2000, you have protected your NCB discount so the 70% is still coming off but as the base is higher, your premium is higher

Once the other company pays up you will get a reduction

Aretnap

It's fairly normal for an open claim to be treated as a fault claim - and this is inevitably a pain if the claim is still open when renewal time comes.

If you're not happy with the renewal quote you can still vote with your feet and move to a different company - and this might not be a bad idea anyway as there might be better value to be had (150% sounds like quite a rise, even for a fault claim). You will still have to declare the open claim to any insurer you move to, but it's worth getting a quote from them with it put down as a no fault claim as well to see what the difference is - and get them to confirm that they'll refund the difference if/when your old insurer settles the claim.

If you change insurers you should also not assume that the old insurer will tell the new insurer when the claim has been settled and that the refund will happen automatically - you might have to be prepared to do a bit of legwork yourself in terms of phoning your old insurer to check the status of the claim, and forwarding documentation on to your new insurer.