Do I need to declare a dent to my insurance company?

MyUsername

While at a friends house I recently had a scrape with a wall which left a small dent in the side of my car which I am going to have fixed at my own expense.

I was wondering though as it happened on private land my friend it happy about it all as there is no damage to the wall so no liability do I need to declare anything to my insurance firm or not?

neilmcl

What do your T&Cs say?

In theory, possibly yes, in practice what do you think?

datostar

In theory, yes, as you will probably find on reading the small print of your policy that you should report any damage to the insured vehicle. This will enable them to increase your premium; whack your NCB etc. In practice, are they likely to find out about it in the circumstances you describe?

pappa_golf

you must also inform them every time a child is sick on the rear seat as well , as this can seriously affect your loading , if its happened once chances are (statistically) that it will happen again

Tothepoint.

datostar wrote: »

In theory, yes, as you will probably find on reading the small print of your policy that you should report any damage to the insured vehicle. This will enable them to increase your premium; whack your NCB etc. In practice, are they likely to find out about it in the circumstances you describe?

Since he's not planning on claiming that won't happen.

MyUsername

I am not liable for any costs to the wall so thats settled, if I did contact my insurers they wouldn't pay out anyway as the cost of fixing it is less than my excess.

My insurer is Direct Line.

pappa_golf

don,t tell them , get it fixed yourself

wazza99

99% of drivers wouldn't advise, 1% would.

Unfortunately the 1% are correct in the real world....well.

jimjames

MyUsername wrote: »

I am not liable for any costs to the wall so thats settled, if I did contact my insurers they wouldn't pay out anyway as the cost of fixing it is less than my excess.

But they would still be likely to load your premium and you'd have to declare for the next 3/5 years at renewal

scaredofdebt

My insurance policy states I should advise them of any "incidents" - the car was broken into last year so I rang to advise them the same day in case we decided to pursue a claim, we weren't sure at the time how much the damage was going to cost to fix. As the b*ggers had basically bent the entire door to get in I thought it might be quite pricey.

We didn't pursue the claim as the garage simply bent the door back again, not ideal cosmetically but the car is a Japanese import and so a replacement door wasn't easy to source so happy enough for the £50 cost to "repair" it.

Anyway, our premium went up 100% the following year, shopped aorund and got a policy with another insurer but still 20% odd higher than before, not happy about that but you expect this sort of behaviour from insurance companies.

With hindsight I shouldn't have rung the insurers so diligently, I believe they give you 30 days to report such incidents. I won't be reporting this type of thing again in future, or similar "incidents" as the OP has had, is there any case of insurers taking their customers to court over such ommissions?

Oh, as for it being "more likely to happen in future" - this is actually the opposite in our case as we simply won't park where we did before as it is a known blackspot for car crime, but we didn't know until plod told us after the event.

force_ten

wazza99 wrote: »

99% of drivers wouldn't advise, 1% would.

Unfortunately the 1% are correct in the real world....well.

on this forum 99% will tell you must inform your insurance every time a bird poops on your cars paint, but in the real world 100% of them would just keep schtum