Car insurance to claim or not?

Ben_Ferrari

Hi, my car was scrapped and dented down the side while parked outside my house. It's an older car and probably worth about £1700. I'm in two minds what to do as it's likely that it would be an economical write-off.

1. Calling my insurer to make a claim (i've never done this before).

2. Just leave it and sucking up the loss when we sell the car.

I'm not sure how it will affect my future insurance if I go for option 1. (i have not claims protection). Does anyone have any advice on what to do here?

Thanks,
Ben

Quentin

You can find out what effect this will make to your future premiums now by doing dummy quotes online with and without the claim in your history.

Your post is unclear but irrespective of whether or not you have protected ncd a claim will increase your premium and you pay your excess

Get a quote from your local back street body shop and make your decision based on the figures

OnanTheBarbarian

knowing how savvy insurers and price comparison sites are now with the trail of data we leave behind, do people risk ending up with a black mark against them for going on and fiddling around with their details?

Such black marks perhaps being higher quotes (as per the Sun and the "Mohammed" issue where they changed quotes, or a risk that they are flagged on fraud markers etc?

I think this needs addressing as doing "dummy quotes" is all well and good for comparative reasons, but with cookies, IP address and other info being left behind, people may be setting themselves up for a fall.

Ben_Ferrari

Thanks, guys - I'm cautious of doing "dummy quotes" for the exact reasons stated above.

I guess I can get some idea of a quote for the repair, I'll have an idea of the cost against the insurance claim. If I do claim for it, what kind of impact can I expect from future insurance? (taking into account they all share information these days)

Thanks,

Quentin

If you are worried about how sophisticated the comparison sites are in detecting who you are then use a public computer for your dummy quotes which then will be untraceable!


A claim will have to be disclosed to future insurers as part of your history (insurers ask for 3/5 years history)

Minkmole

I think it is in the insurance document that you are obliged to let them know even if you are not going to claim or are not at fault.It seems very unfair as other insurance policies eg for pets do not have that stipulation.