Privately settle?

Quentin

Does the policy allow for this??

debtdebt

Whatever you make her sign, you won!!!8217;t be able to preclude the third party from making a personal injury claim within three years of the accident. Do you really want that possibility to be hanging over your head for a full three years?

Arklight

NicoleT83 wrote: »

Yeah, apparently when you tell them, your monthly payment goes up...I’m with Hastings - never been with them before until now.

You should check with Hastings exactly what is going on. There’s no monthly premium as such, you have a yearly premium you pay over 12 months. If the monthly price really has gone up it’s because they’ve added something on. I am baffled by them raising the premium to £1000 mid term. I can’t believe they have floating risk adjustment. That would be the worst insurance policy ever. Are you sure that isn’t an excess?

Even if you hadn’t had an accident Hastings aren’t going to renew your insurance for anything other than a giant hike.

You can’t really tell what your premium will be until you go back to market for new insurance. The fact you caused an accident will be the majority of your increased premium rather than the (now mostly meaningless) no claims bonus.

If you want to use the comparison sites to try and figure out the cost the only caveat I will reference is that the payout will be far more than £2000 if she is claiming from your insurer. Once she’s had a hire car for a week, the garage has found a dozen other problems and she’s been bombarded with phone calls demanding to represent her for her whiplash, it will go up a lot. But that will very probably be coming anyway.

chrisw

You are setting yourself up for major hassle, particularly if your mental health is not so good.

Go through the insurance company and let them deal with it all. It's what you pay them for. Worry about any increase when your renewal next becomes due, maybe start saving a bit now.

neilmcl

wongataa wrote: »

£1000 extra insurance is less than paying the person £2000 and saves any hassle if the deal goes south. This is what insurance is for.

Yes, but it's not just £1000, it'll be £1000 the first year and whatever for the next 4 years, not to mention the excess she'll no doubt pay for her own claim. The likelihood for the OP is that would end up being more than the original £2000 to settle privately.

shaun_from_Africa

Quentin wrote: »

Are you saying that your premium has increased mid term just because you reported an incident?

Doesn't sound right.Does the policy allow this?

Who is the insurer!

Why shouldn't your premium rise?
Even though a claim isn't being made, the OP has had an at fault accident which is something that will increase the perceived risk to their insurers.
If the risk goes up, the premium goes up.

Quentin

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

Why shouldn't your premium rise?
Even though a claim isn't being made, the OP has had an at fault accident which is something that will increase the perceived risk to their insurers.
If the risk goes up, the premium goes up.

Not normally because you informed them about an incident for information only!


This could affect the renewal premium, not the current one (unless Hastings have some unique condition allowing this)

Arklight

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

Why shouldn't your premium rise?
Even though a claim isn't being made, the OP has had an at fault accident which is something that will increase the perceived risk to their insurers.
If the risk goes up, the premium goes up.

Because she has already agreed the premium. It's a yearly premium that that she is paying off monthly. Not insurance that is calculated at a monthly rate.

I generally pay in a lump sum. Are you saying that if I call my insurer to make a claim they should be able to say "Well, we'd have charged you an extra £1000 if we knew you were going to make a claim so you'll have to pay that right away"?

That isn't an insurance policy. If the insurer wants to cancel or withdraw cover they can, within reasonable parameters that must be clearly laid out. They shouldn't be able to hold a gun to your head and demand more money midterm because you try and use the product they sold you.

Arklight

neilmcl wrote: »

Yes, but it's not just £1000, it'll be £1000 the first year and whatever for the next 4 years, not to mention the excess she'll no doubt pay for her own claim. The likelihood for the OP is that would end up being more than the original £2000 to settle privately.

It'll go up a lot in the next year, then as long as she doesn't cause any more accidents it will go down pretty sharply as she'll have had a safe year, a years NCB, and another year of owning a license without causing a major catastrophe.

What's outlined in the OP is basically a prang, of which there was hundreds of thousands every year. It's for more money than many people have lying around with the potential for all kinds of complications down the road that she doesn't need to be bothered with.

It's exactly what motor insurance is for.

If the following year is really that high she could SORN her car for a year and get the bus for a year.

Nicola83

I have my car insurance with Hastings, and earlier this year I moved house so had to change my address about a month into my new policy.
They added an admin charge of £25 for changing it and gave me the option of adding it to my monthly payments, which worked out at just over £2 a month, so is there any chance it could be something like that OP?
I had to use my car insurance yesterday as some idiot pulled out into the side of me and scraped my entire passenger side and Hastings have so far been brilliant, I pay it for a reason, so that when something like this happens I don't have to deal with the stress and hassle of fixing it.
A short term rise in price must surely be worth it to save possible long term claims from the other party?