Worth claiming on my car insurance?

Noozan

My car has been vandalised for the second time in as many months. :mad: The last time; it was scratched along the front door, back door and front wing. This time, it has been scratched all along the bonnet. Both incidents happened over night and the second time, other cars parked nearby were also damaged; this (kind of) makes me feel better as I worried I was being victimised.

I reported both incidents to the police and obtained a crime reference number in each case.

I am currently on my 4th year of no claims with Direct Line so I am wondering how much it will affect my renewal premium later this year if I make a claim? I think my excess is £100 but rectifying the damage is certainly going to cost alot more than this.

My dilemma is - should I claim on my insurance policy to rectify the damage or not?

margaret_3

If it's not too much, consider paying yourself and then pay the extra to protect your no claims bonus. That way you are allowed two claims without affecting your bonus.
Margaret

dougk_2

How much is the car worth?

Personally speaking if the car is worth less than £1,000 I would really not worry about doing "cosmetic repairs" just get a touch up pen from Halfords or local car shop and DIY.

The £100 excess is much better spent on something else!

carl310166

Just a comment.

I thought,even though you would not lose your no claims bonus if you have them protected,the premium would/may go up as you are assessed to be more of a risk?

So you would still get 65% off your premium,but the premium would be higher.

Anybody correct me on this?

Also,i was told that if you inform the insurance company and decide NOT to claim,your premium may go up anyway as you are more of a risk?

Noozan

I had already decided that if I didn't claim, I wasn't going to inform the insurance company as I thought it might make my premium go up automatically.

I didn't think I could protect the NCD until after the 5th year? I'm currently on year 4.

The car is a 2000 Astra Envoy; it cost me just over £10k when it was new but at a rough estimate, I would say it's probably worth about £3.5 - £4k now. (I've just plucked that figure from my head so excuse me if it's way out!) It's in pretty good nick and has been regualrly serviced and well looked after so I don't really want rust getting into the scratched bits. I've tried a touch up pen from Halfords on an inconspicous bit of the car but it's not an exact colour match - it's quite noticeably different even though it says it's Satin Red (which is what my car docs say) and suitable for Vauxhalls.

How long do I have to decide if I want to put in a claim? I don't want the insurance company to be funny about a delay. Damn, cars aren't very money saving are they?

dougk_2

If you make a claim then you will probably end up with just a single years NCB. so you might end up paying about 30% extra upon renewal (and they will probably load the policy too). Your price was agood guess - rough search through autotrader says around £3,600 for a private sale.

My suggestion is to take the car to two or three places for quotes and see if its worth a claim. Don't also forget there are now mobile specialists that deal with small dents,scratcheds and chips so you may find one of these cheaper (look in yellow pages and local paper).

No cars are not MoneySaving! in fact they are one of the greatest expenses - just look how much you have lost in depreciation over two or three years. Old bangers have their purpose - you don't worry if they get damaged or vandalised!