Car Insurance Article Discussion

swalklate

Your friend is not legally bound to pay the extra charges, having said this his insurance company are actually treating him fairly as he has essentially taken out a fraudulent policy (I know it was accidental but ignorance is no excuse when it comes to the law). By offering him the chance to pay back the extra costs the company is offering your friend an easy way out. Yes he probably could get away without paying; however he needs to think very carefully about four points.

1. He runs the risk of a criminal record for providing fraudulent information at the time of purchase.
2. Insurance companies talk to each other about fraud. It is likely that if he just cancels the policy and goes elsewhere he will be flagged up when the policy is underwritten by the new company.
3. If bails and this sets a precedent, honest drivers will have to pay more in the long run as the insurance company will put the premiums up to cover their losses.
4. He is being dishonest.

In my opinion yes it’s great to save money but your friend has made use of a service which he has not paid for in full. It doesn't matter that he has not claimed, he has been insured against the possibility of a claim, the probability of which is greatly increased as he has been caught speeding on more than one occasion.

klint

"More than one"? No, just the once.

This is the trouble with insurance policies that self-renew without you having to do anything. The companies are trying to profit from customers' laziness to shop around, but it also means it is easy to forget about declaring speeding fines, as that means having to take a special positive action yourself and find the company's number and ring them up. It would have been better if every insurance company required their customers to fill in a form asking for any changes in circumstances every year.

In the end, the insurance company agreed to waive the additional premium as a goodwill measure. So it's worth asking them.

autopian

hello every one, just got the best christmas present this year. i received my renewal from elephant for my insurance on my car, fully comp £331.00 on instalments (credit charge was £24.00). i decided to enter my details on confused.com and was quoted £182 from elephant.co.uk for the same exact cover. i called them today and they claimed the difference in price was purely down to the fact i was on monthly payments instead of a one off payment. i tried to argue the piont of principle that monthly charges should have been no more than £24 as stated in the renewal details. i was also told that my job details was different, news to me! i have been in the motor for over 20 years. any way i wacked it on the card which is paid off as soon as the statement is presented.
thanks
chris

BB78

In Martin's article "Choosing the right policy" he says:

No-claims discounts don't necessarily reduce the premium. For every year you don't claim on the insurance policy you get a discount. This makes a substantial difference to the overall cost. If you do claim it's usually two years off this discount. This is deliberate to encourage people not to claim. You can also get a protected no-claims discount so that claims don't impact it.

Remember though, if you do have an accident, even if you don't claim to keep your no claims discount, the price of the policy can rise simply because you may be assessed as a higher risk in the future.

Insurance companies write into their policies that you have to inform them of all lose/damage whether you are claiming or not. If you claim they put your insurance up so why if you don't claim are they allowed to put your insurance up by considering you a higher risk? surely this constitutes an unfair clause, you're damned if you claim & your damned if you don't?
By not claiming you have effectively saved them money as you are covering the cost of repairs over and above your excess yourself. If you don't tell them about something because you aren't going to claim you are not being honest & have invalidated your policy.

digitig

I wonder whether it's really wise to go for the cheapest insurance available, at least if buying more than the statutory minimum insurance.

I used to buy the cheapest insurance, until my wife had an accident with a neighbour's car. The insurance company completely stonewalled us (over 4 hours on hold on one occasion) and our neighbour, and didn't pay up until the neighbour filed against us with the county court and we took the case to the financial services ombudsman. Even then we only got the damage to the neighbour's car covered. The insurance company was willing to repair my wife's car, but although the policy stated that they would pick the car up for /repairs/, the insurers insisted that we take it to their choice of garage for /assessment/, and that would have been a four hour round trip (and at least half a day off work).
So we got no better than third-party insurance for our fully comprehensive premiums -- the difference was money down the drain, and we still had to pay for the repairs to my wife's car, not to mention the soured relations with the neighbour and very nearly a CCJ against us. The insurer also wrote to us to say that because we had taken them to the ombudsman they would not be willing to renew the insurance at the end of term. We had no intention of inviting them to, but I hope that doesn't mean I have to answer "yes" to the "have you ever been refused insurance" question -- I don't consider that I was refused because I hadn't asked!

When I checked, it turned out that the insurers did rather badly in customer satisfaction surveys (I wonder why?) Now we look at those surveys before buying, and most certainly do /not/ buy the cheapest available. I think the article should have a health warning -- just because the terms and conditions may look the same, the actual products, in terms of response when you make a claim, may be very different. And if you're sure you're never going to make a claim, why would you for fully comprehensive insurance?

Ialwaysgetdone

I was asked to find cheaper car insurance for an 83 year old and checked all the comparison sites. The Post Office came up second cheapest. I decided to check out the actual Post Office website and found that not only was it £60 cheaper than the amount the comparison site gave but they were offering a £50 voucher to be spent in the PO. This was about 10 months or so ago. Martin jogged my memory today on the radio

The_deacon

Hi Hope someone might be able to help me with this question.

I cancelled my insurance policy some 10 months ago as i had no need of the car due to bing provided with hire cars through work.
I still have access to these cars but am thinking of getting myself a two seater (yes i know it's my age)

My question is, i have a letter from the last insurers stating that i am entitled to over 10 years no claims. Is there a time limit to this and will a new insurer say that it dosn't count because it was 10 months ago????

Thanks in advance for any help.

pigworm

I agree with Digitig's earlier comments about not neccessarily choosing the cheapest car cover but getting the right policy (at the right price obviously). I too have had difficulty in the past with insurance companies (direct line in particular), who seem to do anything they can to get out of paying a claim. I wondered if anyone else has had any good/bad experiences with specific companies? It would be good to know who to avoid and who to take seriously in the future!!

Pigworm

P.S. Do any of the comparison sites offer feedback on this kind of thing?

MARKY2006_2

Question Can

klint

pigworm wrote: »

I wondered if anyone else has had any good/bad experiences with specific companies? It would be good to know who to avoid and who to take seriously in the future!!

Privilege Insurance had lost my immobiliser installation certificate and wrote saying that, because they didn't have my certficate, they would not provide cover in case of theft. I replied with a serious (but polite) complaint, and eventually they found my certificate, and just sent it back to me without any form of apology. I was not impressed.

However, I would warn against taking too much notice of individual cases like this. It is too easy for someone to relate their bad experiences on an Internet forum. There could be 99.9% satisfied customers but it's usually the dissatisfied ones that make the most noise. You should try to find customer surveys with a statistically significant sample. Unfortunately, I doubt such things exist, so we have to fall back on individual stories.