Car insurance claim (nightmare)

Dempseyh

Thanks, Iv just spoke to the complaints manager he advised the guides are accurate and we buy any car and car adverts are not genuine selling prices, he suggested I purchase a car of a lower value or an older model as none are available at the value they have given. 
Almost left me in tears, it's as though I'm lying or trying to get something out of the insurance I don't deserve.

Dempseyh

My 20% reduction has gone back to the underwriters to see why they have deducted 20% and not 5% it cost when I did a quote yesterday for the undeclared points on the named driver, I'm not holding out much hope as they will just say insurance prices fluctuate.

What's annoying is my insurance quote didn't even increase by 20% when I asked for a quote if I had three points, nevermind a named driver who has only driven my car once in the last 18 months 

MinuteNoodles

Dempseyh said:

I recently made a total loss claim and would like some advice, they have taken 20% off the payout because my named driver had 3 points (I didn't know about my own fault for not checking when my policy renewed)
I've done two new quotes one mirroring my previous policy and the same policy with these 3 points added the price difference is less than 5% (4.3% to be exact) 

The amount your payout was reduced by has absolutely no relevance to whatever the difference would be in the premium with the points declared. You're lucky -  you didn't declare the facts and made a false declaration, intentional or not, when taking out the policy and some insurance companies would have used that as a reason to cancel the policy entirely, deny the claim altogether and not only that, sue you for the payout to any third parties.

Dempseyh

MinuteNoodles said:

Dempseyh said:

I recently made a total loss claim and would like some advice, they have taken 20% off the payout because my named driver had 3 points (I didn't know about my own fault for not checking when my policy renewed)
I've done two new quotes one mirroring my previous policy and the same policy with these 3 points added the price difference is less than 5% (4.3% to be exact) 

The amount your payout was reduced by has absolutely no relevance to whatever the difference would be in the premium with the points declared. You're lucky -  you didn't declare the facts and made a false declaration, intentional or not, when taking out the policy and some insurance companies would have used that as a reason to cancel the policy entirely, deny the claim altogether and not only that, sue you for the payout to any third parties.

It does  have relevance as they said themselves they have adjusted my payout by 20% as my premium was 20% underpaid due to the 3 points from the named driver not being declared, so obviously that adjustment should be inline with the actual cost these points would add to the premium

shaun_from_Africa

Apart from the increased premium, when you have a driver with points on their licence, does this increase the compulsory excess that is on the policy?

Car_54

Dempseyh said:

MinuteNoodles said:

Dempseyh said:

I recently made a total loss claim and would like some advice, they have taken 20% off the payout because my named driver had 3 points (I didn't know about my own fault for not checking when my policy renewed)
I've done two new quotes one mirroring my previous policy and the same policy with these 3 points added the price difference is less than 5% (4.3% to be exact) 

The amount your payout was reduced by has absolutely no relevance to whatever the difference would be in the premium with the points declared. You're lucky -  you didn't declare the facts and made a false declaration, intentional or not, when taking out the policy and some insurance companies would have used that as a reason to cancel the policy entirely, deny the claim altogether and not only that, sue you for the payout to any third parties.

It does  have relevance as they said themselves they have adjusted my payout by 20% as my premium was 20% underpaid due to the 3 points from the named driver not being declared, so obviously that adjustment should be inline with the actual cost these points would add to the premium

But as they have already told you "insurance prices fluctuate day to day so it will have been 20% when i took my policy out."

The fact that it is less than 20% today has no bearing on what it was x months ago.

Dempseyh

Car_54 said:

Dempseyh said:

MinuteNoodles said:

Dempseyh said:

I recently made a total loss claim and would like some advice, they have taken 20% off the payout because my named driver had 3 points (I didn't know about my own fault for not checking when my policy renewed)
I've done two new quotes one mirroring my previous policy and the same policy with these 3 points added the price difference is less than 5% (4.3% to be exact) 

The amount your payout was reduced by has absolutely no relevance to whatever the difference would be in the premium with the points declared. You're lucky -  you didn't declare the facts and made a false declaration, intentional or not, when taking out the policy and some insurance companies would have used that as a reason to cancel the policy entirely, deny the claim altogether and not only that, sue you for the payout to any third parties.

It does  have relevance as they said themselves they have adjusted my payout by 20% as my premium was 20% underpaid due to the 3 points from the named driver not being declared, so obviously that adjustment should be inline with the actual cost these points would add to the premium

But as they have already told you "insurance prices fluctuate day to day so it will have been 20% when i took my policy out."

The fact that it is less than 20% today has no bearing on what it was x months ago.

Why wouldn't it have no bearing? Yes prices fluctuate, but the difference in my original policy premium compared to the quote I received when I checked the policy price to compare was £12 different, so prices have fluctuated (marginally) but  that said prices have fluctuated in my favour as the premium was actually cheaper now like for like compared to when my policy was originally taken out.
 I assume it will be the insurance underwriters who have to prove with evidence that three points on a policy from a named driver would have increased the policy price by 20% 5 months ago

Dempseyh

shaun_from_Africa said:

Apart from the increased premium, when you have a driver with points on their licence, does this increase the compulsory excess that is on the policy?

No It it didn't 

Dempseyh

Manxman_in_exile said:

In the last 20 years we've had two cars written off.  In both cases we carried out a lot of research as to what any payout would be likely to be so that we'd have some idea whether to challenge it or not.  In both case we were offered settlement amounts that fell within our upper and lower amounts and that we were happy to accept.  (I think we may have squeezed an extra couple of hundred out of one of them).

I should say that in neither case was the insurance the cheapest we could have bought - I do sometimes wonder if the old saying, "you get what you pay for", is particularly true of car insurance.

That is true my Dad wrote off a car last year and I had to help him deal with it, he never shops around and has had the same Insurance for years, they gave him a settlement figure in 48 hours, he got me to look online and I found the same car he had in the same colour etc it cost £1000 more than he had accepted the settlement for (even though there was cars available for his settlement but over an hour's drive away) I called them for him and they asked me to email them the details and they gave him an extra £500 as a full and final payment