What constitutes a car insurance claim?

Jazee

A while ago my DH returned to his car in a car park to discover it had been badly scratched in various places.  He contacted the insurance company but decided not to proceed with a claim and covered the entire cost of repairs himself.  Having just changed insurance at renewal to get a better deal, the new company is now going to charge another £70 because they weren't informed of a no-fault claim.  In our opinion, there was notification of an incident but no claim.  In the opinion of you lovely lot, who is correct here and what do you suggest we do?

facade

What did he put in response to the question

Have you had any accidents, claims or losses in respect of a motor vehicle in the last 5 years?

If he informed them and gave details of the incident/loss they are in the wrong. If he didn't say anything they have found out from the previous insurer, and are just calling it a claim rather than an incident.

chrisw

The question every insurer asks is 'have you had any claims or incidents, regardless of fault within the last 3 years'.

There has obviously been an 'incident' but you have answered no when asked the question. You are very fortunate they are not simply cancelling it due to non-disclosure which would cause all sorts of difficulties in the future. 

All incidents should be reported to the insurance company but some people choose not to if there's absolutely no way of the insurer finding out. As you told them about it, you have no option but to declare it.

So the insurance company are correct and you have narrowly avoided a major problem.

Car_54

My current policy says: "You must tell us as soon as reasonably possible about any incident which may lead to a claim under this policy." That is pretty typical.

It doesn't really matter whether there was a claim or not. It's the fact of the "incident" that affects the underwriter's view of the risk involved.

Jazee

Ok, so I suppose it depends on the wording of the question and whether the question included the word incident or accident and whether the timing was in the last three or five years.  I personally don't know the specifics of that question so  I think we just have to pay the extra £70 then but lesson learned.  It won't be a problem next year though as it will then be over five years.  Thanks to you all for the advice.

Scrapit

Shouldn't have told the insurance and he wouldn't have been in this position.