No fault insurance premium increase

wongataa

BOWFER said:

I've never, ever seen an insurance company offer a renewal at less than the previous year under any circumstance, so I'm confident we can ignore that little flight of fancy.

I have seen this a couple of times.  My last renewal quote was less than the previous year's premium.

Sandtree

BOWFER said:

I've never, ever seen an insurance company offer a renewal at less than the previous year under any circumstance, so I'm confident we can ignore that little flight of fancy.

Young driver going from year 1 to year 2 policy will fairly often see a drop given they've the first year NCD kicking in and their driving experience is likely to have at least doubled.

Nobbie1967

[DELETED USER] said:

Usual advice applies, add the increased premium to your claim against the third party.

Why would the third party pay for increased premiums? They have paid for the damage they caused, the increased premium is just a result of the higher chance of a claim being revealed. It was not caused by the third party. I’d be interested if there was any case law in this area.

BOWFER

Sandtree said:

BOWFER said:

I've never, ever seen an insurance company offer a renewal at less than the previous year under any circumstance, so I'm confident we can ignore that little flight of fancy.

Young driver going from year 1 to year 2 policy will fairly often see a drop given they've the first year NCD kicking in and their driving experience is likely to have at least doubled.

ok, I'll give you that scenario
What I was referring to was 'mature' policies where the driver's record has settled down.
I've certainly never, ever, had a reduced offer from any insurance company come renewal time.
There's always an increase, the amount varies.
The fact I change our policies every year shows this is the case, I don't change for fun and would simply stay with my existing provider if it was worth it.
Of course when I phone to cancel the (sometimes) automatic renewal, they invariably suddenly find wiggle room in the price.
Tough, cancel. 

Sandtree

BOWFER said:
ok, I'll give you that scenario

What I was referring to was 'mature' policies where the driver's record has settled down.
I've certainly never, ever, had a reduced offer from any insurance company come renewal time.
There's always an increase, the amount varies.
The fact I change our policies every year shows this is the case, I don't change for fun and would simply stay with my existing provider if it was worth it.
Of course when I phone to cancel the (sometimes) automatic renewal, they invariably suddenly find wiggle room in the price.
Tough, cancel. 

As we all know insurers unwind new customer discounts and apply apathy increases.

In theory you have the two opposing forces... your car is older and worth less, you've more driving experience (before you get to the stage of poor sight etc), you are a better known risk - all of which should reduce your premiums. On the opposing side though you have inflation so staff and claims cost more year on year.

In the last company I did pricing work for their "premium walking" stopped at year 5 and after that premiums tended to be fairly static because one offsets the other but most would see small increases or decreases each year.  NCD isnt in the list because most customers have max NCD anyway so year on year it makes no difference.

Clearly if you buy this year and get the 20% new online customer discount then next year the renewal will be higher. This is in part why the FCA are introducing their new rules from next year so that renewal quotes are never higher than what a like for like new business quote would have been through the same original channel.

[Deleted User]

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delete 123

Cash-Strapped.T32

BOWFER said: 

I'm not getting why this even has to be explained?
If your existing supplier tries to load your renewal because of a no-fault accident, shop around.
This is what we did, hence not paying any more for insurance even though we'd had an accident.

It seems rather disingenuous to try and make out that you were somehow immune to your insurer loading your premiums after a non-fault claim.  It appears you have merely offset the increase in premium that comes after a claim by switching insurer to gain a new customer discount.

Smart shopping for sure, and I would (I do) do exactly the same, so hats off to you.  But your example doesn't contradict the assertion made earlier that insurers will load your premium after even a non-fault claim, it just demonstrates a smart way to help mitigate the costs for the customer.

Sandtree

Cash-Strapped.T32 said:
But your example doesn't contradict the assertion made earlier that insurers will load your premium after even a non-fault claim, it just demonstrates a smart way to help mitigate the costs for the customer.

But many insurers don't load for a single non-fault claim

And if you want to claim for the future, as already stated, insurers vary if they ask for 3 or 5 years of claims. So from the outset, in year 4 are will your insurer have required you to declare the incident or not?

NotAtFault

I read this thread with interest. My car was hit from behind a couple of weeks ago. The guy was honest and accepted liability straight away. However I can estimate from quotations that our renewal premiums (I'm a named driver on my wife's car so this affects both our cars) will go up by somewhere between £250 and £1200 over five years (depending on the insurer providing the quotes).

This isn't the first time this has happened to us either over the last 5 years either and on each occasion the circumstances and location have been different. One time we were hit while parked by a speeding driver who lost control of his car. Another time it was someone on a roundabout who was driving aggressively, tried to cut someone else up and hit us in the rear as a result. On all occasions the other party was 100% at fault, accepted liability and we recovered all our costs from them.

My wife and I have something like 40 years of no-claims each and we're careful and considerate drivers.

So this time I submitted a claim for the additional premiums on the basis that they were reasonable and foreseeable (that's the legal test). I've checked with two solicitors and both have said that although it would be unusual to claim for the additional premiums (just because they'd never heard of anyone doing it), they couldn't see any reason why such costs shouldn't be recoverable.

I actually claimed for the lower figure (£250), to be reasonable and in the interests of reaching a settlement quickly. It probably won't be sufficient but it would at least go part of the way.

The other party's insurance company have done something I didn't expect. They've point blank refused to accept liability for my increased premiums (even though they're paying for my car repairs etc) and have given me their solicitor's details in case I want to take them to court.

That's obviously going to cost them much more than the £250 I was claiming, so why would they do that?

Either there's a precedent that neither of the solicitors I spoke to knew about or the insurance company just thinks I won't take them to court. You'd think they'd be concerned that if I'm successful, it would open the floodgates for similar claims going back 6 years (I think that's the limitation period), not to mention future claims.

The point is that car insurance companies currently get a free ride (pun intended). They charge non-fault customers a higher premium and never have to pay it out. That seems unfair (there's unfair trade practice legislation to consider here too).

But keeping it to the accident, I'd be really interested in finding out if anyone has actually taken a motor insurance company to court over this point. Also if any solicitors or barristers read this who have specialist knowledge of the industry and feel they can assist in this case, please let me know.

Thanks

AdrianC

NotAtFault said:

I read this thread with interest. My car was hit from behind a couple of weeks ago. The guy was honest and accepted liability straight away. However I can estimate from quotations that our renewal premiums (I'm a named driver on my wife's car so this affects both our cars) will go up by somewhere between £250 and £1200 over five years (depending on the insurer providing the quotes).

This isn't the first time this has happened to us either over the last 5 years either and on each occasion the circumstances and location have been different. One time we were hit while parked by a speeding driver who lost control of his car. Another time it was someone on a roundabout who was driving aggressively, tried to cut someone else up and hit us in the rear as a result. On all occasions the other party was 100% at fault, accepted liability and we recovered all our costs from them.

My wife and I have something like 40 years of no-claims each and we're careful and considerate drivers.

So this time I submitted a claim for the additional premiums on the basis that they were reasonable and foreseeable (that's the legal test). I've checked with two solicitors and both have said that although it would be unusual to claim for the additional premiums (just because they'd never heard of anyone doing it), they couldn't see any reason why such costs shouldn't be recoverable.

I actually claimed for the lower figure (£250), to be reasonable and in the interests of reaching a settlement quickly. It probably won't be sufficient but it would at least go part of the way.

The other party's insurance company have done something I didn't expect. They've point blank refused to accept liability for my increased premiums (even though they're paying for my car repairs etc) and have given me their solicitor's details in case I want to take them to court.

That's obviously going to cost them much more than the £250 I was claiming, so why would they do that?

Either there's a precedent that neither of the solicitors I spoke to knew about or the insurance company just thinks I won't take them to court. You'd think they'd be concerned that if I'm successful, it would open the floodgates for similar claims going back 6 years (I think that's the limitation period), not to mention future claims.

The point is that car insurance companies currently get a free ride (pun intended). They charge non-fault customers a higher premium and never have to pay it out. That seems unfair (there's unfair trade practice legislation to consider here too).

But keeping it to the accident, I'd be really interested in finding out if anyone has actually taken a motor insurance company to court over this point. Also if any solicitors or barristers read this who have specialist knowledge of the industry and feel they can assist in this case, please let me know.

Not a hope of winning.

The fact that this isn't the first time within the insurer-notifiable five years means that you simply cannot say that the premium hike is down to this driver's actions alone. B'sides, you're claiming for five years of hypothetical future premium increases, despite not knowing what your actual losses will be.

Why would they say "See you in court"? Because if they gave £250 to everybody who asked, it would cost them a lot more than the very occasional court case. As far as costs go, though, it's a simple small claim - costs are minimal (£35 for a claim of this size), both to launch and to defend. Solicitors are not needed or involved, and barristers certainly aren't.
You simply lodge the claim, giving full particulars and proof of the amount - https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk
The insurer lodges a defence in writing.
The court decides. There is no in-person hearing.

BTW, you don't have "40yrs" NCB. You have maximum NCB. Depending on your insurer, that's most likely to be between 6 and 9 years.