Insurer added a notification of an incident as a claim and won't remove it - what are my rights?

[Deleted User]

Thanks in advanced to anyone who’s able to help here!

I’ll put the question first, all the context below:

• Has my insurer incorrectly recorded an incident which I notified them about as a claim?
• Do they have any right to classify it as a claim and impact my NCB, and is there anything I can do to have it updated/corrected/removed?
• Is there any general 'protection' or process for someone in my situation?

Problem: Insurer has put an RTC I was involved in (non-fault, no claim made, NCB protected) as a Single Vehicle claim on my file, stating my NCB is affected. My renewal premium is up by 50% this year. I didn’t make a claim and only notified them of the RTC. They're calling it 'open' until they can close it.

Summary of my policy: Fully comp, NCB protected, 15yrs driving, never had an accident, incident or claim, £800 excess (I upped the excess in recent years to save a bit more on the annual premium)

Decision not to claim: I decided not to make a claim. Note: This I came to this decision within a day or two of the collision after discussing it with the insurer, and made it clear to them that I was not making or opening a claim with them, and it was very likely that I wouldn’t be claiming;

• Insurer informed me that as no other vehicles were involved in the collision, thus no third-party insurers involved, that any claims to repair my car would have to go through my policy

• In the event of a claim, despite it being non-fault, the collision would be recorded as an own-fault accident on my record, and treated as such (my excess payable, NCB affected, future policies and premiums affected due to my record showing a claim)

• Repair costs would be around £1200 (that is, if the insurers garage didn’t class it as a write-off instead). I would have to pay the initial £800, in exchange for the insurer to pay the remaining £400, tarnish my record with an own-fault accident, and give me several years of hiked premiums to look forward to

• The car’s fully loaded, I know bumpers with sensors and washers are expensive to fix; if it were written off we couldn’t afford to lose the car and go through the added hassle as we were new parents to a 2mo old baby at the time. The damage is ugly to look at – but its cosmetic. The car passed its MOT last month despite the damage still there so I know its fine to drive

So as it sounds like there isn’t a ‘thing’ in place to deal with people in my situation without incurring some kind of loss/cost, I didn’t put in a claim as this would only exacerbate matters. I even collected the car from the pound in person 2wks later as the insurer said they could recover it, but again, it would be at cost via my excess and go down as a claim.

While the insurer knew I wouldn’t be claiming, they mentioned ‘keeping the file open’ for a few months in the event that someone makes a claim. If no claims were made, they would close down the file. They informed me that claims can be made for up to 2yrs. Afaik the only person who could possibly make a valid/reasonable claim is me; there is practically zero chance of a claim being made against me. Despite this, they said they would keep it open with a view to close it after a few months (which should have been Oct/Nov, in theory). They confirmed that they were not putting anything down as me opening a claim following our phone call.

RTC details; I’ll stick to key details... 

• Involved (driver) in single-vehicle RTC with pedestrian in summer ‘21
• Pedestrian ran into path of my vehicle with intent to take their own life (suicide attempt)
• Vehicle struck pedestrian; £1200 of damage to vehicle; pedestrian seriously injured and passed away 2wks after collision
• I don’t know who they were, nor did I find out. The circumstances leading up to why they did it remain unexplained
• Besides being able to un-see the incident, no injuries to myself
• All costs associated to the RTC have been borne by me (getting hold of transport for 2wks after RTC while my car was seized for investigation, retrieving the car from the pound, loss of income to spend time dealing with the incident)
• Informed my insurer of the incident asap; police investigation soon ruled no fault on my part

Other points maybe worth mentioning:

Third party PI: The reason I'm mentioning this is because they came across as shady, and I don't see the value add in what they're doing given the circumstances. 

• Several weeks after speaking with my insurer, a third party “PI/investigator” called me to get a statement. By this point I was very much done with it and I suggested get hold of the official witness statement instead. I also told them I had already given two very detailed accounts of events to the insurer.
• They told me they had to get a statement again and if I didn't comply it could mean I get sued in the future. Came across as aggressive so I deferred talking to them to another day
• Afterwards I looked them up; only awful reviews about their business exist; essentially 99% of the reviews warned they were preying on victims, working for the insurers to invalidate claims, and their sole purpose is to discredit claims by getting people to say things that may put them in the wrong.
• They called back, and after knowing who they were, I told them I wasn’t looking to make a statement, and that any questions they have can be emailed to me (having read some reviews about them repeatedly asking people the same questions on the phone until they got the answers they were looking for, I wanted an electronic trail of everything)
• They said they needed a statement because a claim has probably been made against me (complete rubbish as its practically impossible at this point); when I contested it and asked for more details they quickly told me they couldn’t discuss it and they were under instruction to get a statement from me.
• By the end of it, I got an email from them asking for a good time to do a phone call, and I told them I’d happily answer any questions via email only. I told them I’d give them a week to reply, and I’d be closing things out on my end afterwards. Haven’t heard back since. 

Sorry for the lengthy post; was hoping to keep it short initially.

Sandtree

Any incident/claim of car -v- pedestrian is going to be registered on the system and held open for 3-6 months at a minimum to see if there is any approach from the pedestrian (or the representative of their estate in the case of fatality).  The law of limitation gives 3 years for an injury claim to be made against you however most third parties approach quicker than this which is why insurers keep the file open for so long before then closing rather than making you wait 3 years - though a closed file can be reopened at a later date if an approach is made.

It sounds like there were a few points of inaccuracies in the information given by the First Notification Of Loss team and so you can raise a complaint if you which however ultimately they are correct to record the matter and its standard industry practice that such records are put into the claims system (there is no "incident system" for matters not being claimed) and for it to be held open for a period. 

If you do stay with them and the file is subsequently closed if no approach is made the NCD should be reinstated and premiums recalculated on the basis of a non-fault incident. 

[Deleted User]

Thanks for the quick reply! That's a pretty awful industry practice imo. I don't believe anyone will be making a claim.

You mentioned inaccuracies in the information given by the FNOL team, have you deduced based on me having told them I wouldn't be claiming, but them putting in a claim in regardless? 

Had things been done correctly, what would the insurers have done? Would they have created the claim, or just put a note on my file and closed it in within 3-6mo?

Smithcom

You could speak with your insurer and agree to deal with any 3rd party claims that may arise

Possibly, that would allow them to close the claim quicker.

Personally, I think that such action would be dangerous.  But it's an option that you could consider.

ACDeag

Remember that any incident recorded by an insurance company whether you claim or not will move you up their risk ladder. Their statistics show that people who have accidents and don’t claim are riskier than people who don’t have accidents at all, unfortunate but true.

Another misconception is that protected no claims means your premium won’t rise. That is wrong, your discount is protected, so if your previous premium was £1000 with 50% discount then you paid £500, if your risk has worsened and new premium is £1500 then your discounted premium is £750. 

Sandtree

Deleted_User said:

Thanks for the quick reply! That's a pretty awful industry practice imo. I don't believe anyone will be making a claim.

You mentioned inaccuracies in the information given by the FNOL team, have you deduced based on me having told them I wouldn't be claiming, but them putting in a claim in regardless? 

Had things been done correctly, what would the insurers have done? Would they have created the claim, or just put a note on my file and closed it in within 3-6mo?

My claims days are behind me but if I had a pound for every customer who told me that there would be no claim made and subsequently we had to deal with a third party (either defending against their claim or settling it) I'd have been able to retire already.

Insurers need to record the details of the incident you inform them of in case you decide to go buy your next policy from someone else, change your phone number etc and in 2 years time they receive a claim from the third party. Their ability to defend the claim will be significantly hampered by losing contact with you but at least if they have the basics of the claim registered and they then receive an injury claim from 3 people related to this incident they can defend and say there was just one, get the police report etc.

As mentioned, they dont have two systems and the one they have gets called a "claims system" is just the reality of that most people dont "remember" to mention those small incidents that they should declare but dont intend to pursue in most cases. 

The systems they have are very prescriptive, particularly for the lower skilled/trained FNOL team so there is no just "putting a note on"... they have to go through the full process to ensure all the appropriate information is captured and the details passed to the appropriate 2nd tier team... this will probably have gone higher because its a fatality.

The "errors" was mainly saying it will be closed in a couple of months, thats optimistic in the circumstances in my opinion. We used to use 3 months for a no known injury claim involving what appears to be a personal vehicle to 6 months for injuries, overseas or business third parties. I didnt touch fatalities often but they are often longer given appointment of the executor, priorities after someone's death etc means its just not the first action that needs to be taken by the family. Secondly they said 2 years to claim when its three.

[Deleted User]

ACDeag said:

Their statistics show that people who have accidents and don’t claim are riskier than people who don’t have accidents at all, unfortunate but true.

I can understand why and whilst generally true, there's nothing risky or riskier about my driving profile as a result of someone unknown to me having a mental breakdown and jumping in front of my car traveling 50mph. I'd expect common sense to prevail in my case.

ACDeag said:

Another misconception is that protected no claims means your premium won’t rise. 

The issue I have is they're saying my NCB is affected by the incident - which I don't think it should be as it was protected. If my NCB wasn't affected, but my risk profile was made higher than before the RTC, then my premium would be much lower than the proposed renewal. I know this because I've checked. I'd still increase vs. last year, just not by 50%

[Deleted User]

Smithcom said:

You could speak with your insurer and agree to deal with any 3rd party claims that may arise

Possibly, that would allow them to close the claim quicker.

Personally, I think that such action would be dangerous.  But it's an option that you could consider.

Mmm. Yeah I wouldn't agree to that. Wasn't my  decision for him to take his life. Frankly I think there should be a process that obfuscates me of any wrongdoing given the extreme circumstances. Instead I'm being penalised for doing everything right and following the rules.

k3lvc

Instead I'm being penalised for doing everything right and following the rules.

No - you're being 'penalised' for having had an incident and there still being potential for a claim 

es5595

Can you not claim against the estate for the damages to your car? 

If they deliberately and unquestionably attempted suicide, surely it was a deliberate act?
Obviously if there is no estate it’s not worth it, but might well be worth a quick look into. 

[Deleted User]

es5595 said:

Can you not claim against the estate for the damages to your car? 

If they deliberately and unquestionably attempted suicide, surely it was a deliberate act?
Obviously if there is no estate it’s not worth it, but might well be worth a quick look into. 

 I mentioned it to my insurer and they said it wasn't something they could advise on or help me with as it was outside of the their scope. I asked the police about it, but at the time I wasn't allowed to know much about him for confidentiality reasons. I didn't ask about who he was after that.

Not knowing what he was going through our what lead him to do it, and thinking about what his family could be going through, it seemed a bit of an ar**hole move to go after his estate or inquire about whether he had any kind of insurance that would cover me.

I get it, sh.. happens from time to time. I can live with the damage to my car as I wasn't going to sell it and it works, albeit it's ugly now  I find it harder to accept they this is going to follow me around for years to come and eat into me financially.