Advice re: CUE database & my car insurance

Dash1

Hi,

First thanks for looking & I'll try to keep it straight to the point.

I have recently renewed my car insurance, but I got a shock when I was told I had not added information regarding an incident which happened on 29th Jan 2020, & I had until 3rd Jan 2022, to update my new insurance company (Halifax) about this or face an increase of £121. I was told I need to contact my previous insurer (Direct Line) to have them confirm the issue & if need be have the CUE database updated, which is what I did.

I was informed that they had something on their system which I had completely forgotten about, as I had decided not to proceed with any claim, after I was given advice by one of their call handlers said even though I was not at fault, I would have a low chance of getting anything other than a 50/50 award. The incident in question involved a very small, very old man, who was driving a high powered VW Golf R32, but he could barely see over the steering wheel, & my problem came when he was side by side with my at a dark unlit (broken lights) roundabout. This man was in the right hand lane, which was for just that, turning right, & I was in the left hand lane waiting to turn left, but when we started to move, he turned left, straight towards my car, giving me 2 choices, be hit by him or turn away & stop. I obviously turned away, but had to turn so sharp, it caused me to hit the high kerb & damaged my alloy wheels, but even though I blew my horn & flashed my lights at him, he just kept going. I followed this man in to a retail park, still blowing my horn, but he seemed oblivious, & when he stopped & I confronted him, he just put his head down & shouted he'd done nothing wrong & march in to a shop.

Now hindsight is a wonderful thing & I wished I'd reported it to the police, but I thought nothing would come of it, due to stretched police resources & thought I'd be better off calling my insurer which is what I did. Now as I have already said I was advised that it would probably go 50/50, even though I had dash cam footage, which was dark due to broken lights on the roundabout, so again as said, I asked for no claim to be made & said I'd sort my wheels myself, so I thought nothing of this until this has happened.

So I was wondering if I am able to have this removed from the CUE database & also, why did this not show when I renewed my policy for Dec 2020 to Dec 2021?

When I rang Direct Line they said, things had been done wrong on their system & they were sending updated information to have the CUE database corrected, or to have it show as an "INFORMATION ONLY CLAIMS and we can confirm we incurred no financial outlay in relation to these claims" (they'd messed up a second later incident). I have contacted the CUE database to get any information they have regarding me, but it could take 30days to get a response, meaning I have no option but to see my insurance go up, which I feel is unfair.

Can I also ask....Am I the only person who feels that any "NON-Fault" incidents which has not caused any cost/outlay to an insurer, should NOT be counted against you & should not go against you when applying for insurance?

Thanks again for looking & for any advice which I receive, it is much appreciated.

Thanks

Dash

Sandtree

Obviously havent seen the dashcam footage but unless its clear given there was no contact between the vehicles you'd be very luck to get a 50/50 settlement if the footage is unclear and more likely it'd be a fault claim. A rather immaterial point however as the claim hasnt proceeded.

It shouldnt be removed from CUE, the event happened and therefore was always declarable as you are asked about any incidents irrespective of if you claim for them or not however it should be showing on CUE as an incident without settlement. 

As to non-fault claims and incidents... it all comes down to the maths... the reality is that the statistics show that people that have a non-fault claim/incident are more likely to go on and have a "fault" claim... this could be because you routinely park in a poorly designed carpark and whilst this person stopped and left their number the next person might not or it could be you are actually an aggressive driver and routinely do poor behaviours like extreme late breaking and sure the first time someone went into the back of you but next time they may not stop or your late breaking may be too late and you go into the back.

Naturally any customer you speak to says thats not them and they are just being victimised but then every 18 year old with a Golf GTI says the same, they dont speed or show off with their friends and its unfair their premiums are £6k a year. Insurance works on averages and so if you remove something as a rating factor it means everyones premiums increase to compensate (same as happened when they outlawed male/female pricing in general insurance - female pricing went up a lot, male premium came down a moderate amount, average premium went up to a little north of the mid point )

Dash1

Thanks for your reply, Sandtree.

I have to add thanks to your comment, I have never in the 32 years of driving had a claim caused by myself & never had any problems until....

(1) 2019 a Wagon driver failed to cover his load of waste properly & then shed part of said load across the A19, hitting mine & several other cars. My dash cam footage was sent to the drivers insurer & they instantly took all blame. So a complete flook that had me behind someone driving 60+ mph with a badly covered load, so I like several others were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

(2) 2020, as stated above an old man who should not have been on the roads in the first place, as he clearly had no idea of spatial awareness & needed to be re tested, after not hearing the loud twin horns of my 2019 Insignia, nor seeing the flashing lights in his mirrors, & of course failing to stop at an accident which HE caused.....other people saw what happened.

(3) I had my car parked outside my house & a workman decided to squeeze a mini digger past & hit the rear end of my car, all of which was caught on my home CCTV, & which Northumbrian Water saw fit to sort the repair & hire car straight away for me.

So where does any of this show that I am going to have an accident & should increase my policy???

I have driven professionally, on bikes, in cars, vans & 7.5ton trucks & have NEVER had an incident, & the things shown above are the only things to happen to me in over 32 years (33yrs next month), I do not see why my policy should increase because of, a wagon driver who didn't cover his load, or because an old man should who has no spatial awareness, or because some fool driving a digger didn't have the sense to just ask if I could move my car.....do you still say that people like me are "non-fault claims and incidents...it all comes down to the maths... the reality is that the statistics show that people that have a non-fault claim/incident are more likely to go on and have a "fault" claim... "?

I think in future you need to actually think about how generalise someone without actually knowing them.

Sandtree

Dash1 said:

So where does any of this show that I am going to have an accident & should increase my policy???

I have driven professionally, on bikes, in cars, vans & 7.5ton trucks & have NEVER had an incident, & the things shown above are the only things to happen to me in over 32 years (33yrs next month), I do not see why my policy should increase because of, a wagon driver who didn't cover his load, or because an old man should who has no spatial awareness, or because some fool driving a digger didn't have the sense to just ask if I could move my car.....do you still say that people like me are "non-fault claims and incidents...it all comes down to the maths... the reality is that the statistics show that people that have a non-fault claim/incident are more likely to go on and have a "fault" claim... "?

I think in future you need to actually think about how generalise someone without actually knowing them.

But insurance is 100% based on generalisation... Direct Line has over 4 million in force motor policies and 35 years worth of data. They run a query against their database of 140m policies and see what proportion of customers had a claim if they had 0 previous claims, 1 previous non-fault claim, 2 previous non-fault claims etc.

What the data inevitably shows is that the more previous claims you've got, even non-fault ones, the more likely you are to have another. So from a technical pricing perspective statistically you need to increase the premiums to cover off that increase in claim rates.

As illustrated in my examples, the subsequent claims dont have to mean you're to blame for them but just your at fault from an insurance perspective - ie they have a net outlay at the end of the claim. For example I've dealt with dozens of claims like your 2019 case but that the registration wasnt captured or was incorrectly captured and so is a fault claim as there is no fault party to recover the monies from. 

Everyone is the exception naturally but unless you want to spend thousands on having personal evaluations etc then there will be significant generalisation with some winners and some losers. 

Dash1

Sandtree said:

Dash1 said:

So where does any of this show that I am going to have an accident & should increase my policy???

I have driven professionally, on bikes, in cars, vans & 7.5ton trucks & have NEVER had an incident, & the things shown above are the only things to happen to me in over 32 years (33yrs next month), I do not see why my policy should increase because of, a wagon driver who didn't cover his load, or because an old man should who has no spatial awareness, or because some fool driving a digger didn't have the sense to just ask if I could move my car.....do you still say that people like me are "non-fault claims and incidents...it all comes down to the maths... the reality is that the statistics show that people that have a non-fault claim/incident are more likely to go on and have a "fault" claim... "?

I think in future you need to actually think about how generalise someone without actually knowing them.

But insurance is 100% based on generalisation... Direct Line has over 4 million in force motor policies and 35 years worth of data. They run a query against their database of 140m policies and see what proportion of customers had a claim if they had 0 previous claims, 1 previous non-fault claim, 2 previous non-fault claims etc.

What the data inevitably shows is that the more previous claims you've got, even non-fault ones, the more likely you are to have another. So from a technical pricing perspective statistically you need to increase the premiums to cover off that increase in claim rates.

As illustrated in my examples, the subsequent claims dont have to mean you're to blame for them but just your at fault from an insurance perspective - ie they have a net outlay at the end of the claim. For example I've dealt with dozens of claims like your 2019 case but that the registration wasnt captured or was incorrectly captured and so is a fault claim as there is no fault party to recover the monies from. 

Everyone is the exception naturally but unless you want to spend thousands on having personal evaluations etc then there will be significant generalisation with some winners and some losers. 

But where or how do I become part of a statistic, when I have made no claims in 32+yrs driving, my insurer has confirmed in writing I was not at fault & they have incurred No costs from anything shown & anything shown is just for information. I have no problem with 2 of the 3 incidents above being shown, but why should I have to pay a higher premium, for something which cost me less than the increase the now want to force on me.

As I also asked, & you never responded to....

Why does this now show up for a policy to start Dec 2021 & go to Dec 2022, when I had NO mention of this "incident" from Jan 2020, on my policy from Dec 2020 to Dec 2021? Was I just lucky & missed an increase last year?

As said you are trying to generalise a question/topic, by bringing in the mention on teenage boy/girl racers, (I'm a 54yrs old family man) & then you bring in the women/men insurance problem of the past. I did not start this to be generalised, I asked for advice regarding the CUE database, & ended with a general question regarding policy increases, for "victims" of non-fault accidents. So if you want to keep generalising me & people, then please go start your own post about the way insurance companies treat their customers in such a general way, I'm sure it will become very popular.

But thanks again for your input.

Sandtree

Those 32 years are statistics for your insurers over those years... as a new customer to a new insurer they look at their previous customers who had similar characteristics to you (age, address, vehicle, length holding license etc) and what their claims experience were with those customers. Based on that your technical premiums were set (there are non-technical matters that also can adjust premiums).

There is little "logic" applied to try and workout the "why" of it all... TPFT and TPO policies tend to have a worse claims experience than Comp policies despite the fact they dont cover own vehicle accidental damage and so "logically" you'd assume claim both values would be lower (only paying TP damages) and frequency would be less (cant claim for own damage only or non-fault accidents) but the stats show that the type of person that buys this class of insurance have more fault claims than someone who is identical other than for the fact they buy Comp policies.

The only time when pricing is set on logic rather than experience is where there is no experience because you are entering a new line of business (in which case you hire experience, buy consultancy etc) or are creating a new rating factor that you cannot source data for (eg using credit score as a rating factor). Then you price based on expert opinion before you build up sufficient data to transition to statistically relevant decisions. 

Dash1 said:
As I also asked, & you never responded to....

Why does this now show up for a policy to start Dec 2021 & go to Dec 2022, when I had NO mention of this "incident" from Jan 2020, on my policy from Dec 2020 to Dec 2021? Was I just lucky & missed an increase last year?

As said you are trying to generalise a question/topic, by bringing in the mention on teenage boy/girl racers, (I'm a 54yrs old family man) & then you bring in the women/men insurance problem of the past. I did not start this to be generalised, I asked for advice regarding the CUE database, & ended with a general question regarding policy increases, for "victims" of non-fault accidents. So if you want to keep generalising me & people, then please go start your own post about the way insurance companies treat their customers in such a general way, I'm sure it will become very popular.

But thanks again for your input.

You were lucky both that it was missed previously and that the insurers approach has been to simply increase this years premiums... there are plenty of companies out there that would have voided the insurance for non-disclosure or incorrect disclosure (its not clear from your posts what you had disclosed on the proposal for the Dec 2020 policy)

On how you were lucky, only your insurer can advise you of that and I don't work for them (my current client doesnt write personal lines motor). It could be your previous insurers were slow to update CUE, that your current insurers have changed their processes, that they only check a sample of policies each time and you werent selected last time and were this time... insurers vary widely in their practices.

You are asking about insurance pricing and I am explaining how it works and why a non-fault incident can increase premiums... its simply statistical analysis of previous customer's experience of which you may or may not be part of depending on if you have been insured before with them

Plus you are overlooking the other answer which was yes the incident should remain in CUE but it should be correctly coded.