Someone drove into my house and now my insurance is through the roof

fluffymuffy

It's been a horrendous few months. A driver of a car which they had borrowed mistook the accelerator for the brake, and came through our house wall. We don't even live on a junction.

They were very sorry. As was the car owner. They gave their details and said I should claim on my house insurance, who would claim back from the car owner's insurance. 

I said I didn't want to as it would put my premiums up. They said it wouldn't. 
They were wrong. Now the cheapest insurance I can find is several £100s extra.

I'm also out of pocket for the excess I had to pay my insurer to get rebuilding work started.

It seems that the extra premium will be added to my bill for some years to come. 3? or 5%. Is there a way I can claim this back off the driver?

Sandtree

How do you know its in relation to the claim and not the fact that insurers cannot offer new customer discounts any more?

Presumably the claim is ongoing and an ongoing claim will normally have a worse impact than a claim that's been closed and the recovery made... in fact many Home insurers wont take on a new customer that has an ongoing claim. Your excess, like your insurers outlay, will be recoverable from the third party's insurers. If you have Legal Expenses cover on your Home insurance they may deal with it for you but its a simple job to do it yourself if you dont. 

rigolith

You need to claim all your costs back off their car insurance. Your excess and the increase in your insurance costs.

Talk to your insurance about it and tell them you want to talk to the third party insurance about recovering costs.

Marvel1

It would have gone up anyway as a claim is made.

fluffymuffy

Marvel1 said:

It would have gone up anyway as a claim is made.

But it was in no way my fault! I was just watching TV. Then ..... "BOOOM"

I shouldn't be out of pocket for something that wasn't my fault.

Smithcom

fluffymuffy said:

Marvel1 said:

It would have gone up anyway as a claim is made.

But it was in no way my fault! I was just watching TV. Then ..... "BOOOM"

I shouldn't be out of pocket for something that wasn't my fault.

I can see why you would assume/think/expect that, and your perspective is perfectly reasonable.  However, please bear in mind that most claims do not involve 'fault' (think storm damage, burglary etc).

When the matter is fully resolved and (possibly) all costs recovered from the Third Party, hopefully this will make minimal difference to your insurance.    However, all claims/losses will need to be declared and some/many insurer's rates will change for any claims, even if nil payments made.

However, in the meantime, particularly if the damage is significant, you should really be claiming via your own buildings insurance (there are many reasons why that is almost certainly the best route, not least the ability to refer to the FOS in the event of a problem).

And whilst the claim is pending, few other insurers may quote.   And your current insurer may put the premium up.

You may be able to claim increased insurance costs via the Third Party, but that's a fairly moot issue, for a variety of legal reasons.

Good luck with the claim

SC

molerat

One of the reasons that your premium has increased is that people who have had "incidents" are more likely to have another one than people who have never had one.

rigolith

fluffymuffy said:

Marvel1 said:

It would have gone up anyway as a claim is made.

But it was in no way my fault! I was just watching TV. Then ..... "BOOOM"

I shouldn't be out of pocket for something that wasn't my fault.

fluffymuffy said:

Marvel1 said:

It would have gone up anyway as a claim is made.

But it was in no way my fault! I was just watching TV. Then ..... "BOOOM"

I shouldn't be out of pocket for something that wasn't my fault.

Correct. You can claim the increase in premiums back from the third party too. Get some documentation for it, quotes with and without the incident from your insurer.

macman

Why on earth would you take advice on claiming from the party whose interests are completely the opposite of yours? You should have gone straight to the vehicle insurers.
You are assuming that 'no claims' is the same as 'no blames'.

Sandtree

macman said:

Why on earth would you take advice on claiming from the party whose interests are completely the opposite of yours? You should have gone straight to the vehicle insurers.
You are assuming that 'no claims' is the same as 'no blames'.

Who's interests are directly opposite to the OPs? Their own insurers interests are much more closely aligned than those of the third party insurers.

Whilst I do advocate claiming directly from the third party insurer generally, firstly not all Motor insurers are set up to deal with Home claims and secondly the recommendation has to come with the health warning that you lose your right to complain to the Financial Ombudsman if anything goes wrong. If its significant damage to the most valuable asset you own then it may be worth considering if losing those rights is worth while. 

mattyprice4004

You need to speak to the legal team at your home insurer that's currently dealing with the issue - they'll be able to best advise. 
As with most non-fault claims, a claim regardless of blame does have a correlation with higher risk - so a lot of insurers (car, home and anything else) will often raise premiums for non-fault claims anyway.