Insurance claim - notification, but still showing as a claim? 25 January at 1:14PM edited 25 January at 1:29PM in Motoring 7 replies 133 views

Jojo2234

Hi.
I had an incident at the end of 2021, during the night, my car rolled downhill and hit a lamp post.I literally didn't know about it until I woke up in the morning and noticed my car is gone, I phoned the police saying that my car got stolen, they've told me, it wasn't stolen but it rolled downhill, hit a lamp post and a recovery car had to take it away from the road and now I need to contact the recovery company and collect the car from them.

I contacted the recovery company the next day, they said the car is ready for collection, but I need to pay the recovery costs. However, my insurance company started calling me about a claim , but I never actually made a claim, police or the recovery had to contact my insurance company, as I never informed them about it. Also, there was no visual damage to anything, including the lamp post, I inspected the area myself the next day.
After a phone call with my insurance company, telling them I don't want any money for the car repairs and want to cancel/erase the claim, as I don't want my premium to go up, they said this will be noted as a notification only and there won't be any further dealings with the claim, received an email confirming this.

However, my insurance is due to renewal, they just sent me the renewal policy and the claim is still showing for some reason.



Furthermore, the claim is dated since the accident occurred.
I want to change my insurance company as I found one £300 cheaper than the renewal.. However, I'm not sure do I need to disclose the claim?

Flight3287462

Risk of claim for damage to lamp post?

born_again

I think you will find that the claim will be from council for the lamp post...

So yeas you will have to declare it or risk a revoked policy when new insurer finds out you lied.

daveyjp

Did you pay the bill for recovery and storage?

facade

The question is about claims, accidents or losses.

You had an accident caused by the driver (presumably you, if not someone driving with your permission) not applying the handbrake fully, leaving it in gear, turning the wheels towards the kerb, so yes you have to declare it.

Nobbie1967

I think that is just recording that your car was involved in an accident. The heading says ‘claims, accidents or losses’ and you have had an accident. The column that says ‘recovery’ would normally be where costs have been recovered from a third party, but in this case I suspect no costs have been incurred, so they’ve just marked it as yes. Did you pay the recovery firm for their work?

Future insurers still need to know about the accident despite no claim being made. It will not affect your NCB, but they may consider you a higher risk. Was any defect found with the handbrake or was it just not applied with enough force?

Jojo2234

No, I viewed the car but never collected it or payed anything, I calculated the costs of the repairs+recovery would be much higher than the value of the car, so I decided not to.
I received a letter from the recovery company few days after the incident, as I can remember it said it will be £20/day for storage up to 31days,then it will be scrapped if not collected, never actually heard of them since.

However, my insurance, said the case it closed as notification only. I got an email that confirms it.

I had an issue with my alarm randomly going off at that time, I had a booked appointment at a garage to get it fixed, meanwhile I had to leave my car unlocked, as it helped not to trigger the alarm going off, so it is highly possible someone done it deliberately ,released the handbrake.

DullGreyGuy

Bit of an odd one... in this case your letter shows its accidents, claims and losses and therefore its perfectly right that the accident is listed there and so odd that you have issue with it. 

Most insurers systems, if we are honest, arent great and they dont tend to have a different systems for claims, accidents and losses but instead all get logged as claims and the difference comes in how they are closed on the system. More commonly on here we get people complaining that their letter says claims and lists their notification only incident in it and so are annoyed its been logged as a claim.

Your next insurer will have asked you to declare claims, accidents and incidents (or words to those effect) and so yes you will have to have declared this incident.