Changing car insurance whilst a claim on my old insurance has yet to be settled.

monster1964

Some advice please. In late May this year my car was hit in the rear by another driver causing substantial damage. My car is in a car body repair shop and the repair is still ongoing. My car insurance is due for renewal on the 5th August and the MSE optimum time to look for a new insurance quote is this coming Wednesday 12 July. My question is can I change my car insurance company whilst a claim is still been processed or do I need to speak with my existing car insurance company to check?

Aretnap

You can certainly switch - your old insurer will remain responsible for completing the repairs etc for an accident that happened while you were insured with them.

The thing that causes problems is that the accident will be recorded as an at fault claim and your no claims discount will be reduced until your current insurer has completed the process of recovering is costs from the insurer if the guy who drove into the back of you, which can take several months. Which means you will have to declare the accident as an unresolved claim, and this is likely to whack your premium up more than a simple no-fault claim.

If you stay with the same insurer they should automatically restore your NCD, recalculate your premium and refund the difference once the claim is settled. If you switch you should ask the new insurer to confirm that they will do the same. You should also be prepared to do some legwork yourself in terms of keeping in touch with the old insurer and informing the new one when the claim is settled because your old insurer won't automatically tell the new one.

Mildly_Miffed

The repair is still ongoing, but has liability for the claim been settled?

That's what your new insurer will care about.

DullGreyGuy

You need to ask your current insurers how they are recording the claim, as others have said an open claim normally is a fault claim. 

Assuming that is the case you need to get your new quotes with the fault claim and reduced NCD. The challenge will then be finding an insurer that will change that fact when your claim closes in a couple of months time... some will correct for the change in fault/non-fault but changing the number of years NCD you have mid term can be difficult 

monster1964

Thanks for the advice. The cheapest quote I could get was £373 using the MSE tool. Just got a renewal quote from my current insurer of £252 which takes the no fault accident into consideration, so its a no brainer to stop with my current insurer under the circumstances.