Loss of no claims discount

Cathwboxer

Hi. Last year I had a leak from my bathroom into my kitchen. I contact my home insurance to check what my excess was and what I needed to do if I decided to proceed with a claim. Following this, I got some quotes which were less than the excess and consequently decided not to make a claim. Since then, my premium has more than doubled in price. When I have queried this, I have been told it is because I have lost my no claims discount as a result of this 'claim'. I have argued that no claim was made, however, they are stating that as they responded to my call with an email that states "Your claim has now been logged...." that this counts as an actual claim. Are they allowed to do this?

user1977

Yes, you had told them about an insured loss you had suffered.

You don't need to phone your insurers to find out what your excess is or how to make a claim.

DullGreyGuy

What does your policy documents say? (It'll also tell you what your excess was)

NCD is not a well developed concept in Home insurance and many insurers dont use it. As such the rules vary much more between providers than it does for Motor. 

Most insurers require you to report incidents irrespective if you are going to claim or not however most claims systems dont have functionality to log an incident as something discrete from a claim. In motor is not much of an issue as it's closed with no outlay and so doesn't impact your NCD but as mentioned, Home NCD varies more and tends to be less complex (none of this losing 2 years unless you have 5+ years in which case you drop. to 3) 

If the policy book says NCD will be lost for any incident irrespective if there is any payout then they are entitled to remove the NCD