Car insurance: non-fault claim recorded as fault!

bcr_2020

A while ago I had an accident where the third party drove into me.  The police weee involved, it was established that it was 100% the third party’s fault and they received a careless driving conviction.
When I renewed my policy this year I was told by the insurance company that the accident was recorded on the CUE database as being ‘fault’.  Long story short I involved the Ombudsman to get this changed and this is the reply I received:

“ ‘fault’ does not equate to you being at fault for the accident. It again relates to the insurer making a payment. 

 

This is standard industry practice and I have no grounds to ask them to change this to ‘non fault’.”

This seems completely absurd to me.  Why use language that indicates ‘fault’ when it was actually nothing of the sort.  The important point here is that I was informed that this rating of ‘fault’ means my insurance costs more than it should.
I am at a total loss here.  Can anyone offer any guidance as I seem to have hit a dead end here?

Thanks!

Aretnap

As the FOS says, fault in insurance jargon means that your insurance company paid for the claim and didn't recover the money from any third party. It doesn't necessarily mean that you were to blame.

In most cases it does, of course. If someone else was to blame for the accident, and you can prove it, and they have insurance etc, then your insurance company can recover the cost of the damage from them. However there are situations where the accident is not your "fault" but no recovery can be made - eg where the other driver is uninsured or untraced, or where the accident is pure bad luck (car damaged by wild animals or a falling tree etc), or where in spite of your protestations that someone else was to blame,  hard evidence of their blame is inconclusive. All of these things would be recorded as fault claims.

It also means that if your insurer is still in the process of recovering their costs from the third party (which can take a while even in a fairly clear cut case) the accident gets recorded as fault until the process is actually complete. Might that be what's happening here? How long is "a while ago?"

FWIW I agree that the term "fault" is misleading and insurers should use a different term. But that wouldn't help you very much - you would still be paying more if the categories were called "costs recovered/not recovered" instead of "fault/no fault". And the reason for categorising then like that is that it is purely factual and objective. Two people can have very different opinions on who was at fault for an accident and argue about it until they are blue in the face, but whether someone else paid for the claim is a simple fact that is easily verified.

All you can really do, if you haven't already, is ask your insurer (the one you were with at the time) why they haven't recovered their costs from the third party, whether they plan to do so and push them to do it. If blame was as open and shut as you imply then its surprising that they haven't made a recovery - though there might be details that you haven't posted.

43722

It is one of the (seemingly) more absurd features of the car insurance industry, the way they use linguagem like this. You are seemingly held to be at fault, when you where not. Yet in the recent Luton fire this idea of fault is not bring applied.

dunstonh

This seems completely absurd to me.  Why use language that indicates ‘fault’ when it was actually nothing of the sort.  The important point here is that I was informed that this rating of ‘fault’ means my insurance costs more than it should.

The language is historic.    It goes back to the days when consumers used third parties for doing all the work and didn't get involved in terminology or the nitty gritty.

However, it doesn't really matter what it is called.  Calling it a fault claim or a chocolate claim or whatever doesn't change what it stands for.    Which is that you insurer has not been able to recover the loss from the other party and therefore your policy has suffered a loss.

 The important point here is that I was informed that this rating of ‘fault’ means my insurance costs more than it should.

Even no-fault claims can increase your premiums.    

The bottom line is that if your insurer hasn't been able to recover the liability from the other party then your premiums are going to be higher.   Whether it was your fault or not.   (caveat to some insurers in some claim areas)

The terminology used isn't going to change your situation.

43722

I am not trying to hijack the substantive thread. But car insurance policies are well known for their particularly concise vocabulary. There are always many paragraphs of terms and conditions which we all read in detail before we sign up. And yet in this instance policy issuers are happy to claim that fault doesn't mean fault.

DullGreyGuy

43722 said:

I am not trying to hijack the substantive thread. But car insurance policies are well known for their particularly concise vocabulary. There are always many paragraphs of terms and conditions which we all read in detail before we sign up. And yet in this instance policy issuers are happy to claim that fault doesn't mean fault.

I'd somewhat disagree, some things are defined down very strictly but other things are fairly wooly. Just look at the jobs and industries list that the ABI maintain and we have to pick from. Look at my world and I have to choose between:

• Actuarial Consultancy
• Business Consultancy 
• Insurance
• Insurance Advisor
• Insurance Broking
• Insurance Company
• Insurance Consultant
• Management Consultancy

I work in the industry and I'd struggle to define the delta between some of these or state definitively which I should pick.