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Car insurance - adding an additional driver/penalty for a no fault accident.
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WLTong
Posts: 1 Newbie
I want to add my daughter to my car insurance as a named driver. I have looked at adding her to both my wife's and my own insurance and both come up with the same questions and similar quotes. However they both have the same ambiguity. Both companies ask if she has any claims but neither asks about accidents. Last year whilst driving as a named driver on my wife's car she was hit from behind whilst stationary at traffic lights. There was no dispute or argument and the claim was treated as no fault and settled without argument or loss of no claims discount or policy excess. Do I declare this as a claim when adding her to my policy although actually the claim was by my wife and has been fully declared? You would think this should be immaterial as it was a no fault claim but if it is mentioned then the additional premium is almost £70 compared to £20 if not mentioned. It is the same questions and same difference in premium if I try to add her to my insurance policy. Note, our insurance policies are with different companies. So two questions. Should this be declared as being a claim by my daughter even though it was not made by her or on an insurance policy in her name? And why should there be a £50 increase in premium due to the declaration of a fully accepted no fault incident?
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If in any doubt ask the insurer in question... technically a claim is driver -v- driver so if she was the driver at the time then she did make a claim.
Mass market consumer insurance is priced based on statistical analysis. They can segment their experience across any individual characteristic and so see if all other things are equal do red cars or brown cars have worse claims experiences. That, with a risk margin, then translates into a premium. Pricing analysts dont sit in an ivory tower postulating the type of people that may be attracted to certain colours and therefore what its likely to mean for claims.
Stats show that those that have had a non-fault claim are more likely to have a subsequent claim -v- someone who has made no claims at all. If you wanted to postulate why that may be then maybe it's because some are parking in a really nasty carpark and they were just lucky that the at fault party left their details last time, maybe they are a bad driver and just lucky that the last person didnt have a dash cam to show that they'd cut in (think the old joke... I've never been involved in an accident but seen plenty in my rear view mirror). You've also shown yourself to be someone who does claim rather than just lives with the damage.0 -
WLTong said:And why should there be a £50 increase in premium due to the declaration of a fully accepted no fault incident?All sorts of reasons, but at least one reason is that "non-fault" doesn't mean "completely blameless"; it just means that the other driver's insurance company ended up paying for the damage.Case in point: many years ago, when I was young and foolish, I slightly knobbishly overtook a line of traffic that was queuing to turn left, cut into a gap in the queue just before the roundabout, slammed my brakes on... and the guy I cut in front of didn't brake as hard as I did. His insurers admitted liability, and I was hardly going to argue with that, so it went down as a no-fault claim on my record. But in truth it was at least partly my fault for driving like an aggressive impatient orat, and I couldn't really have any complaints about the fact that it put my insurance up a bit for the next couple of years.Or inagine a situation where a driver pulls out of a side-street onto a major road without checking that it's clear. Driver A is coming along the main road minding his own business, slams into the side of him, and ends up having to report a no-fault acident. Driver B is a more cautious fellow who slows down on the approach to side-streets, or perhaps he just has better observation and reflexes, so he stops just in time and doesn't have an accident to report at all. As an insurer which driver would you rather insure?Of course you might argue that your daughter's accident was nothing like either of those scenarios and that she genuinely was completely blameless. And you might be right. But the pricing algorithm doesn't know or care about that. It doesn't try to distinguish between the hundred different ways that you might have an accident - it just sees the words "accident - non fault" and puts her in the same bracket as me, and our hypothetical driver A.If you don't think that's fair then the alternative would be to go to Lloyds of London where you can sit down for tea and biscuits with your underwriter, discuss your accident in detail with him, and see if he thinks that it marks you out as a higher risk. However you'd inevitably have to pay extra for that sort of personalised service - probably a lot more than £50 extra - which is why nobody actually does it.
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Aretnap said:
If you don't think that's fair then the alternative would be to go to Lloyds of London where you can sit down for tea and biscuits with your underwriter, discuss your accident in detail with him, and see if he thinks that it marks you out as a higher risk. However you'd inevitably have to pay extra for that sort of personalised service - probably a lot more than £50 extra - which is why nobody actually does it.
Its only Equity Red Star that appears to operate in different ways, I know they have some dispensations but never understood why or how they really do operate... some Lloyds ex-Ops Manangers/Directors all commented that ERS were different but couldn't clarify either.
Its a little sad its now tea and biscuits at the Box rather than a pint in the New Moon1
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