Increased insurance due to reported incident on CUE database.

tonyhume

Narrow road, I stopped and oncoming car touched my wing as they passed. No damage. They reported to their Insurance company, which happened to be the same as mine. The company contacted me and I explained what happened and that I wasn't making a claim. Shortly afterwards the company contacted me an said the other party wasn't claiming either.
My premium has gone up by £70 because this incident is recorded on the database. 
How is it fair that I suffer from not doing anything wrong?How am I considered to be a higher risk? It makes no sense to me. 
The insurance company say it's out of their hands and is a blanket rule for any reported incident, made by the underwriters.
Has anyone got anywhere with pursuing this point?

Slinky

I think you'll find it's tough luck and how insurance works, the fact you've been in the wrong place at the wrong time works against you. 

My insurance went up after my husband suffered two no fault accidents in his car, because he's a named driver on my policy, so I'm suffering increased premiums when what happened didn't even happen to me or my vehicle! His insurance went up when the neighbour across the road started up his vehicle, whilst left in reverse gear, and not sitting in the car, so the car rolled down their drive, across the road and into the front of our car which was parked on our drive. I watched it play out in front of me from inside the house, nothing I could do about it.

And don't forget, you'll now have to declare this incident for the next 5 years. It's on the databases, if you don't mention it, you're laying yourself open to accusations of fraud, although why you have to declare it when the insurers know about it anyway defeats me....

Mildly_Miffed

It went up by £70 during the policy term?

Or it's an increased quote on renewal?
If you're asking other insurers for quotes, I presume you're declaring this...?

The reason for the higher risk is simple - you clearly do the kind of driving that leaves you open to the risk of incidents such as this. People who drive on narrow rural roads are at high risk of mirrors being hit. Next time, the other vehicle might not stop, leaving you with a replacement. If you claim, the insurer has nobody to hand the bill on to.

tonyhume

I changed insurers on renewal, did't declare it because I had forgotten about it and the company contacted me because it was on the database. The previous year I had renewed with my old company and now assume that their renewal price at the time included the increase from the incident. Yes, I have declared this when looking for quotes. I wish the other driver hadn't stopped - the tiny mark they left looks like a dirty smudge so I'm not bothered. Yes, I can see that it's more of a risk driving on a minor road which has much less traffic!!!!!!!! That's the way insurance works is it? What I don't think is fair is that now the insurance company and their underwriters know the circumstances, why can't they look at the individual circumstances and treat me fairly? That's what they do with claims - they take the information given by both parties and make a decision. Why haven't they been taken to task about this before? When I complained about my case, they quite happily told me about how cases such as yours with your neighbour's car are dealt with - as you say, innocent people who had nothing to do with the incident get penalised - they didn't see anything wrong with this!!!! Can anyone please give me any advice on how to proceed with this?

cw8825

there's nothing you can do unless you find an insurer that does not use non fault claims in the pricing.

They actually are treating you fair by not making individual decisions.
They have seen there is a claim at 0 cost and added a charge, this would be the same for all 0 cost claims.

I suggest you do 2 dummy quotes 1 with and 1 without this incident. the difference in price will be minimal.

does the £70 include any admin charge

Car_54

tonyhume said:

I changed insurers on renewal, did't declare it because I had forgotten about it and the company contacted me because it was on the database. The previous year I had renewed with my old company and now assume that their renewal price at the time included the increase from the incident. Yes, I have declared this when looking for quotes. I wish the other driver hadn't stopped - the tiny mark they left looks like a dirty smudge so I'm not bothered. Yes, I can see that it's more of a risk driving on a minor road which has much less traffic!!!!!!!! That's the way insurance works is it? What I don't think is fair is that now the insurance company and their underwriters know the circumstances, why can't they look at the individual circumstances and treat me fairly? That's what they do with claims - they take the information given by both parties and make a decision. Why haven't they been taken to task about this before? When I complained about my case, they quite happily told me about how cases such as yours with your neighbour's car are dealt with - as you say, innocent people who had nothing to do with the incident get penalised - they didn't see anything wrong with this!!!! Can anyone please give me any advice on how to proceed with this?

They don't know the circumstances. They only know your version of events, and you are not an unbiased source.

DullGreyGuy

Car_54 said:

tonyhume said:

I changed insurers on renewal, did't declare it because I had forgotten about it and the company contacted me because it was on the database. The previous year I had renewed with my old company and now assume that their renewal price at the time included the increase from the incident. Yes, I have declared this when looking for quotes. I wish the other driver hadn't stopped - the tiny mark they left looks like a dirty smudge so I'm not bothered. Yes, I can see that it's more of a risk driving on a minor road which has much less traffic!!!!!!!! That's the way insurance works is it? What I don't think is fair is that now the insurance company and their underwriters know the circumstances, why can't they look at the individual circumstances and treat me fairly? That's what they do with claims - they take the information given by both parties and make a decision. Why haven't they been taken to task about this before? When I complained about my case, they quite happily told me about how cases such as yours with your neighbour's car are dealt with - as you say, innocent people who had nothing to do with the incident get penalised - they didn't see anything wrong with this!!!! Can anyone please give me any advice on how to proceed with this?

They don't know the circumstances. They only know your version of events, and you are not an unbiased source.

And underwriting is done by an algorithm that takes broad brushstroke approach... is the case open or closed, was it closed as at fault or not at fault. 

If a human underwriter had to read the details of the circumstances on CUE for both parties, where available, and make a decision on what to quote the costs of insurance would go up vastly. £60k salary so £104k fully loaded cost. Lets say its 15 minutes per quote so 4 quotes an hour and so (2,080 working hours, 90% efficiency) so 7,488 quotes a year so £13.89 per quote. Conversion rate is about 5% if your lucky so £69.44, add risk margin £83.33 and add IPT so £93.33 would be the additional cost per policy assuming the insurer isn't wanting a profit margin on it. 

1) Are you willing to wait for an UW to manually pick up your quote request, review the details and come back 15 minutes later with a quote?

2) Are you willing to pay at least another £95 on your policy if you can get the £70 loading possible reduced a little?

In reality, things that are underwritten by humans tends to be more like £500+ extra because it's not just one person and 15 minutes is a highly optimistic value. 

Same as anything where broad brushstrokes or averages are used, there will be some winners and losers. There are a lot of people out there who drive badly but through luck there is insufficient evidence to find them at fault for the accident (think the person who cuts in and immediately breaks hard, the car behind doesn't have a chance even if they were leaving a sensible gap but without dash cam footage it becomes a rear end collision 

Exodi

Slinky said:

I think you'll find it's tough luck and how insurance works

Pretty much this.

While not car insurance, I had a leak in my kitchen ceiling and called up my insurer to work out if it would be economic to have it covered by them. Long story short, it wasn't (excess was £500 and didn't cover the actual repair cost...) so I ended up paying a plumber out of pocket a couple of hundred pound to fix it.

Despite them having paid out exactly 0 pounds and 0 pence, they have logged it as a claim on the CUE database and my future premiums will be effected.

I actually escalated to the Ombusman (on the grounds they explicitly told me at the start of the enquiry my future premiums would not be affected). My claim was rejected  - on the grounds that (and as Slinky basically says) tough luck, that's how insurance works. They also suggested the insurer didn't technically lie because if I stayed with the same insurer, my premium would not be affected (as they'd honour their personal record that no payout was made).

Like you, it's disappointing to be penalised for contacting an insurer, even where they do nothing. Their official line is that you have an obligation to report any events to them, even if they do not result in a claim (which as we know, is incredibly counter-productive to do in practice).

Mildly_Miffed

tonyhume said:

I changed insurers on renewal, did't declare it because I had forgotten about it

So they're merely charging you the price they'd have quoted you if you'd been accurate when you got the quote.

eskbanker

tonyhume said:

Yes, I can see that it's more of a risk driving on a minor road which has much less traffic!!!!!!!! That's the way insurance works is it?

I assume the string of exclamation marks, plus rhetorical question, signifies that you're being sarcastic but, unless you're failing to mention other relevant information, the only time you've made contact with another vehicle was on a narrow road, whereas the wider roads you'll have driven on were incident-free?