What to do after a single vehicle accident

MyRealNameToo

rocco1504 said:

MyRealNameToo said:

rocco1504 said:

Yeah, that's what I thought would be the case, I just wanted some opinions. 
 Do you think his insurance will go up much again, it's a crying shame, as I say he's a really sensible driver, and his insurance has only recently gone down from the nearly £4000 he was paying last year. 
 He'd been working really hard in the days previous and just wanted to get home from seeing the girlfriend. 

He fell asleep at the wheel, that would generally point to someone who wasnt being sensible at the time as an objective outsider. Not saying he should lose their licence or anything, nor denying that people dont mess up some times but does raise a Q on if maybe there are some rose tinted glasses involved here. 

The impact on the policy will depend on if he tells them for information purposes only or a claim is made. For his own vehicle there will be recovery and storage costs in addition to whatever damage it sustained, plus costs of getting back assuming you dont sign it away. The claim for the sign could be a long time in the coming and so may not be practical to wait to see if they claim or not. 

Note there are no excess to be paid if only the council claim and in principle you could repay the council but replacement road signs used to be somewhat similar to the annual insurance price - though our policyholders were always good at taking them out on roundabouts that may be more complex to put replacement on. 

How much it will cost is difficult to say, you could do some dummy quotes online using similar but not identical details trying both a paid for fault claim and a notification only and see the difference. The fact they were paying £4k last year suggests there are some already high risk factors beyond his age and so the impact is likely to be more in absolute terms than many other peoples experience on here. 

The reason he was paying that £4000, I believe was that before he got his licence he had a motor scooter that got stolen from our driveway 18 months before and we declared it when he got the insurance, plus even though we live in a semi rural area we are in a high risk postcode. 

The insurers I've worked with on pricing worked on a proportional basis, ie everything is done as a percentage. So it's not +£50 for having tinted windows but a 1.10 multiplier. The consequence is that in absolute terms those already paying high premiums will see a bigger increase than those paying low premiums even if both are a 20% loading. 

Some factors arent looked at in isolation though so, for example, before the EU banned it age and gender were looked at together so a 18 year old male may have a 2.2 multiplier whereas as a 18 female may have been 2.0 whereas a 45 year old was 0.75 irrespective of gender. As a consequence rather than just compounding multipliers having two negative factors (eg age and claims) may have a greater impact than simply compounding. 

rocco1504

MyRealNameToo said:

rocco1504 said:

MyRealNameToo said:

rocco1504 said:

Yeah, that's what I thought would be the case, I just wanted some opinions. 
 Do you think his insurance will go up much again, it's a crying shame, as I say he's a really sensible driver, and his insurance has only recently gone down from the nearly £4000 he was paying last year. 
 He'd been working really hard in the days previous and just wanted to get home from seeing the girlfriend. 

He fell asleep at the wheel, that would generally point to someone who wasnt being sensible at the time as an objective outsider. Not saying he should lose their licence or anything, nor denying that people dont mess up some times but does raise a Q on if maybe there are some rose tinted glasses involved here. 

The impact on the policy will depend on if he tells them for information purposes only or a claim is made. For his own vehicle there will be recovery and storage costs in addition to whatever damage it sustained, plus costs of getting back assuming you dont sign it away. The claim for the sign could be a long time in the coming and so may not be practical to wait to see if they claim or not. 

Note there are no excess to be paid if only the council claim and in principle you could repay the council but replacement road signs used to be somewhat similar to the annual insurance price - though our policyholders were always good at taking them out on roundabouts that may be more complex to put replacement on. 

How much it will cost is difficult to say, you could do some dummy quotes online using similar but not identical details trying both a paid for fault claim and a notification only and see the difference. The fact they were paying £4k last year suggests there are some already high risk factors beyond his age and so the impact is likely to be more in absolute terms than many other peoples experience on here. 

The reason he was paying that £4000, I believe was that before he got his licence he had a motor scooter that got stolen from our driveway 18 months before and we declared it when he got the insurance, plus even though we live in a semi rural area we are in a high risk postcode. 

The insurers I've worked with on pricing worked on a proportional basis, ie everything is done as a percentage. So it's not +£50 for having tinted windows but a 1.10 multiplier. The consequence is that in absolute terms those already paying high premiums will see a bigger increase than those paying low premiums even if both are a 20% loading. 

Some factors arent looked at in isolation though so, for example, before the EU banned it age and gender were looked at together so a 18 year old male may have a 2.2 multiplier whereas as a 18 female may have been 2.0 whereas a 45 year old was 0.75 irrespective of gender. As a consequence rather than just compounding multipliers having two negative factors (eg age and claims) may have a greater impact than simply compounding. 

I think I understand, but that's the problem with insurance isn't it, joe public isn't supposed to understand it,  that's why I liked the way Swinton worked back in the 80s when you could go to one of their offices and have a body in front of you actually explain it, and all the costs. 
 Plus many years ago I worked for Hogg Robinson Credit Insurance in the city, and even then it was just a money making scheme, and very rarely did the insured get a fair deal. 
 I understand why it's needed but it needs to be clearer, what, where and why premiums are so damned expensive. 

prowla

rocco1504 said:

XRS200 said:

rocco1504 said:

Yeah, that's the 1st thing I was terrified that he'd hurt himself, and as you say, he's extremely lucky. 
 

He's extremely lucky he didn't kill someone 

He was on a country road at 2am in the morning 

Well then, fortunately nobody was standing in front of the given road sign at the time. :-)

Goudy said:

...

If the car has been towed it's probably in a state, so we aren't talking about a dent to a sign post, it's either flattened or mangled. They are going to expect it to be paid for.
... 

It's entirely possible that it damaged the suspension, thereby making it undriveable, or maybe the radiator; neithor of those take a huge impact.

rocco1504

prowla said:

rocco1504 said:

XRS200 said:

rocco1504 said:

Yeah, that's the 1st thing I was terrified that he'd hurt himself, and as you say, he's extremely lucky. 
 

He's extremely lucky he didn't kill someone 

He was on a country road at 2am in the morning 

Well then, fortunately nobody was standing in front of the given road sign at the time. :-)

Goudy said:

...

If the car has been towed it's probably in a state, so we aren't talking about a dent to a sign post, it's either flattened or mangled. They are going to expect it to be paid for.
... 

It's entirely possible that it damaged the suspension, thereby making it undriveable, or maybe the radiator; neithor of those take a huge impact.

Unfortunately, I've not seen the car yet or any pictures, having worked in a garage in the past, I know things can look a lot worse than they are. 
 The problem is that the vehicle really isn't worth a lot of money  and I doubt that he'd get much more than £500 or £600 quid back and will get written off, so is it better to just not claim in the hope that other than the street sign, his premiums won't go up too much. 

MyRealNameToo

Joe Public can't do anything about it, the price is the price ultimately, so does it really matter if you "understand" that its because your neighbours have made lots of claims or the government has changed the ogden tables etc? In most cases it won't be something you can do anything about. 

In the old days Swinton and other brokers would have the rate tables themselves, in books, and in principle could have shown you what factors are driving the price but that still wouldnt explain why WR3 is more expensive than WR2 as a postcode to insure. 

These days it's done by computer systems and your average employee doesnt get to see the tables. In some cases the broking firm doesnt even see them because their system just queries the insurers system that gives them a price. 

Motor insurance as an industry last year had a combined ratio of 102% so for every £1 of premium received they paid out £1.02. So whilst premiums may be "high" overall competitive tension seemingly is keeping them in check as there arent many industries that sell for less than its costing them. Obviously the bit thats missing is the investment income which in many cases will balance the books but few are making big money from Motor. 

Goudy

rocco1504 said:

We've just got to work out whether to actually make a claim or not and maybe just suck up the cost. 

 

It all depends.
It doesn't take much to write a car off these days, particularly an older car.

There will be a compulsory and a voluntary excess on the policy. So any payout for a total loss, you'd lose that part.
If they repaired it, he'd pay this himself.

Then there's the cost of a total loss, premium wise.
If it's a total loss the policy is usually finished no matter how many month are left to run.
If you are paying monthly, they'll want the rest of the premiums or adjust the payout to compensate, he could end up owing them at the end of the claim.

So let's say the car is worth £2000 and it's written off and there's a total excess of £750, now you're down to £1250.
You are 6 months into a policy but you are paying monthly and still have another 5 months to pay up.
With interest on the car insurance "loan" you'll have to find more that £2000 to pay the policy premium up.

Okell

rocco1504 said:

Hi
My 22 yr old son had an accident the other night, no one else was involved, he actually fell asleep momentarily and hit a sign. 
 The police attended, breathalysed him which he passed no problems. 
 He's told me that he's not been charged with anything,...

Really?  He fell asleep at the wheel and hit a road sign.  And he hasn't been charged with anything - yet...

I'd be waiting 14 days to see if a NIP arrived before being confident he wasn't going to be charged with anything.

rocco1504 said:

XRS200 said:

rocco1504 said:

Yeah, that's the 1st thing I was terrified that he'd hurt himself, and as you say, he's extremely lucky. 
 

He's extremely lucky he didn't kill someone 

He was on a country road at 2am in the morning 

So you think that's a mitigating factor?

rocco1504

Goudy said:

rocco1504 said:

We've just got to work out whether to actually make a claim or not and maybe just suck up the cost. 

 

It all depends.
It doesn't take much to write a car off these days, particularly an older car.

There will be a compulsory and a voluntary excess on the policy. So any payout for a total loss, you'd lose that part.
If they repaired it, he'd pay this himself.

Then there's the cost of a total loss, premium wise.
If it's a total loss the policy is usually finished no matter how many month are left to run.
If you are paying monthly, they'll want the rest of the premiums or adjust the payout to compensate, he could end up owing them at the end of the claim.

So let's say the car is worth £2000 and it's written off and there's a total excess of £750, now you're down to £1250.
You are 6 months into a policy but you are paying monthly and still have another 5 months to pay up.
With interest on the car insurance "loan" you'll have to find more that £2000 to pay the policy premium up.

Yeah that's what worries me, and the bank of dad just doesn't have those sorts of funds right now. 
 I think it would be better to just let them know it's happened, not make a claim, and hopefully just pay off the council for the sign when it comes up, if it comes up. 
 I'm not sure if the policy will run or if it will just be cancelled. 
 I have another car that he may be able to use for work, just need to sort a couple of things. 

Car_54

Okell said:

I'd be waiting 14 days to see if a NIP arrived before being confident he wasn't going to be charged with anything.

I wouldn't be so confident. I know the OP said "He's told me that he's not been charged with anything", but people don't always tell their parents the absolute truth. If he was told at the scene that he'd be reported, then no NIP would be needed.

In the same vein, the youth may have felt that "I fell asleep" was a better explanation than "I lost control".

rocco1504

Car_54 said:

Okell said:

I'd be waiting 14 days to see if a NIP arrived before being confident he wasn't going to be charged with anything.

I wouldn't be so confident. I know the OP said "He's told me that he's not been charged with anything", but people don't always tell their parents the absolute truth. If he was told at the scene that he'd be reported, then no NIP would be needed.

In the same vein, the youth may have felt that "I fell asleep" was a better explanation than "I lost control".

From what the boy has told me, it does sound strange, but he said that the police were almost uninterested in it, he said it was weird the way they treated him, he's got no paperwork given to him by the police, and to be totally truthful, I've never known him to lie to me, ever.
 I taught them both ever since they could understand, I don't care how bad it is, just don't ever lie to me about anything. And I don't think he's lying now