Insurance in Northern Ireland

Mrs_Mac_1

Is anyone willing to join me in actually doing something to find out about the practices in NI of vastly inflated insurance quotes, I am talking here about car and home?

We all complain about the prices we are getting charged but nothing ever changes. The questions being asked are getting more and more intrusive: I was asked this week if a family member was contributing to my daughter's premium. How can this be even applicable to getting a quote... is it so the insurance company can hike prices if they think daddy or mummy are contributing? 

Has anyone approached any of our elected representatives that would be willing to take this issue and sort it in our favour. I do not know where to start, but we are being ripped off.

My most recent experience was with house insurance. They took my premium and two months later, wrote to me to say I had not disclosed a claim from two years ago. I did not know what they were talking about. The only details they had was it was Red Sands Insurance Co (never heard of them) and it was for £95. Further investigation on my part, in 2023 I had insurance with a company called Frontier. I had enquired about a situation of damage to my front door. Unbeknownst to me, Frontier recorded my enquiry as a Claim! They said it had cost them £95 to perform a desk-based exercise, and recorded this as a £95 payment to me (I didn't receive it, and £95 would not have covered the repair). I knew nothing of this all, and they have now threatened to cancel my house insurance as they are saying I withheld information from them. I tried contacting them on their "Live Chat" facility (this is their only method of contact) and I was not given time to upload pictures and letters of proof of no claim being paid; they closed chats on me without warning, etc.

I am wondering should I be keeping insurance details from previous years, as I get older my ability to remember things like who I was insured with etc, are getting worse.

Not only was my insurance company (OneProtect) not a company, but a broker, my previous insurance company (Frontier) claims were handled by yet another company (Evolution Claims) and it turns out Red Sands are partners with all the following companies: https://www.redsands.gi/our-partners

The whole insurance business is nothing but a rip-off minefield, and needs investigating. Where do we start?

Emmia

Mrs_Mac_1 said:

Is anyone willing to join me in actually doing something to find out about the practices in NI of vastly inflated insurance quotes, I am talking here about car and home?

We all complain about the prices we are getting charged but nothing ever changes. The questions being asked are getting more and more intrusive: I was asked this week if a family member was contributing to my daughter's premium. How can this be even applicable to getting a quote... is it so the insurance company can hike prices if they think daddy or mummy are contributing? 

Has anyone approached any of our elected representatives that would be willing to take this issue and sort it in our favour. I do not know where to start, but we are being ripped off.

My most recent experience was with house insurance. They took my premium and two months later, wrote to me to say I had not disclosed a claim from two years ago. I did not know what they were talking about. The only details they had was it was Red Sands Insurance Co (never heard of them) and it was for £95. Further investigation on my part, in 2023 I had insurance with a company called Frontier. I had enquired about a situation of damage to my front door. Unbeknownst to me, Frontier recorded my enquiry as a Claim! They said it had cost them £95 to perform a desk-based exercise, and recorded this as a £95 payment to me (I didn't receive it, and £95 would not have covered the repair). I knew nothing of this all, and they have now threatened to cancel my house insurance as they are saying I withheld information from them. I tried contacting them on their "Live Chat" facility (this is their only method of contact) and I was not given time to upload pictures and letters of proof of no claim being paid; they closed chats on me without warning, etc.

I am wondering should I be keeping insurance details from previous years, as I get older my ability to remember things like who I was insured with etc, are getting worse.

Not only was my insurance company (OneProtect) not a company, but a broker, my previous insurance company (Frontier) claims were handled by yet another company (Evolution Claims) and it turns out Red Sands are partners with all the following companies: https://www.redsands.gi/our-partners

The whole insurance business is nothing but a rip-off minefield, and needs investigating. Where do we start?

It's quite normal for enquiries about potentially claiming to be recorded, even if a claim isn't made - and this pushes up the price.

Fundamentally if an enquiry has been made an accident/damage has occurred and this (in risk terms) means there is more likely to be a further incident and claim. In car insurance terms, a minor bump/scrape indicates the person is perhaps a bit inattentive/careless and this means they are more likely to be involved in a more costly collision.

If you drive carefully, and don't claim, would you want to pay the same premium as someone who doesn't take the same level of care, and is more likely to claim?

I'm not sure the elected representatives will get involved. Insurance pricing is a commercial decision made by the company offering it.

MyRealNameToo

For various reasons distribution of insurance is typically a multi-layer process, but thats not any different for most goods, Tesco baked beans are not actually made by Tesco, some other company makes them and just sticks a Tesco sticker on the tin. Look at other bigger ticket item and you may have a manufacturer, a distributor, a wholesaler and then the retailer you buy from all of which are unrelated companies. 

Some firms handle their own claims, some firms outsource their claims handling. Again there are pros and cons of both models as if there was a single best solution its what everyone would use. If you are a relatively small company having loss adjustors covering the whole of the UK is expensive, similarly having the right number to be able to cope with the surge of claims in winter whilst not having them all sitting around twiddling their thumbs in pleasant late spring weather is complex unless you are offering a premium product with higher prices. The downside of outsourcing is that you normally pay your outsourcer a fee for each claim handled. 

In commercial property or casualty the fee will be based on the value of the claim, on basic home insurance its normally a flat fee - at most its two fees, one for first notification of loss and a second for actually handling the claim. You called up to discuss "an incident" that at least triggers the FNOL fee or the whole fee if they haven't split it into two. Insurance systems often dont differentiate between a claim and an incident but it makes little difference anyway because you are instructed to declare both and what impact it will have on your premiums is generally driven by other factors like what any payout was. 

You need to be able to answer questions honestly and accurately, you are told to say what happened not your best guess at what happened. If your memory is failing you then yes you need to develop methods to be able to answer these types of questions accurately but also consider the wider implications if it deteriorates further. Being charged an additional premium for being caught making false declarations is very much the bottom end of the spectrum of options the insurer had. They could have voided the policy for fraud if they believed you intentionally didnt tell them and if you think your premiums are high now wait until you see what they go to when you have to declare insurance fraud and a CIFAS marker.