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Can someone else have my own car repaired on my insurance.
Long story short. Someone was using my car, noticed a stone chip, said they'll fix it for free as a thank you, for loaning them my car. I agreed as they're in the motor trade and assumed they had a friend that could just do it. I have friends that would have done it for next to nothing, but allowing them to do it made them feel better for loaning them a car in the first place.
After contacting their own insurer, they took his details, confirmed he was not the owner of the vehicle, so confirmed the details of the vehicle owner and proceeded with the repair after asking if they had concent to have the vehicle repaired. Obviously he had concent to get it sorted, but not to file an insurance claim.
A repair was carried out and 6 months later I receive an insurance renewal showing a claim made in my name for my car! First I had heard of it.
Turns out we have the same insurance company and they had filed it all in my name, they hadn't made it clear to the other person that they weren't covered on their own policy, or they misunderstood their intentions to claim on their own policy. But I was never contacted directly to confirm a claim was being processed in my name on my own car, and now I have to declare it and pay additional premiums for 5 years across 4 policies.
After complaining, they've upheld the claim saying that because the other person knew my name and address they passed security and were able to process the claim on my behalf on the word of the person on the phone who had already identified themself as another person, not me.
I have a long wait for the ombudsman to look into this, but am I being crazy? Is this a serious possibility that someone can have your car repaired on your insurance in your name without direct authorisation...
Bearing in mind this was not the other person's intentions, he was under the assumption, from the call, that the repair would be covered by his own insurance, not realising he was also talking direct to my insurer as they were the same.
Imagine a neigbour walks past your car and sees a scuff, they tell you they can sort it for you for free, you agree, they unknownst to you, call your insurance company, tell them that they are a neigbour and not the owner, and want to get it fixed, being a neigbour they know your name and address so that passes security and they agree to process the claim without attempting to contact you. Is that even legal?
Comments
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Why is anyone contacting their insurer over a stone chip?
Unless the car is something exotic or very expensive, isn't a chip just fixed for cash at any bodyshop anywhere?
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Obviously the problem is that you werent there when the call happened and so cannot say what he or the insurer said at the time.
Do you know if this is there personal insurance company or the one for them being in the motor trade? Im assuming you just have a normal personal insurance policy?
Its certainly possible for insurers to deal with a claim registered by someone other than the insured, it happens all the time when a third party alleges that their vehicle has been damaged by the insured and given motor insurance is legally compulsory it would be a bit of a farce if only the insured could register a claim as non-fault victims would simply be able to be blocked by the insured refusing to register a claim.
Certainly in my claims days there would be a strong preference to speak to the insured or one of the named drivers to register a first party claim but there are legitimate reasons why a claim could be registered by someone else, eg if the insured has been injured and a spouse is dealing with it who isnt named on the policy.
Personally I do wonder if things have gone a little differently to what the person has said, that they called up without their insurance details in which case the norm would be to search based on the vehicle registration and if they gave your registration then clearly that would pull up your policy not theirs and hence they were asked to confirm subsequently that they had your consent to make the claim.
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What insurance cover did he have for the car? It's unlikely he'd have any cover personally for your car, as most "drive other car" policies are 3rd party only.
I think they mean a windscreen stone chip, which is often free or heavily discounted via insurance. Whether a 'free' windscreen repair would impact their renewal I have no idea.
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Ah, OP may confirm but a windscreen chip makes far more sense.
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See, in those circumstances obviously. But they were aware of the full scenario and still proceeded with a claim. No third part vehicles or property involved. Like my example at the bottom, surely someone can't just file a claim on someone else's behalf knowing there's no injuries or inability to speak on behalf. When my dauther took out a policy last month she had to verbally give concent for me to just read out my card details to make a payment!
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He would only have been 3rd party, but asked the question and they told him the vehicle is covered for a glass repair. What they meant to tell him was my own insurance covers my car for glass! And yes it was just a windscreen chip that I didn't care about. I'm friends with a windscreen guy, I could have sorted it for nothing, or lived with it. Haven't even used the car myself since this happened in March as I commute on a motorbike. But yes, doing comparison quotes, my premium increases with the claim declared.
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Its a pretty clear data breach - they should not be discussing any aspect of the policy, other than their obligations when a third party is involved in a claim against them, which I'm pretty sure a windscreen chip repair on the insured vehicle isn't.
I'd be escalating it on that front, AND the fact that a claim should not have then been logged and paid out on.
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Someone was using my car, noticed a stone chip, said they'll fix it for free as a thank you
repair was carried out and 6 months later I receive an insurance renewal showing a claim made in my name for my car!
yes it was just a windscreen chip
Is there something missing here?
Using any insurance is not really inline with the "repair as a thank you".
AIUI, windscreen chip repair is not usually recorded as a "claim" as such and would not impact future premiums.
Was there an incident involving more damage than you are aware?
Why did the friend who is in the motor trade need to borrow your car and did not have access to 'in trade' cars?
Either way, if a friend in the motor trade offered to fix a windscreen chip on my car for free, I would assume they had their own glass repair equipment.
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It is certainly unusual, but without the benefit of actually knowing what was said in the call there has to be some benefit of the doubt given. For context, I spent my early career dealing with complaints so spent several years hearing what the customer said they were told, reading the notes from the operator and then actually listening to the call recording and often all three are materially different from each other.
If someone called up and openly stated that they are the friend of our insured and want to register a claim on behalf of our insured for our insureds car and isnt named on the policy then no, i certainly wouldnt expect them to be able to register the claim. I however suspect that isnt what the call went.
Also worth noting that if it is a glass claim, rather than a normal claim, the whole process is typically very different… you normally speak directly to the glass company not the insurer, they have very limited information and not a full access to the PAS system to see who named drivers are or whos authorised to speak on the account. Certainly in the companies I worked for in claims, the claim isnt even registered in the claim system but instead a monthly bordereaux comes across and they are registered in bulk from that. Companies like AutoGlass are dealing with 30+ insurers, it wouldnt be practical for their call centre agents to have to log into different systems for each caller and almost certainly all agents deal with all brands… like in most multibrand call centres the agents headset will tell them which brand the caller is coming for and the agent just inserts that brand name to their salutation.
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The last time I had a glass repair, I called my insurer who noted the issue and gave me details of two approved companies to do the windscreen replacement; I then dealt directly with them and the insurer's paperwork was done behind the scenes.
But a person turning up at the glass repairer's site in a borrowed car and getting them to do a repair against the owner's insurance unbeknownst to the policyholder seems not quite right.
It's plausible that it might've happened at eg. a popup windscreen repair where the person just keyed in the info without realising that what they were doing was wrong.
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