Car insurance problems

Smithers_uk

I was wondering if anyone could advise us on an insurance issue that we have.

My partner had damaged our car due to a defect in the highway near our house. We sent all the details of the council putting our case to them and this went through the usual waiting period of 90 days. Only to be told that they would not be held responsible for the incident and we could only appeal against their decision in court. Based on this we approached our insurance company (Diamond) for their advice.

They basically said that they would send a letter on our behalf as they would have more clout. My partner (The Policy holder) specially told them that we would not be making a claim on the policy and this was confirmed by email to Diamond. However, they sent all the claim documents to us in the post. My partner again emailed them to confirm that we would not be claiming on the policy.

Diamond sent us the response from our local council saying that the council would not accept responsibility for the damage. Therefore, we decided that we could not afford to follow up the issue with the council and would pay for the repair ourselves. I know this is a cop out but the hassle and where to go from there just doesn’t seem worth it.

Anyway to the problem in hand.

2 weeks ago we received our renewal from Diamond for approx £425.00. So we shopped around and found that Bell insurance could do it for £222.00. So we filled in the forms and paid for the year. All done and dusted we thought until today. We received a letter from Bell saying we had an outstanding claim with Diamond and we need to pay additional £95.00. We thought this was out of order as we did not have a claim outstanding with Diamond.

On speaking to diamond they advised us that as we had discussed it with them they always open a claim.

We have not filled out any claims forms of any kind, but we did send details of the damage for Diamond to compile a letter to the local council.

This can’t be right can it?

Can anyone help us out of where to go next as we feel that we shouldn’t be paying the extra £95.00 for an outstanding claim that we never instructed Diamond to raise.

Please help.

raskazz

There are 2 possible scenarios as I see it:

1) Diamond have an open claim on record which has not been recorded correctly on their systems. It may be open as a pending or fault claim with the associated effect on NCD unless you have protected NCD.

2) Diamond have correctly recorded the incident as a non-fault claim, but it was not disclosed by you to Bell and so they have discovered it and amended the premium.

In light of the figures given I suspect it is the former. Call Diamond and ask them to amend their records to show that the incident was disclosed for notification purposes only, and request a confirmation in writing.

Then call Bell and ask them if they want any proof, if so ask them to call Diamond or send them the letter you have requested from Diamond.

Quentin

Write and get the open claimed closed.

Get this confirmed in writing, then pass the letter to your new insurer.

You may still have an increased premium to pay (over the original) as it seems you didn't tell your new insurer anything at all about the incident.

Badger_Lady

Did you declare the incident to Bell? You need to do this whether or not you actually claim.

Smithers_uk

badger lady we didn't claim this to Bell as we forgot due to the incident taking so long to sort out.

I think we shall get Diamond to close this so called claim.

So from what I can make form it we still have to pay the £95.00 then. If we get Diamond to close the claim then we should not have any problems in the future then?

Quentin

Not necessarily. Once you can show your new insurers there are no claims outstanding, they may not want all of the £95. But there could be an increase in the original premium to pay.

And you must tell all insurers for the next 3 years about the incident.