An insurance lesson?

[Burnerman]

In my 42 years of driving cars and bikes, I've had the good fortune and luck never to have suffered any damage - not even a scratch to anything.
However, a couple of months ago I hired a van to help some friends move house, and broke my duck by putting a gouge in the side door.
No mitigating circumstances or excuses, just plain bad driving. Nothing else was damaged (apart from my pride).
Naturally I lost my insurance deposit (£250) as well as the hire fee, and I was fine with that.
However, as its now time to do some insurance renewals, I've found that my premiums are up by nearly £200 With 5 vehicles, thats quite a haul!
As the insurance claim was already taken care of by the hire company,
part of me wonders if I should have kept quiet about it
John

 

[Peter.N.]

Hi John

Sorry to hear about that, did you have protected no claims? Both my wife and myself have had accidents in the last five years after a long period of no claims, both our own fault, I didn't claim for my vehicles as one was a write off (the wifes ) and mine I repaired myself. My renewals this year were about £170 for the C5 and £130 for the 406. They didn't go up a lot immediately after the accidents but are considerably cheaper this year.

I almost always get a sharp increase of premium from my existing company so go onto confused.com for a quote which usually means changing companys.

Peter

 

[Burnerman]

I appreciate your reply, Peter.
I'm still not too sure how I stand really, but as I have now had an 'incident' therefore I am now a higher risk candidate, insurance wise.
All my vehicles (2 cars, 1 4x4, 1 van and a motor bike) have separate policies.....no multicar here.
All have protected no claims. As I said, the hire vehicle had its own cover and deposit, naturally enough which I lost. Therefore I didn't claim on any of 'my' policies.
As I'm changing my bike today, I arranged insurance transfer to the new one, only to discover that with my declaration of being a hooligan has cost me an extra £200
You can't win
Regards
John

 

[Peter.N.]

Seems hard on you John for what was a relatively minor incident, my wife went on one of these driver training schemes although its the first accident she has had in about 45 years, she made a good job of it mind She didn't get a conviction though fortunately as that does knock the insurance up, she had never even had a speeding ticket, neither have I - probably more by luck than judgment

I doubt myself that these 'multicar insurances' are any cheaper than the single quotes you can get from Confused.com and the like, I got about a third knocked off mine by changing companies this year. I am 74 now and my insurance is cheaper than it was a few years ago but we do live in a low risk area.

Peter

 

[Mursal]

They didn't mention the APP for the Iphone hanging off the rear view mirror yet, John, did they?

A bit like an ASBO tag for drivers .................

http://bit.ly/17F8PGd

If it wasn't about money, we could have a laugh about it, but they really have us cornered. Did you consider shopping around?

 

[Burnerman]

For the last few years, I've been very happy with my premiums from the likes of confused.com.....its just now that I've strayed from the straight and narrow they don't seem to like me anymore
John

 

[Peter.N.]

Try one of the others John

Peter

 

[Burnerman]

It tends to get a little complex, Peter......when an incident is mentioned on line, the date and details of the incident have to be entered.
Thats fair enough, but when it asks how much damage there was its not really for me to say, because all I did was lose my insurance deposit and collision damage waiver - the price of the repair wasn't disclosed to me.
John

 

[Peter.N.]

I had the same problem John. Because I didn't make a claim in respect of either of our vehicles I had no contact with either insurance company apart from the initial report consequently I have no idea how much the claims were for, only that Christine's involved a keep left sign, street light and a bus shelter.

When I filled out the online search I put in a guestimate of the cost and when I found a suitable quote I told them what I had done, they said it didn't matter as they don't use that information anyway, so now I just put £1000 on the form, if you don't put something it won't proceed as you have probably found. You could try the same approach - if you haven't already renewed them all.

Peter

 

[longdogs]

Hi John

Sorry to hear about that, did you have protected no claims? Both my wife and myself have had accidents in the last five years after a long period of no claims, both our own fault, I didn't claim for my vehicles as one was a write off (the wifes ) and mine I repaired myself. My renewals this year were about £170 for the C5 and £130 for the 406. They didn't go up a lot immediately after the accidents but are considerably cheaper this year.

I almost always get a sharp increase of premium from my existing company so go onto confused.com for a quote which usually means changing companys.

Peter

I had 9 years protected NCB then had two minor accidents within a short space of time. My premium went up by £200. When I questioned it, my brokers told me that protected NCB does not prevent your premiums from going up after an accident. So what is it for then? Obviously I am with a different company now.

 

[TerryMI5]

Hi John

Sorry to hear about that, did you have protected no claims? Both my wife and myself have had accidents in the last five years after a long period of no claims, both our own fault, I didn't claim for my vehicles as one was a write off (the wifes ) and mine I repaired myself. My renewals this year were about £170 for the C5 and £130 for the 406. They didn't go up a lot immediately after the accidents but are considerably cheaper this year.

I almost always get a sharp increase of premium from my existing company so go onto confused.com for a quote which usually means changing companys.

Peter

I had 9 years protected NCB then had two minor accidents within a short space of time. My premium went up by £200. When I questioned it, my brokers told me that protected NCB does not prevent your premiums from going up after an accident. So what is it for then? Obviously I am with a different company now.

Same thing happened to me and couldn't understand why I paid extra for the protected NCB if it doesn't help at all!
What company was you with?

 

[Peter.N.]

From what I can see the protected no claims only protects you to a degree, in the event of an accident it reduces the amount it would have gone up by if you didn't have it. There was a table of increased charges with one of my insurance renewals. The only way you can really cut the cost is by changing companies every year using one of the comparison firms.

Peter

 

[nickso]

Hi John

Sorry to hear about that, did you have protected no claims? Both my wife and myself have had accidents in the last five years after a long period of no claims, both our own fault, I didn't claim for my vehicles as one was a write off (the wifes ) and mine I repaired myself. My renewals this year were about £170 for the C5 and £130 for the 406. They didn't go up a lot immediately after the accidents but are considerably cheaper this year.

I almost always get a sharp increase of premium from my existing company so go onto confused.com for a quote which usually means changing companys.

Peter

I had 9 years protected NCB then had two minor accidents within a short space of time. My premium went up by £200. When I questioned it, my brokers told me that protected NCB does not prevent your premiums from going up after an accident. So what is it for then? Obviously I am with a different company now.

Same thing happened to me and couldn't understand why I paid extra for the protected NCB if it doesn't help at all!
What company was you with?

A common misconception. Protected NCB only protects your NCB, hence the name.

Think of your insurance quote in two parts, the first is for the actual insuring of the vehicle which cannot be protected in any way. The second part is NCB which is a discount for not making a claim. As NCB is earned over many years the insurance trade decided to fleece us a little more by enabling protection of this at a premium.

I bloke I know is fighting the insurers back by trying to negate at least one part of the scam. I have signed up. Although I haven't used it I fail to see what the catch is.

http://www.freemotorlegal.co.uk/

 

[AlanE]

NCD reduces the basic premium by a percentage amount and this is really a marketing ploy. How long will it be before someone is offering 90%, or even more?

Real question is what is the BASE premium, and how many know theirs. Insurance companies give the cost AFTER applicable discount is applied.

 

[nickso]

Easy to do on comparison sites.....just adjust your NCB to see your true cost.