Car insurance question

pratty

It would seem by their reckoning you ought to report every individual minute scratch. That would be obviously silly to do so but their doesn't seem to be a definitve line where there has been an incident of note.

No only I would drive the car.

When I phoned to cancel the renewal they dropped the quote by  over £400 (!) to £1,250. I could live with that if i had to but I thought I should still shop around. So the inital quote was far from the lowest they could give me.

ChuckMountain

The fact you are the only driver loads the premium, by how much will depend on the insurer.  Since you only have one years driving you will be paying more in both lack of no claims and having less experience.

Even Martin Lewis says check to see if adding somebody else lowers the premium.  They don't have to drive the car, just be able to do so.

Try adding a parent if applicable in the comparison to give you an idea

tommitch

Just need to be truthful, you've already told your current insurer about it, whether that is a mistake or not doesn't matter. Insurers share data between them, so why risk being caught in a lie?

AMc

You might find you do better with a broker rather than a comparison site.
I had good results from Adrian Flux when I moved to a higher performance car, they knocked hundreds off the comparison sites and I have years of accident free driving.

I would make sure that if you have mentioned the incident to your current insurer that you don't omit to mention it to the new one - when they ask for your no claims proof you will stand a good chance of getting caught out - having "refused insurance" on your record would be very bad news.

You mention that the valuation of the car was lower than the price of repair.
It's possible - though I wouldn't guaranty it - that the age and value of the car are counting against you too.  An old, low value car with a newish driver is - in the eyes of the insurer - less likely to be looked after.
It might be worth considering trading up - newer cars with better safety features are sometimes cheaper to insure.

pratty

It's not that i want to lie, I just wasn't sure what they want to know. If for exmaple they only wanted to know about accidents involving 3rd party damage or a claim then it wouldn't be dishonest to omit something they didn't wasnt to know.

I'm assuming people don't report every minor paint scuff since they'll repair it themselves and there's no third party involved, mine was more than a minor paint scuff but like a scuff it didn't cause anybody any loss besides myself, so where's the line?

ChuckMountain

You've pulled your front bumper bar off and reported it to your insurance.

A) it's not a minor scuff, it has caused you loss, equally if you have claimed it would have caused the insurance company loss.  As a result your risk profile has changed and you are now a higher risk.
B) you have reported it to the insurance therefore it is on a system of record and not declaring elsewhere as others and myself have said leads to a much bigger issue of canceling insurance.  That means your premium will rocket if you can get insured at all.

As for where a line exists, it's deliberately not clear so it can be argued about later if necessary.

Use the system as per the recommendations of others and myself including MSE state e.g. add another driver and check your occupation different definitions can make a massive difference which may off set your claim and it takes 5 mins to check.  Why wouldn't you?

DOBLY

^ The way I read it was that he damaged and pulled off the bumper cover, not the bumper bar - depending on the specific car they can be quite different things, and very different in terms of cost to repair...

IronGiant

The only issue really is that regardless of how bad it was it's now down on his insurance record as an accident.  So he's going to have to let any new insurer know about it at some point, even if he gets quotes without.

eastsoutheast

My sons motorbike was stolen fairly recently. It had a tracker fitted and the police found it. We reported it to the insurance company but when we received the repair estimate i decided to pay myself and avoid my son claiming. This meant we saved the insurance company over £2k on a policy that cost me £1500.

I was assured no claim would be recorded as no claim made. Sons renewal more than doubled because of the non claim. They tried saying he was now a greater risk.

Insurers are absolute robbing bas**rds and i am disgusted.

Its a crooked industry....

ChuckMountain

So the bike got nicked, which the insurers would have paid out for.  However (un)fortunately it has been recovered but damaged and so now you paid out of your own pocket.  I would have thought it is common knowledge these days that any hint of a claim or enquiry goes against you.  If the call/case handler adviser you that this would not be the case then make a formal complaint to the insurance company as they will have a recording of the call where you were advised.

At the end of the day they are business and need to cover costs and make a profit. The alternative is that we all pay more on our individual policies.