sorry this may sound like a stupid question but in my 20 years of driving fortunately I have never needed to claim on insurance so not really sure how it works!

basically someone has driven in to my car, no idea who, they drove off. Looking at £500 – 600 worth of damage.

Don’t think my NCB is protected, my premiums are pretty low around £200pa.

is it worth claiming? Or will I pay more over the next 10 years in increased premiums and be better off just sucking it up?

Thanks in advance

Is it £500 to actually get it fixed or £500 if you go through insurance? Usually if paying cash it’s cheaper, more so if you happy with second hand parts. It probably will put your premium up by a bit for the next few years but hopefully not that much. Personally I’d still rather fix ityself to avoid the hassle of dealing with insurers

Yea £500 to get it fixed

Just pay it yourself, a world of pain will ensue if you go through insurance.   You’ll have to pay the excess anyway so the difference might only be £150.  make sure the body shop knows you’re paying yourself though as they tend to inflate insurance jobs.

Thanks all,

its in the body shop.

Fortunatly a while back, my wife forced me to do a small direct debit each month into another account just for car expenses. Not that it makes it any less annoying but least it’s covered. I was really anti the idea and dug my heels in at the time.

Might have to do the manly thing and admit she was right. But I doubt I will 🙂

Might have to do the manly thing and admit she was right. But I doubt I will

Go one further and tell her that it was a good job you had the idea to put some money aside each month, even though she was against it.

As long as you are happy defrauding your insurance company by not disclosing the loss, then fixing the damage yourself will probably work out cheaper in the long run.

As long as you are happy defrauding your insurance company by not disclosing the loss

I doubt any right-thinking person would lose any sleep over that – and I don’t see how it could be classed as fraud either.

As long as you are happy defrauding your insurance company by not disclosing the loss

Utter nonsense.

Don’t ring your insurance company for advice either – a colleague of mine did, value was similar to yours. He opted to have the work done himself, but the insurance co still put up his premium as he was a higher risk

As long as you are happy defrauding your insurance company by not disclosing the loss,

SRSLY? Where do you draw that line? Stone chip on the bonnet you don’t repair? INSURANCE FRAUD.

Point of note here, something I found out the hard way.  Without a third party to claim against, the insurance company will probably record this as an own-fault accident.  That’s right, even though you weren’t even in the car at the time, it’s your fault.

For the sake of £500 against a £200/year insurance premium, I’d suck it up and pay out of pocket (or not bother repairing it, depending on the damage and age of the car).

I doubt any right-thinking person would lose any sleep over that

I most certainly wouldn’t.

and I don’t see how it could be classed as fraud either

The OP is obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception, that is the very definition of fraud.

Utter nonsense.

What do you disagree with? That the OP’s insurance contract will contain a clause stating that he needs to disclose this incident?

SRSLY? Where do you draw that line? Stone chip on the bonnet you don’t repair?

That’s just absurdum.

What do you disagree with?

Pretty much everything you type, it seems. I’ll learn to ignore.

Problem is, he’s technically right. And just demonstrating yet ANOTHER way in that insurance companies are complete scoundrels.

Problem is, he’s technically right.

In your face DezB!

And you have no argument.

Statistically, the OP is more likely to have a similar loss, which is why his insurance will most likely go up if he declares this loss, which is why I wouldn’t.

SRSLY? Where do you draw that line? Stone chip on the bonnet you don’t repair?

That’s just absurdum.

Genuine question, where do you draw the line? £500 may well be a stone chip repair on some cars

That’s a question only your insurance co. can accurately answer, but I’d class a stone chip as wear and tear.

As long as you are happy defrauding your insurance company by not disclosing the loss

Really?

The whole world of car insurance is basically one big scam, each step is designed to extract money for all the feeders in the chain.

My wife got a little scuff while she was dropping off the kid at nursery.  Really nothing more serious than a scuffed bumper.  Other party admitted liability and asked what we wanted to do.  We said it was only minor so if they were okay to pay it we would just get a quote for a body shop to repair it.

Quote was £150.  At this point the other party got cold feet and wanted to go through insurance.

We report a no fault claim to our insurance.

They hand it off to a 3rd party claims management company

Their service includes financial packages and insurance, which are free to us (ie someone else pays) in case the other parties insurance doesn’t pay.

They offer car hire, which we’ll now need because they direct us to their “approved” body shop who is on the other side of town rather than round the corner from my work and they quote 2 days for the job and £650 rather than being able to do it in a day.

Total cost must be now well over £1000 and this is about as simple as a claim can get with one party accepting complete liability and no suggestion of personal injury.

Then come renewal time to the great surprise of precisely no one the insurance premium has gone up despite my wife being at no fault.  To add insult on top they seemed to have shared (ie sold) the claims database to every shady injury company in the land.

So maybe if the whole industry behaved in a more open and honest way less people would try and avoid using their “services” for small value claims

I’ll learn to ignore.

https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/stw-killfile-plugin/

They do say ignorance is bliss. 🙂

Then come renewal time to the great surprise of precisely no one the insurance premium has gone up despite my wife being at no fault.

This is the bit people struggle to get their head around.

Your wife’s insurance premium went up because she was statistically more of a risk. Nothing sinister about it, just cold hard stats.

“Your wife’s insurance premium went up because she was statistically more of a risk. Nothing sinister about it, just cold hard stats.”

I don’t think most people have trouble understanding this. I think most people dispute that paying for a service where the provider underwrites an element of risk means them doing just that. Anyone who drives will be at risk of their car being dented by another driver – where the car is based will automatically provide an indication of how many other insured cars are in the area (and probably uninsured as well) and so give a good idea of how likely a no fault accident is to occur. i.e if the car is based on a remote hebredean island it may be less likely to be dented in a shopping centre carpark then if it is based in Basingstoke. This should be enough to slightly alter premiums. A car that is based in Basingstoke and has been bumped in a shopping centre car park is statistically probably very very slightly more likely to be bumped again due to the known fact that it has been to a shopping centre car park and may well do so again. However we all know that premiums rise far in excess of that minor increased risk for all the reasons above and to compensate for all the cars that also visit supermarkets in Basingstoke but haven’t been bumped yet – thus the insurance company bears no increased risk.

It didn’t used to be like this but now insurance companies are just as fraudulent as those obscurring claims. Its just another part of our adversarial consumer society.

I’d argue my insurance company try to defraud me every year by just sticking a 100 quid on the renewal  and seeing If i notice.

I then have to call up threaten to leave, they go and “chat to a supervisor” and see what they can do on the price, and surprise surprise it’s back down to the same amount again.

However we all know that premiums rise far in excess of that minor increased risk

If we only paid for what damages were going to occur then there would be no need for insurance and the roads would be a lot quieter!

thus the insurance company bears no increased risk

The insurance company bears all the risk and it is a huge one. Typically the sum total of premiums paid is less than the sum total of payouts.

This is the bit people struggle to get their head around.

Your wife’s insurance premium went up because she was statistically more of a risk. Nothing sinister about it, just cold hard stats.

The bit that’s so galling is that you the 3rd party’s insurance should return you to the state that you were previous to the incident that happened through no fault of your own. So they fix tor car, paid for by the third party’s premiums which will no doubt go through the roof upon renewal to account, but then the insurance industry double jeopardies you and claws the money back from you anyway, putting you at a ‘pecuniary disadvantage’, through no fault of your own. I’m fairly sure that insurance companies compensate themselves for risks that have already been calculated in several times. They are guilty of utilising any spurious statistical reason to hike a premium, but they won’t do the same to reduce one.

Insurance is a licence to print money, even more so now the auto renewal bollocks is legal. Don’t get me started on that particular legalised scam. Funny how a simple phonecall can reduce your premium and alleged ‘risk’ so much, isn’t it?

insurance companies skirt a very fine line between shady business and actually defrauding the public on a massive scale, too massive to properly comprehend. Whilst it’s legal (or at least getting away with it) it’s very immoral. As stated in the example above, it’s a huge industry designed to milk money at every step, and the only actual income is from the policy holders, so we all lose in the end.

I’d argue my insurance company try to defraud me every year by just sticking a 100 quid on the renewal and seeing If i notice.

I then have to call up threaten to leave, they go and “chat to a supervisor” and see what they can do on the price, and surprise surprise it’s back down to the same amount again.

If you don’t like their business model, change insurers.

On the other hand be grateful for all the suckers blindly accepting their increases because they are keeping your premium down. 🙂

“he insurance company bears all the risk and it is a huge one. Typically the sum total of premiums paid is less than the sum total of payouts.”

Really?

Thompsons asks insurers to justify increase in profits as car insurance premiums continue to rise

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/direct-lines-soaring-profits-and-dividend-and-the-real-reason-youre-paying-all-time-high-motor-a7870851.html

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/10/the-car-insurance-industry-is-a-disgusting-racket/

I could go on, funnily enough there are quite a few hits on this one…..

The insurance company bears all the risk and it is a huge one. Typically the sum total of premiums paid is less than the sum total of payouts.

And that’ll be why all those insurance companies are going bankrupt all the time?

the only actual income is from the policy holders

And investments/other services. If the only income was from policies sold they would go bust.

Insurance companies realised a few years ago that it’s all about the cash flow. A small percentage of a big number is far preferable to a bigger percentage of a small number. It’s why they don’t clamp down on large payouts, because it just ups the figures and they make more the next year. Thousands of pounds for a scuffed bumper? Suits you sir. It’s the very example of how pure capitalism gets it so wrong.

What pissed me off was not being able to use my NCB on more than one car, ’cause I could sure as hell lose it on more than one car!

I’m still failing to understand why deciding against using your insurance to repair your car is de-frauding them?

My phone broke when I dropped it, I didn’t claim it on my contents insurance, even tho it’s insured, have I de-frauded them?

I’m still failing to understand why deciding against using your insurance to repair your car is de-frauding them?

It isn’t.

Not telling them about it is.

What pissed me off was not being able to use my NCB on more than one car, ’cause I could sure as hell lose it on more than one car!

You can build up as many NCBs as you have cars or policies, and you only lose it on the ones you make a claim against. (You still have to declare incidents against all policies but that’s a different thing.)

Yes, but if I want to own two cars I can only use my discount for not claiming on one.

Why am I less of a risk due to a history of careful driving in one car but not the other? I can only drive one at once and my (exemplary 😀 ) driving history doesn’t suddenly change.

Statistically, the OP is more likely to have a similar loss, which is why his insurance will most likely go up if he declares this loss, which is why I wouldn’t.

Baseless statistical statements aside,

If the OP has an incident which they don’t claim on insurance and is therefore statistically more likely to have another incident which he doesn’t claim on the insurance, how does this affect the insurance company financially?  If anything their premiums should be coming down because they’re not bothering to claim for every little thing.

If there’s no third party involved, really isn’t it just damage?  If you dropped a hammer onto your car bonnet in your garage, should that be notifiable?

If there’s no third party involved, really isn’t it just damage?  If you dropped a hammer onto your car bonnet in your garage, should that be notifiable?

There’s often a clause in insurance that you must inform them of damage, if you don’t it could invalidate your insurance. Someone driving into your car is probably worth reporting more than dropping a hammer on your car.

Baseless statistical statements aside

Far from baseless, I was once privy to the data and stats of one of the UK’s biggest auto insurers.

If the OP has an incident which they don’t claim on insurance and is therefore statistically more likely to have another incident which he doesn’t claim on the insurance, how does this affect the insurance company financially?  If anything their premiums should be coming down because they’re not bothering to claim for every little thing.

If there’s no third party involved, really isn’t it just damage?  If you dropped a hammer onto your car bonnet in your garage, should that be notifiable?

What is and isn’t notifiable is between the insured and the insurer.

Unless you are missing a comma, I have emboldened the bit of your scenario that holds an assumption that is incorrect. No idea what relevance it is, it is completely inapplicable to the OP’s situation where there was a third party involved.

The insurance company bears all the risk and it is a huge one. Typically the sum total of premiums paid is less than the sum total of payouts.

Well the risk is reinsured, so I’m not sure there’s much risk (with a lower case “r”), but yes, in the last 22 years the motor insurance market has seen an underwriting profit once, in 2015. So all the people wailing about insurance companies getting rich etc, they’re not doing it on underwriting drivers!

Still disagree that you’re defrauding them though.

sbob

The OP is obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception, that is the very definition of fraud.

B0LL0CKS.

How many people have a fraud conviction for this?

It’s breach of contract at worst.

Frikkin’ armchair Big-Hitters :rollseyes:

Still disagree that you’re defrauding them though.

Come renewal, you’ll be lying to them to save money.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/35/crossheading/fraud