Not read all of the posts, but here’s a bit of personal experience.

My wife got bashed into at a car park under the same circumstances. The other driver fessed up (after being dobbed in by a bystander who left a note on our windscreen). To be fair, he/she had no idea they’d smashed into us – he/she was very old apparently.

Anyway, to get to the point. The insurance renewal quote went up a bit the next year, but that was mostly rectified by shopping around. Then the subsequent year there was no appreciable hike in price. Obviously, I can’t be totally sure that my wife isn’t badged for the rest of her life as higher risk, but I reckon if that were the case then I’d notice a peak in her insurance premium that never went down. As it was, I reckon it was only a £25 spike for a year.

CBA commenting on all the repeated arguments where you’re ignoring what’s been said several times or reckoning that you know better than the highly paid actuaries who the insurance companies employ. But this is I think a new argument:

Maybe it is. It would seem quite a logical thing for the insurers to do in that case. Clearly if you avoid the insurers by getting £200 cash for a repair which can be done for that price rather than sending a £1000 bill to your insurers by going to a main dealer, they wouldn’t have any reason to increase your premiums…

I’m not sure how your main dealer (who you chose to go to) charging excessive amounts for a job is your insurance company’s fault.

I stopped on a narrow road for an orange trollop in a Range Rover Sport who didn’t and hit my wing mirror with hers. She stopped to pick up the many pieces of her mirror, swore at me and drove off.

Stupidly I phoned my insurance thinking I could get a foot in the door in case the husband worked out how much a new mirror was and wanted to claim. I described what happened, said I was not making a claim myself as there was no damage to my car and that I had an eye witness who would attest that I had stopped and was not at fault.

They never did make a claim but come renewal time my premium had doubled as I now had no NCB as apparently there could be a claim at some point.. I argued this with someone at the brokers and after getting a bit shouty with me they agreed to talk with their manager. Ten seconds later she came back and said all NCB was reinstated, no accident was being recorded for which I thanked her, oh and would I like to renew my cover? I laughed and hung up.

I was involved in a non-fault accident in May (similar situation, car parked, other driver accepted liability). Just got a renewal price on the insurance which is due next week.

It’s gone down by 18p.

Just saying.

CBA commenting on all the repeated arguments where you’re ignoring what’s been said several times or reckoning that you know better than the highly paid actuaries who the insurance companies employ.

Most certainly this.

I’ve tried, but apparently some people just want to believe it’s all a badly organised scam where they just guess the premiums, add a bit just in case, and then add a bit more just for a laugh.

No amount of actual real world professional knowledge will matter.

Actually I believe it’s a very well organised scam.

‘This latest information that has been sat on by the ABI completes a picture they would rather not have out there – of a booming industry with healthy profits and cash reserves paying out huge dividends,’

‘This isn’t a sector buckling under the weight of “fraud” as they would want the British public to believe.’

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/abi-data-shows-insurers-saving-billions-in-claims-costs/5058366.article

My insurance goes up about 25% every year and I have to go through the same bs ringing around competitors until I get it back down to the original price and my current insurer matches or beats it song and dance, thought it was normal.

Try letting your policy lapse and then ask for a new quote from the company rather than just renewing. It’s been less then the renewal price every time for me.

My insurance goes up about 25% every year and I have to go through the same bs ringing around competitors

Renewal prices are a different story.
That’s just making the most of lazy customers who don’t check prices. And it’s a bit shit.
But not really relevant to this situation.

Maybe it is. It would seem quite a logical thing for the insurers to do in that case. Clearly if you avoid the insurers by getting £200 cash for a repair which can be done for that price rather than sending a £1000 bill to your insurers by going to a main dealer, they wouldn’t have any reason to increase your premiums…

I’m not sure how your main dealer (who you chose to go to) charging excessive amounts for a job is your insurance company’s fault.

But the decision to go to a main dealer in this instance isn’t affecting her insurer…
If it was me I wouldn’t have anyway.. just due to the fact the main dealer takes 3 days to do the job.

The point is had she bumped the car and had to claim on her insurance I’d have more strongly suggested (since I’m paying) she just pays the £250 to get a new bumper fitted at the same place she gets her MOT fitted.

some people just want to believe it’s all a badly organised scam where they just guess the premiums, add a bit just in case, and then add a bit more just for a laugh.

No amount of actual real world professional knowledge will matter.
I’m not saying there isn’t data behind it … I’m simply saying that’s not ALL there is behind it.
How they manipulate this data is the question …
I don’t understand why her insurance are urging her to make a claim through THEM…. ??? but surely that itself manipulate the data…. ???

Personally I feel the Honda dealership seem to be pulling the biggest part of the scam… I don’t understand how they are so confident they can quote to respray a non painted bumper?

I’m sure most people with a car insurance claim really just want it cleared up… (not everyone but most) and the whole system seems to penalise the honest people who are simply trying to follow the process.

I think for me the thing is car insurance is a (pretty much) compulsory part of life… like having a bank account or having water… or a MOT

It’s not like choosing to buy a bike or not… or do I want to pay X amount for bearings vs X/5 …. or just wear the things to the ground…

It’s not I don’t understand the need for compulsory MOT or car insurance it’s simply that it needs to be regulated differently. (IMHO)

For example a few weeks ago I chose to buy a tent and some equipment from Millets via Internet .. the whole thing was a lifestyle choice. I paid for a next day delivery which SOMEONE screwed up… and they silently refunded the next day cost… (next day being 2 as I ordered late at night)
I saw the money go back and called them and after a not unreasonable amount of time on a non-premium rate number spoke to someone and said either deliver tomorrow or cancel but make your mind up…

They and I both knew that legislation existed .. and they actually got the stuff delivered… but this to me FEELS different to something I can’t choose to buy or not….

I don’t FEEL like a customer … and I don’t FEEL like they treat me as a customer but someone forced to use a service.

the whole system seems to penalise the honest people who are simply trying to follow the process.

I’m not convinced you aren’t just feeling bitter and exaggerating the reality of the situation.

I chose to buy a tent and some equipment from Millets via Internet .. the whole thing was a lifestyle choice.

Owning a car is a lifestyle choice too.

There are costs associated with ownership, but those costs are avoidable if you really don’t like them.

I had an ‘accident’ in a multi storey car park I used to use for work every day a few years ago. I was reversing as the car 2 in front misjudged the ramp and backed up without looking, so guy in front of me did the same. I reverse back to avoid being hit, whilst actually looking, and as I’m going backwards a car drives down the the ramp from the level above, turns right and actually drives into the back of me as I’m reversing. I couldn’t really stop as the guy in front was looking like he’d hit me.

I had a witness, he sent his account in twice, my insurers lost it, twice. Found me at fault, I lost 3 years no claims and premium went up.

When I queried it with my insurer a very helpful woman informed that in all cases they find the reversing party at fault regardless of circumstance, and my witness account was pointless. She said that way it eventually evens itself out across the industry on who pays out and they’re all happy.

Core, from your description I would say you were at fault in that situation.
You were moving the wrong way on a one way (presumably) ramp.

“That’s just making the most of lazy customers who don’t check prices.”

Such a telling statement

This whole shop around thing gets right on my knackers. I buy hundreds of goods and services every year – why the hell should I sopend my very limited free time ‘shopping around’ when all that entails is passing free data to all and sundry.

Insurance is a scam. It wasn’t for a long time but it is now.

I can only assume neal works for the insurance industry to be such an apologist for a hideous network of legalised scammers which incorporates claim management companies, car hire and of course manufacturers who produce designs which need to be written off after a minor shunt. Its a crazy world.

can only assume neal works for the insurance industry to be such an apologist for a hideous network of legalised scammers

I don’t.

And if you could be bothered to read the thread properly, you would already know that and wouldn’t look quite so stupid.

Hope that helps.

Insurance is a scam. It wasn’t for a long time but it is now.

Of course it is dear.

As there is a perfect example in this thread. Here you go…

The OP (or at least his wife) is insisting on taking the repair to Honda, who he has admitted are charging 5 times more than the repair is really worth, and adding on things to the bill that don’t need doing.

The “insurance industry” will be paying that bill (at least initially) 5 times more than they should really be paying, if the OP wasn’t insisting on taking it to a dealership he knows is waaaaay overcharging for the work.

So who is scamming who ?

Premiums will rise as a result of garages such as this one defrauding insurance companies by overquoting on insurance repairs.
And people moan when their premiums rise, but happily pass on a vastly overpriced bill to their insurers.

So you’re expecting the insurance company to know the ins and outs of your marriage, that some of the time you’re in charge, some of the time you’re not and that you’d make an insurance claim in one situation and not the other? 🙄

The only information they have is that you have made an insurance claim in this situation, therefore it’s not an unreasonable assumption that you’d also make an insurance claim in the same situation if it was your insurance company paying. At least that’s what their statistics suggest.

There are some patient people on here. Very well explained (however in vain the explanation seems to be….)

MrsP had someone reverse into her car in the summer – he accepted full responsiblity, his insurance fixed her car with no claim made and they confirmed that this meant no impact on her own policy.

But she’s a named driver on my policy and when I checked my bank statement I found a £30 charge from my insurer relating to the ‘non fault accident’ she had. I’ve got the 30 quid back and told them they no longer have authority to charge to my card, but still need to fight to get rid of the record on my policy.

So yes you can argue statistics etc, but if the insurer of the damaged car isn’t taking the incident into account then it seems a bit far fetched for another insurer to slap a charge onto my insurance as a result.

Grrrrrr

I ran into a beemer at the approach to a roundabout a while back. Looking at both cars I couldn’t really see any damage to either bumper. The other party wanted to avoid insurers if possible but also wanted their car checked out for any damage that was not apparent. I was happy to go along with that so awaited a phone call.

The phone call duly arrived a few days later. Their local beemer dealer quoted £1300. I notified my insurers and left it to them to sort out. It seemed a crazy amount when I couldn’t see any damage, but that’s insurance repairs for you. Ages later I did notice a bent bracket holding my radiator grill which I replaced for less than a tenner. Maybe their car was hiding some expensive damage under the bumper, which deforms and springs back.

The bumper indeed deforms and springs back, but in these days of painted bumpers, sadly the paint doesn’t do the same and can crack. Then you get problems which won’t be covered by manufacturer warranties in the future, so if it was a fairly new BMW that 1300 quid could well have been just the cost of a resprayed bumper at an approved repairer so the driver keeps the paint warranty.

But hardly like buying a bike or a tent….
Not owning a bike or tent wouldn’t exclude me from the majority of jobs … It’s completely possible to get a job but the choice is rather limited. Even if I commuted by train I’d be back in the same situation of a service provider with a trapped base of customers who don’t get treated as customers.

The OP (or at least his wife) is insisting on taking the repair to Honda, who he has admitted are charging 5 times more than the repair is really worth, and adding on things to the bill that don’t need doing.

The “insurance industry” will be paying that bill (at least initially) 5 times more than they should really be paying, if the OP wasn’t insisting on taking it to a dealership he knows is waaaaay overcharging for the work.

So who is scamming who ?

It seems to me the insurance industry are scamming the insurance industry ….by the it all balances out in the statistics …

Premiums will rise as a result of garages such as this one defrauding insurance companies by overquoting on insurance repairs.
And people moan when their premiums rise, but happily pass on a vastly overpriced bill to their insurers.

But there is simply no incentive for me (or OH) to sort this out…

Core, from your description I would say you were at fault in that situation.
You were moving the wrong way on a one way (presumably) ramp.

So what should they actually do… let the reversing car in front hit them ?

From an insurance PoV that might provide clarity… but what is the correct way to tell this when they ask…”so the car in front was reversing into you and you did nothing?”

but then ultimately if the insurers then increase their premium anyway (regardless) what’s the incentive?

The fact is I actually feel like I’d like to tell the other parties insurers that it’s a non painted bumper… but they should know that anyway and I from our perspective there is no incentive and plenty of disinsentive

They already accepted the estimate so informing them that I think they are being scammed will only at best delay the repair.

At the end of the day… someone insured for 3rd party damages ran into her completely legally parked car.It doesn’t seem unreasonable that this gets sorted out costing us as little as possible (preferably nothing).. because surely that is why insurance is compulsory.

Premiums will rise as a result of garages such as this one defrauding insurance companies by overquoting on insurance repairs.
And people moan when their premiums rise, but happily pass on a vastly overpriced bill to their insurers.

So here is the thing… she has a specific model with a non-colour matched bumper … 90% of CRV’s have colour matched ones… (at least from when she was buying)

All the quotes she got (including the 3rd party’s company which was her previous insurer) were exactly the same for a CRV of that year – they made no differentiation on if it was a colour coded bumper or not… so despite this data being available by my reckoning they factor in the coloured bumper into the insurance cost…

Just MHO but colour coded bumpers are one of the stupidest ideas… certainly from an insurers PoV ???
Wouldn’t it make sense to offer a discount on insurance?

Are you trolling yourself now? Remind me again why you started this thread, and what difference it would have made to you if you’d taken the cash the other bloke offered for a simple repair rather than putting it through your insurance…

Wouldn’t it make sense to offer a discount on insurance?

That’s a good idea, because clearly the claims will be less for non painted bumpers, or people might even decide to avoid an insurance claim altogether and replace it themselves. Oh hang on…

The main differences
1/The very small (IMHO) risk that something more significant is damaged and it’s just a bumper.
The current Honda quote say’s that this won’t be known until they pull the bumper off so we’re covered if it is…. however this doesn’t affect HER insurers anyway…

2/ Her insurance documents say she has to inform them ANYWAY

That’s a good idea, because clearly the claims will be less for non painted bumpers, or people might even decide to avoid an insurance claim altogether and replace it themselves. Oh hang on…

See 2 above ….

TBH had this happened on my car (with colour coded bumper) I wouldn’t even bother replacing the bumper…

You do realise that the cost of insurance is based upon future risk?

Do you think it would be reasonable for the insurance to be cheaper for your car than the insurance for your wife’s?

t seems to me the insurance industry are scamming the insurance industry ….by the it all balances out in the statistics

Nope.
Honda main Dealers are not part of the insurance
Industry.
By charging for repair work that isn’t needed, they are scamming the insurance industry (directly) and scamming anyone who pays an insurance premium (indirectly)
And by enabling them to do so, by letting them get away with passing false costs to an insurer, you have become part of the problem.

But there is simply no incentive for me (or OH) to sort this out…

And you have removed your right to moan about increased premiums as a result. Well done.

So what should they actually do… let the reversing car in front hit them ?

Or…. maybe…. lean on the horn ?
That tends stop low speed manoeuvres pretty quick.
Especially in an enclosed space like a car park ramp.

How does whether or not the other party decides to pay out of his own pocket or make a insurance claim change this ??

Moreover if the other party did then how does this then increase the risk for the insurer ? and if it doesn’t why do they insist on being informed?

So what should they actually do… let the reversing car in front hit them ?

Not been so close to the car in front in a situation where that car is likely to need some space?

Not been so close to the car in front in a situation where that car is likely to need some space?

In a perfect world where every accident has someone wholly to blame???
From experience when I’m stopping I’m also making sure the person behind doesn’t run into me…
Sometimes that means I end up closer to the car in front than ideal… however I could take the attitude that them running into me is their problem… if they hit my car it’s their problem

EXCEPT it isn’t…. because they run into me whilst on the phone and putting their make up on whilst leaning over to the kids in the back and it affects MY insurance. Regardless of how many laws they are breaking and how badly they are driving it apparently means I’m more likely for someone to run into me again…

Not only that but I prefer to not have an accident .. regardless of who’s fault it is….

However the other time this happens is when the car in front starts off with plenty of room but backs up because the car in front backs up because the car in front backs up….

I’ve had to back up dozens of times but never had an accident doing so but I’m sure I’d have had plenty if I just stubbornly stuck on the handbrake and honked the horn!

The 3rd party’s insurers have the registration .. they have the information available to them that it’s a non-colour coded bumper… had it not been for the OH showing me the quote she’d not even have thought about it… she’s n more mechanically minded than most drivers…

On the other hand the insurers should understand this…

At this moment they have a quote…. it’s not an invoice that they have agreed to…
They then wish to deal DIRECTLY with the Honda dealer and cut the OH out… (their decision) which I think will mean she never gets the invoice.

The 3rd party’s insurers have the registration .

And you have the actual car.

It’s up to you what you choose to do. It’s just the ultimate irony when you come on here moaning about insurance premiums going up

But you can’t be arsed to alert anyone when you know that the dealership are scamming 5 x the value of the repairs that are needed.

And you have the actual car.

It’s up to you what you choose to do. It’s just the ultimate irony when you come on here moaning about insurance premiums going up

But you can’t be arsed to alert anyone when you know that the dealership are scamming 5 x the value of the repairs that are needed.

The dealership haven’t scammed anything yet… they have provided a quote.
The other parties insurance accepted the quote and now wish to deal DIRECT with the dealership

They are the ones decided to take me and OH out of the equation…. what gets done or not would seem to be between them and the dealer so long as the car comes back repaired.

And you have the actual car.

My job is not insuring cars or repairing bodywork…. Expert 1 had decided to talk directly to Expert 2…
I’m not the insured, that’s my OH for which the quote might as well be written in Nepalese…but even if it was me our interest is getting the car repaired… and let the experts decide what is required and what isn’t.. That is after all what they are paid to do?

From my own experience in our house insurance, even then they are not interested in my expert opinion… despite the 50M grant and the huge flood defences on a minor stream and it wining this and that award the insurance database for flood risk has not changed…

As a qualified expert in this I tried explaining that this must decrease the risk of flooding but I was told the ACTUAL RISK of flooding is irrelevant because all that matters is what their database says… and as the database hasn’t been updated the risk is the same as before.

(incidentally the house has never been flooded… since it was built and even prior to the very extensive flood management programme)

I give up.

You are totally correct.

Please moan away all you want.

The others with industry experience have covered off the reasons premiums may increase. Those who dont get it on this thread are probably the same who dont get it on every other thread.

Let me try putting it a different way..

Someone is going to pay the £millions it costs to fix damaged cars, buildings, people caused by motorists.

Your premuim is just someone (very clever and with all the data) guessing what your proportion of that £million should be.

Ultimately the best way to reduce insurance is stop crashing cars into each other.

Hopefully autonomous vehicles will be better drivers than people.

Hopefully autonomous vehicles will be better drivers than people.

At the very least, they will probably better understand how insurance works.

God help us all when they discover internet forums though.

Hang on…

From my own experience in our house insurance, even then they are not interested in my expert opinion…

Hahahahaha. Just spotted this.

Of course they aren’t interested in your opinion. Why would they be.

Are you genuinely surprised by this or just putting in the groundwork for a later play of the Edinburgh defence.

I presume the insurers being referred to in fairly scathing tones on this thread are entirely different from the insurers on the “helping a neighbour” thread who would be helping her sort her house out?

But you can’t be arsed to alert anyone when you know that the dealership are scamming 5 x the value of the repairs that are needed.

I think it would be fair to assume that an automotive insurance company ought to know this already – it’s not like it’s a secret that ALL the rest of the nation is managing to keep from them.

After that, the obvious question is why don’t THEY challenge it? Ultimately, they don’t need to as they can, as an industry, adjust premiums to cover their overall exposure to risk, as has been repeated by several of you. They aren’t losing out in the long run; their customers are.

They aren’t losing out in the long run; their customers are.

Yep. And moaning about increased premiums, while simultaneously doing sod all about it.

“It’s not my problem, why should I tell them!”

Ffs. Can nobody else see the irony in that.

“It’s not my problem, why should I tell them!”

shhhhhh – keep it under your hat, but they already know 🙄