In February my daughter borrowed the family Fiesta as her University placements would have been impossible to get to by public transport. The car is insured in my wife's name, and she is a named driver. Within a month, the car had been dinged twice whilst parked. On the second occasion a mobile telephone number was left on her windscreen. When my daughter contacted this girl, she offered to have the car repaired by her uncle. My wife declined the offer and the girl will not respond to any attempt to re-contact her. My wife contacted the insurance company to ask for advice. They said they would try to locate the driver. Meanwhile both these incidents were obviously recorded as "our driver at fault", and the recent renewal premium has almost doubled. When I contacted the insurance company about the hike, I was advised that, despite the fact these accidents were not our fault, it was industry practice to treat them as such. So, what is the point of having a "protected no claims discount", which clearly made no difference here? Further, having discovered the effect that proceeding with this would make to the insurance premiums, I offered to withdraw the claim. This, apparently, will make no difference, having logged the incidents, the "own driver at fault" label will affect future insurance for a 5 year period-and will affect both my daughter, as well as my wife. Is this correct? I can just about see how my daughter will be penalised, just, but not why my wife should bear the future cost as well. Needless to say, I have now written to the insurance company to re-instate the claim, as I might as well try to get something out of this. It appears we were pretty naive at the start of all this, and wonder how many other motorists are also unaware of the potential "Catch 22" situation you could get into?