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The claim game

I recently parked my car and went to a meeting. On my return somebody had gone into the back of my car and dented it. Needless to say, no name and address had been left. I decided to claim through my insurance, and now wished I hadn't. Firstly I had to pay £35.75 to cover the courtesy car for insurance (apparently they don't take the insurance off of ones own car and transfer it to the courtesy car these days). Obviously I had to pay the excess, but was told by my insurance company that I could claim that all back, because I pay for legal cover. It turned out that was also not the case. I'm now told that I will have a fault claim on my insurance for the next 5 years, which will increase my insurance quote. Before the work was started, I decided to opt out of claiming, and pay for the work myself, and was then told, if I did that, I would still have a fault claim on my insurance, because I had started the claim. All this, and at the end of the day, it was somebody else's fault. Is the information that I have received from my insurance company correct?

Asked on 10 January 2009 by

Answered by Honest John
Unfortunately, yes. It's usually obvious to most people that if you make a claim like this on your insurance then that claim will be on your record and may well cost you more than repairing the damage. But this will serve as a warning.
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