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Also, be VERY certain that when you renewed online there wasn't anything in the small print on the screen about revealing any recent claims - this site has plenty of us bemoaning our rough deals whilst the scumbags + ne'r-do-wells of this world get away with everything.
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What if the shop assistant gave someone too much change and they pocketed it and left the shop without counting it first (or were incapable of addition anyway) ?
-Would that make them a bad or criminal person?
Apologies in advance for a brief excursion onto Carmad?s Mini again- sorry, I spot that the insurance premium is actually £1400, but he?s only paying his dad a portion of that. I know that the insurers ARE aware who is the main driver ? but it still seems like a surprisingly low figure for an 18 year old main driver of a heftily-modified new Mini.
It makes you think twice about the adage of ?getting insurance in your own name so you can build up your own no-claims discount? ?One wonders whether if you do the sums he?d be financially better off sticking with this arrangement for years and only getting his own insurance when he?s 25 or 30!
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I was involved in a case 4 years ago. Before you all jump on your 'watch out, be careful' horses, this has all been explained to the insurance brokers.
Company van insured for all drivers through broker, being driven by 20 year old crashes into 2 year old astra. Score: Hilux - broken numberplate; Astra - writeoff. Never received request for £500 excess, which thought was odd, but insurance companies can be slow. Did see reduction in no claims bonus for following year though.
Some months later, it transpired - for a completely different reason unconnected with any claim - that although the brokers had been writing to us annually for many years confirming all drivers (their letter included a different excess rate for under 25s), the insurer had a complete exclusion on the policy for under-25s.
It appears that the reason we weren't asked for the excess was because the driver was completely uninsured... Almost makes one wonder why we all bother driving with insurance at all...
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I didnt contribute to Carmads thread but i\'m 100% behind him and totally believe, and agree with what he\'s doing.
I\'m 27 so it wasnt long ago when i was trying to sort out insurance more cost effectively. There are ways and means without invalidating your insurance and it sounds like he\'s done just the thing. Any young driver who uses any of the main companies is a fool because they just arent geared for younger drivers, and he sounds like he\'s done his research and got a good deal. If anything i think it should be less - Not all insurance mods add to the premium - only certain ones. After all his car was a very low group to begin with.
I sense everyone is cynical because they all a) think they know better than him b)cant believe a young lad actually had the knowledge to beat the system, c) got it far cheaper than they thought possible because, well hey, everyone thinks they get the absolute best deal for their insurance d) are jealous that they didnt get the help when they were his age to get a car like his and so think he\'s a lazy pink fluffy dice who\'s spoilt, when in fact his parents are doing well enough to give a little assistance coupled with his own hard work.
Carmad - Lucky lad, fair play to you, enjoy the car, dont kill anyone nor yourself and be smug that you perplex people who really dont know as much as they think....
Now can everyone stop being cynical please and just let him get on
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Hey, *I* wasn?t having a go at him ? all power to the lad, I was just genuinely surprised at the £1400 figure when at the end of the day it?s still an 18 year old who?s doing 99% of the driving (especially when he goes off to uni) and custodianship (!) of a 135 hp, modified, Mini (potentially more attractive to vandals and wheel thieves than say a G plate Uno).
One tends to think of the insurers having closed all the loopholes these days ? but it seems I may not know as much as I think. At least I think I may not know as much as I think. Then again, maybe I don?t even know that.
It?s all one of wossisname?s ?Unknown unknowns??
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I think Phoenicks is right. A friend of mine who used to drive a moddified (not bits of plastic stuck on, but larger capacity engine, fast road cams etc), found some companies quoted a lower price for a modified car.
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"What if the shop assistant gave someone too much change and they pocketed it and left the shop without counting it first (or were incapable of addition anyway) ?
-Would that make them a bad or criminal person?"
Not sure I follow your logic TC - did Andrew T not notice he had an accident?
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Thanks for all the posts, folks. I still haven't decided whether to load my conscience for a while. In reply to Steve S, it seems odd that my insurers haven't noticed my accident despite settling the claim. Some subsidiary points which occur to me:
- incident was signed off in August, so insurer's records must be complete by now? Though as their claims line is answered somewhere in India, I have some doubts about thorough record-keeping.
- would the broker necessarily know of the claim? Do they send out renewal reminders without checking with their provider?
- surely the injunction to notify all claims is aimed mainly at those who change insurers, or use more than one policy?
- the policy states "For each claim you make or is made against you, you MAY lose some or all your NCD ..". Maybe I didn't?
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Having made a claim and paid his excess on his accident, he finds his next renewal notice is cheaper than before, despite him believing he doesn't have protected NCB, and there being no mention on the renewal notice of him having made a claim.
His question was then - 'seems odd : should I go back to them and enquire whether they've made a mistake?'
Some people said he should, in case the insurers HAVE made a mistake which they realise when he makes a future claim and then consider him 'naughty' for not telling them, and render him uninsured.
My argument was that he COULD have not been 'naughty', but honestly forgotten all about the accident, just looked at the renewal price and thought it was acceptable, paid it, and carried on happily motoring for months, assuming his insurance was perfectly in order.
So in the event of the insurers noticing he hadn't paid as much as they would actually have charged him had they not made a mistake (if they have) - who would be at fault: them, or him?
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It's clearly the insurance companies own admin error - they seem to have settled the claim fully, and forgotten to amend his renewal quote. He HAS told them all relevant information - he told them in July when he made the claim. As far as Andrew-T needs to be concerned, his conduct was correct, and for some unknown reason he has been 'under-charged' for his renewal.
It's not his problem.
If they were to accuse him of fraud, he could quite plausibly say that he hadn't noticed the mistake - they didnt!
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I have just 'reminded' my brokers of my claim of last July as I have just checked through my documents and been surprised that it wasn't mentioned (new cover started today). Will keep you posted of their response.
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Well done.
IMHO, You have protected both your integrity and your insurance position. By putting the ball back in their court, you have significantly increased your negotiating position, should it be necessary. (Never underestimate an insurance company's ability to disappoint).
Regards
Vercin
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"(Never underestimate an insurance company's ability to disappoint)."
Vercin, I share your view that Andrew has done the right thing but as an insurer (non motor but with motor connections) I would mention that far more gets paid to frauds than is ever withheld from the genuine claimant.
That isn't to say admin errors don't occur, indeed it would surprise if they didn't given the sheer volume of activity and the unecessary complexity of UK regs.
In fact all that regulation and the Insurance Ombudsman have achieved so far:
1 Massively increased the costs of selling and administering insurancethat have to be passed on to ...yep, the customers!
2 Made it very complex for the honest.
3 Done nothing to frustrate, never mind prevent, fraud.
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My first response from the brokers was that they had checked with the (wrong) insurers who had no record of any claim. Rashly persisting with my attack of honesty I pointed them in the right direction. Today they inform me of a loss of 7 years NCB (out of 9) and ask for a further £118 premium.
I have told them this seems excessively punitive and asked for an explanation. Any comment or suggestions?
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Innit marvellous?...
Your tenacious pursuit of utter honesty now looks to have opened up a further can of worms for yourself.
You prodded them once over this and they couldn't even work out which insurers to enquire-of.
How long do you think it's going to take to get a rational explanation out of them or renegotiated hike?
In my experience, it's rare to get straightforward service out of anybody these days. Things always seem to have to be chased-up. And the more complicated anything is, the more the other party trip over their own bootlaces trying to sort it out.
If they respond at all.
I just hope you don't end up losing 9 years' NCB and being asked for £200 if you ever get them to assess it again.
I do wonder whether if you just walked off in the opposite direction, whistling to yourself, they'd just as likely forget you'd ever enquired about the matter in the first place...
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Hindsights a great thing and i think many of us telling you not to bother was as close as it gets.
I suppose it comes as no surprise that you're now going to pay more. Should have stuffed the morales and kept your cash and bonus and just dealt with it if it ever came up.
Bad luck and i cant blame you for dealing with it to make yourself feel better, i just think that in this day and age you give a company an inch and they take a mile.
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On the brighter side, at least you know you're insured.
If they're that hopeless then we can be confident that in the event of an accident this would be regarded as a material non-disclosure... after all when you "disclosed" it to them they increased the premium so it must have been material...
Reminds me of the fire insurance claim which was refused as the
policy required the policyholder to take reasonable precautions to prevent fire. The insurer stated that they had grounds to believe that reasonable precautions were not taken.
The grounds? You guessed it - the building had burnt down.
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LOL, Patently!
On the other hand, is there such a thing as 'material non-competence' by the brokers?
Since we're kind of talking morals, morally they should have said "We're supposed to take 7 years off your NCB and charge you another £118, but we're actually going to just take 2 years off your NCB and GIVE you £50 in recognition of our incompetence and you doing half our work for us."
(Crikey, I'm having a rare 'glass-is-half-full' moment)
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Update: I am now insured through LloydsTSB. Having already renewed my previous policy and been asked for the £118 increase, I trawled the web for about 10 quotes, reporting the claim of last July. LlT came in at £168 - rather less than the £292 which HSBC were asking. I suspect I should really have paid more, but if that is what the system calculates, why argue?
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Hi Andrew,
I was curious to know how you got on.
Well done, you played this with a straight bat and came out quids in (if you ignore that time you had to spend on it). A good result, well deserved.
I do want what "value" some brokers add?
regards
Vercin
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v - it cost me £60 to cancel the HSBC policy, but I more than recovered that by taking the LlT quote. At the same time I saved £26 by switching from RAC cover (which I have had for 30 yrs) to the Green Flag as part of the package. I think we have called RAC 3 or 4 times: I flattened a battery by leaving lights on during the day, clutch cable broke on 205 DT, and wife ran out of diesel when fuel sensor in tank misbehaved. Maintenance pays off.
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