Two insurance policies on one car - who do we inform of an accident?

[dochsm]

I have fully comp insurance on my car with my wife as a named driver.

She has fully comp insurance on her own car and is insured to drive any other car, including mine.

 

She drove my car to her place of work today and whilst parked in the car park another driver damaged my car getting out of their parking space next to her. My wife was nowhere near at the time. They admitted liability and we intend 'claiming' from the other driver's policy but I understand we must also  'inform' our own insurer. (difficult to find firm definitions of these terms)

 

Qn. 1

Which of our two companies should we 'inform'? Do we inform her insurer as she was the driver in charge at the time driving 'another' car or do we inform my insurer as she is a named driver on my insurance insurance policy. (although nobody was actually driving at the time)

 

Qn 2

(This might ease or it might complicate things!).

My fully comp is for social, domestic or pleasure with commuting specifically excluded (I'm retired and no longer commute).

My wife's covers social, domestic, pleasure and commuting.

Since she was at work I guess the earlier journey she made their counts as commuting. Does that mean that she was not actually insured by my insurer at the time anyway, meaning it was only her insurer that was covering the car and so only her insurer we need to 'inform?

 

I don't want my premium - or both of ours - to rise when I was neither driving, nor to blame for the damage. 

[MickA]

I'm no expert but is your wife only covered third party to drive "any other car" on her insurance. Not that it matters I suppose as the claim will be met by the other drivers insurance co as they admitted fault.

 

It could be awkward if you claim on your insurance, commuting, but then if it's a one off could it be classed as that, I don't know.

 

I'm like yourself retired but have thought about this, I have ommited commuting on my policy. I have on occasions taken my son to work (he doesn't drive) is this classed as commuting? So far I've only done it twice this year.

Edited 10 March, 2015 by MickA

[brad1.8T]

When I was sorting insurance a few years back i asked what they classified as commuting. They said more than 2 days per week.

I'd assume that definition varies between companies & it should be defined in the insurance documents.

[dochsm]

I'm no expert but is your wife only covered third party to drive "any other car" on her insurance. Not that it matters I suppose as the claim will be met by the other drivers insurance co as they admitted fault.

 

It could be awkward if you claim on your insurance, commuting, but then if it's a one off could it be classed as that, I don't know.

 

I'm like yourself retired but have thought about this, I have ommited commuting on my policy. I have on occasions taken my son to work (he doesn't drive) is this classed as commuting? So far I've only done it twice this year.

I'm going to assume that this will be classed as commuting  as she had used my car, an automatic, for a few days while an injury to her left foot got better so probably my insurance won't cover her. Yes, when driving other cars her ins would be third party only. So I would not be 'claiming' from my wife's insurance but 'informing' them. My dilema is whether I need to also 'inform' my insurance company and have them say 'this is nothing to do with us as we were not insuring the car at the time but we'll put your premium up anyway'.

 

Also, given that she would probably be only be third party on her own insurance I don't know if I tell one (or both) of our companies and then they claim from the driver's company for me or whether I write directly to the driver's company myself  as my wife was given a photocopy of their ins cert.

 

Our policy docs seem pretty unhelpful, apparently using the words 'inform' and 'claim' interterchangably.

[MickA]

I think you need an expert in car insurance, they make things so complicated these days

[dochsm]

I think you need an expert in car insurance, they make things so complicated these days

I agree, that's why I was posting here, on the assuption that there would be some experts around who might be able to help!

 

(The ony thing that seems clear about car insurance is that whatever you do, you won't get all the money you thought you were entitled to and eitherway your premium will go up)

[ChrisKnottIns]

Hi, you won't like this but she will need to let both companies know about the incident to comply with the utmost good faith element of those insurance contracts.

 

At inception you were probably asked something like 'Have you had any accidents in the last x years regardless of fault, whether or not it resulted in a claim?'.

 

Had she been at fault you would claim under your policy as being a named driver takes precedence over what is third party only liability covered under a 'driving other cars' policy extension.

 

Hope that makes sense.

[dochsm]

Hi, you won't like this but she will need to let both companies know about the incident to comply with the utmost good faith element of those insurance contracts.

 

At inception you were probably asked something like 'Have you had any accidents in the last x years regardless of fault, whether or not it resulted in a claim?'.

 

Had she been at fault you would claim under your policy as being a named driver takes precedence over what is third party only liability covered under a 'driving other cars' policy extension.

 

Hope that makes sense.

Thank you very much for that Chris, especially since you appear to be one of the experts I was referring to. The named driver taking precedence over driving any car is what I was unclear about. Yes I assumed we would have to inform both but was unclear about who was actually covering my car at the time and so who might end up dealing with it.

 

(Actually I have just tried to 'inform' my wife's company. The claims section wasn't interested as they said my company would be dealing with it, not them and even said they were not going to register anything about the incident against her policy. They passed me to customer services to 'inform' them. Cust services were also pretty uninterested and said I didn't need to tell them anything at all but if I wanted to I could call back after it was all sorted out and let them know the final outcome. - So much for me trying to obey the letter of the law in the policy by attempting to inform them immediately!).   Good job I recorded the phone calls as evidence in case they later say I didn't inform them.

[ChrisKnottIns]

A good result then as things stand. However, even though they appear disinterested at the moment it's wise to inform them so they don't bring it up against you later on - but it sounds like you have that in hand anyway.

[Zukabak]

Unfortunately, your premium WILL also rise as a result.. despite being in no way liable for the incident.

It's an absolute farce, and one of the reasons so many people don't report minor incidents like this to their insurance company (which I wouldn't condone, obviously).