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Literally catching up on this thread as my wife calls to say her car has been hit by a delivery van whilst parked up!

 

I gather the driver knocked on the door and has admitted responsibility, given my wife was parked in a space and in a house at the time I’d like to think this would be a relatively straight forward case for the insurance company.

 

Having said that, going off this thread, I can imagine she’ll see a hike in her premium regardless. Oh and the car is a Toyota Hybrid…

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  • Graham Butcher
    Graham Butcher

    I think that a lot of the problem can be summarised as:- 1. There are to many various companies involved in the claims / repair dep't, each and everyone is looking to make a handsome profit., the

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A quick update on my position, the first year I was with my current insurer, my total bill was £328.09 for a year, the second year it was £396.35 and may be around £420 at the end of the policy (it is miles driven based). This coming year if I don't move, doing the same 6,000ish miles is going to be £998.95. I think that this could well be down to an error in the information held in the Underwriters database that all insurers work from to decide if what you are declaring on the application forms is correct. This I found out by arranging a quote over the phone rather than online and the nice lady I was speaking to gave some information that there was a discrepancy between the accident I declared and what the database indicated. All of my accidents have been no faults ones as they only need those that occurred within the last 5 years, I only gave details of the one in April this year. When she told the database shows different to what told her, I then mentioned the 2016 one where I was sideswiped by a foreign lorry on the M25 and then about the time in 2017 when I was stationary at a roundabout and got rammed in the boot and neither those were the problem. So now I have got to track where this error has come from and get it corrected ASAP and maybe the renewal figure might be more palatable.

It will remain as a claim pending against you for 18 months as unfair as it seems and is.

 

The third party might get a phone call from a firm of ambulance chasers asking him if the thought of copping for £20K makes his neck hurt a little 🤣

 

You asked earlier what you could do to avoid being shafted, well its too late now but the answer would have been don't drop your trousers and hand them the vaseline by opting for protected NCB.

 

If you did not have it your policy may have gone up to the £420 I think you referred to and your NCB would have dropped from say 65% to 50% for example (I'm well out of date on these things) and in the worst case you may have had to pay the extra 15% for one or two years before it being refunded when no claim was made but that usually only happens when liability is still in doubt or a potential claim against you is pending like the TP teaming up with ambulance chasers.

 

I'll give you 2 examples from my history, no fault accident TP admitted liability, my car written off and bought back from insurers leaving me with the car and a pot of money, at renewal 6 months later my premium remained the same and my NCB (unprotected) did not drop.

 

2nd example no fault accident according to my claim, other guy I believe had something to hide (it was a very dodgy printing company maybe forging banknotes) and I dont even know that he reported it to his insurers, minor scuff damage to my bumper but nonetheless a silly repair estimate for painted bumper, grille and bumper beam, I got pee'd off with the repairers who had done the paintwork in advance but wanted my car for several days to fit the bumper etc, as I used it for work I just took the parts and fitted them myself.

 

On renewal my insurers still had not settled with the TP's insurers (TP had not reported the accident) so liability was still technically in dispute, my renewal gross premium was unchanged but I had to stump up a bit more for the partial loss of NCB, when the 18 months was up it was refunded, I had requested it, as good as Direct Line were then I'm not convinced they would have done so automatically, my NCB was reinstated to the maximum and there were no surprises with the renewal quote the next year.

 

If you are free to "Compare The Market", that is to say you can answer No! to the question of any accidents or claims in the last............ then you will get a cometitive renewal premium, if you have answered Yes! then your premium will rise significantly with your insurer and with any other, if you had protected NCB then it will go up massively as you have seen but the (protected) NCB remaining will bring it down a bit but not much but probably make it a little cheaper than going elsewhere.

Edited by J.R.

@J.R.I did a test last night with another online quote with a major provider, first quote I did, I decided to omit any accidents and the quote was for £888.84 and the second one I submitted the accident and that quote came in at £1042.37, a jump of £153.53. The other information was identical, but I did have the protected NCB box ticked.

 

I think that if the third had tried to lodge a claim for whiplash or whatever I think he would be foolish to claim from me or my insurer as he admitted to me that he was 100% to blame, my insurer also rang the next day and asked him if he thought he was to blame, and he openly admitted it, knowing that they were recording the conversation, and lastly he was fully aware that I had his actions in his car all recorded in full HD quality on my dashcam, in fact he spotted the camera in my windscreen.

 

Hopefully I can this error resolved before I have to renew the cover.

 

In my previous 2 no-fault accidents, I was with a different insurer and both times come the renewal time there was hardly any difference in the quote, so when I've been told many insurers I've spoken to about these quotes now and they say that is because I have made a claim that is why they are so high, even for a no-fault claim and the other insurer has paid up, is putting it bluntly, is just pure bo****ks, it is blatant price gouging.

 

Edited by Graham Butcher

But as far as any other insurer is concerned it is not yet deemed a no fault claim and it wont be for 18 months, surely you can understand that?

 

And that is what is giving your existing insurer carte blanche to ream you inside out.

 

Can you please define to me what "price gouging"  that you keep speaking of means?

 

Do you actually know that the other insurer has "paid up"?

I was told that by the underwriters, they told me that once they have recovered the money from the other company, that they would pay me out, and that happened a few days before the end of May.

 

Price gouging is best described here Price gouging - Wikipedia

Then you should question your assumption because what they told you does not make sense, you had fully comp insurance, they would pay you out regardless of whether they had collected the money from the TP's insurers, I doubt that the money changes hands that quickly, they probably have a debit and credit ledger with all the other major insurers and settle or collect the balance once every 3 months.

 

Your claim will be recorded as open or pending for 18 months on the database that all the insurers have access to.

Ok, I can accept the latest one seeing as it happened this year, BUT I had declared that already, but I was told that the database was claiming there was another claim had been made, the only other claims I made were in 2017 and 2016 and both are outside the 5-year timescale. I expect that someone along the chain has entered the wrong date on the one this year. I entered the date of the accident occurred, but maybe someone entered another date?

On 30/08/2023 at 21:34, Graham Butcher said:

...when I've been told many insurers I've spoken to about these quotes now and they say that is because I have made a claim that is why they are so high, even for a no-fault claim and the other insurer has paid up, is putting it bluntly, is just pure bo****ks, it is blatant price gouging.

 

Eh?  No it's blantant BS.   How do they know how your premium has been calculated? They're only brokers, all they do is get a price off the underwriter. They haven't a clue how the premium is calculated because there are so many variables. The only thing consistant about insurance premium calculations are they're inconsistant.

 

How on earth do they know thatfor instance, there's been an increase in claims for drivers in your age group, hence your premium has risen. Premiums are based on many things including statistics.

23 minutes ago, kodiaqsportline said:

 

Eh?  No it's blantant BS.   How do they know how your premium has been calculated? They're only brokers, all they do is get a price off the underwriter. They haven't a clue how the premium is calculated because there are so many variables. The only thing consistant about insurance premium calculations are they're inconsistant.

 

How on earth do they know thatfor instance, there's been an increase in claims for drivers in your age group, hence your premium has risen. Premiums are based on many things including statistics.

Err, maybe I've been speaking to some insurance companies direct rather than a broker?. As it happens, allegedly, seeing as the only accidents in the last 5 years (for the record I've only ever had 1 accident that was my fault in 56 years, and that was in my first year of driving), are taken into account, and I've had 3 accidents since 2016 as mentioned in my earlier post, so only the last one in April this year should be considered, and I have declared that one in every request for a quote, one of the companies did tell that when they ran my details through the Motor Insurance Bureau database CUE, it came back with a discrepancy between what I declared and the database records. They kindly gave the contact details for the MIB, so I can get details of my claims, in order to track down where the problem is and get it rectified. I have been in contact, and they say it could be up to a month before I get anything back because they are so busy.

 

As the insurance is due on the 17th, I'm going to have to suck it up this year and see if when the error is corrected, I can get a refund.

Edited by Graham Butcher

  • 1 month later...
On 01/09/2023 at 18:25, Graham Butcher said:

Err, maybe I've been speaking to some insurance companies direct rather than a broker?.

 

just seen this reply. We customers have no contact with the underwriter. Customer services will have no contact with them either. The only contact we have is with the monkey, not the organ grinder.

 

I was surprised today to find my renewal quote with Aviva has gone up from £325 to £366. Not pleasantly surprised of course but when the cheapest comparison site quote ( for less cover and double the excess ) was £407 with Flow, the next being £498 with Churchill ( their basic cover ), I don't ever recall seeing such a wide spread of prices in car insurance.

 

I've insured with Direct Line several times in the past, sometimes they're one of the cheaperst but they've never been that far off the mark. This year they want £798 FFS.

 

There's nobody can give you a reason why your insurance price has altered.

 

I thought I knew most of the tricks to lessen your insurance premium but listened with interest to Martin Lewis on 5 Live during the week. He was saying that they've found the ideal time to buy your insurance is approx 21day before renewal.  For Joe Average , if you search 30 days before renewal, then the prices are high. They lower towards that 21 day mark, then as the renewal date approaches, the prices steadily increase again.   I've certainly noticed prices changing in the month leading up to renewal but never realised there was any pattern to it.  Now how does that relate to some fixed rule that a price has changed because of some previous incident? 

 

Insurance premiums - it's no different to the tic-tac bookmaker on a racecourse. He has a bag of money and he'll constantly alter the odds depending on how many bets are placed and his potential pay out.  Over time, the ones who get their sums right can make a killing, the ones who get it wrong ( like John McCririck ) have to look for another career.  Speaking of which, just look at the number of insurers / brokers who've gone to the wall in recent years. Many of them are now owned by the same parent company.

1 hour ago, kodiaqsportline said:

 

just seen this reply. We customers have no contact with the underwriter. Customer services will have no contact with them either. The only contact we have is with the monkey, not the organ grinder.

 

I was surprised today to find my renewal quote with Aviva has gone up from £325 to £366. Not pleasantly surprised of course but when the cheapest comparison site quote ( for less cover and double the excess ) was £407 with Flow, the next being £498 with Churchill ( their basic cover ), I don't ever recall seeing such a wide spread of prices in car insurance.

 

I've insured with Direct Line several times in the past, sometimes they're one of the cheaperst but they've never been that far off the mark. This year they want £798 FFS.

 

There's nobody can give you a reason why your insurance price has altered.

 

I thought I knew most of the tricks to lessen your insurance premium but listened with interest to Martin Lewis on 5 Live during the week. He was saying that they've found the ideal time to buy your insurance is approx 21day before renewal.  For Joe Average , if you search 30 days before renewal, then the prices are high. They lower towards that 21 day mark, then as the renewal date approaches, the prices steadily increase again.   I've certainly noticed prices changing in the month leading up to renewal but never realised there was any pattern to it.  Now how does that relate to some fixed rule that a price has changed because of some previous incident? 

 

Insurance premiums - it's no different to the tic-tac bookmaker on a racecourse. He has a bag of money and he'll constantly alter the odds depending on how many bets are placed and his potential pay out.  Over time, the ones who get their sums right can make a killing, the ones who get it wrong ( like John McCririck ) have to look for another career.  Speaking of which, just look at the number of insurers / brokers who've gone to the wall in recent years. Many of them are now owned by the same parent company.

My premium went from £570 to £1,307, and I was with Better by Miles, and they were underwritten by Zurich, BBM have been brought out by Direct Line and have severed all connections with Zurich and doing their own underwriting, apparently. Zurich have also, I was told by someone there, have pulled out of car insurance all together as claims are spiralling out of control. So how can DL justify more than doubling my original premium when it came renewal time? 

 

I had other quotes for the same car and cover ranging from £1.2K to just over £4.3K, go figure.

Edited by Graham Butcher

Just renewed my car insurance which has increased by just over 55%.

Ouch!

Interestingly, the renewal was still cheaper than the best the site scrapers could come up with, so that's nice I suppose.

On 13/10/2023 at 13:54, Graham Butcher said:

So how can DL justify more than doubling my original premium when it came renewal time? 

 

They dont need to. Any more than the company that quoted you £4.3K needs to justify their price.

 

But as you are looking for justification of why Direct Line taking over BBM who were giving up because of spiralling claims (according to you) would increase your premium then the obvious would be:

 

On 01/09/2023 at 19:25, Graham Butcher said:

I've had 3 accidents since 2016

 

I suppose I should stop whinging that my car insurance has risen to €180 = £155

7 hours ago, J.R. said:

But as you are looking for justification of why Direct Line taking over BBM who were giving up because of spiralling claims (according to you) would increase your premium then the obvious would be:

 

Oh dear, not again, did I not make it clear that BBM is a broker effectively, tied to a which ever underwriter gives them a reasonable deal and that it was their underwriter who happened to be Zurich Insurance who were pulling out of the market, good grief, it seems as if misreading/misunderstanding is becoming a pandemic 😃

 

As to me saying I've had three accidents since 2016, that's true and each time I have had dashcam footage from my dashcam that very clearly proved that not a single accident was in shape or form down to me showed that I did not contribute to any of them, it was entirely the other drivers faults.

Edited by Graham Butcher

7 hours ago, J.R. said:

I suppose I should stop whinging that my car insurance has risen to €180 = £155

Yes indeed you should, as I said before, you people in France seem to have it all going great for you, while here, everything seems to be sinking fast.

Edited by Graham Butcher

1 hour ago, Graham Butcher said:

As to me saying I've had three accidents since 2016, that's true and each time I have had dashcam footage from my dashcam that very clearly proved that not a single accident was in shape or form down to me showed that I did not contribute to any of them, it was entirely the other drivers faults.

 

But you are regarded as a higher risk accident magnet by the insurers hence your premium increase.

Accidents affect your policy risk irrespective of who is to blame.

 

1005584573_Screenshot2023-10-15at21-20-42ComparetheMarket-Willanon-faultaccidentaffectmyinsurance.png.0c4fe4e094b5fa1abc081aac903f623e.png

 

Also a No claim bonus is not a no blame bonus

 

If you have a protected NCB it also does not stop the price going up. You will keep the percentage discount but it will be off the "new" premium before any added options you previously added are put on.

 

 

My insurance with no activity this year has gone up 29%

 

Edited by Stonekeeper

6 minutes ago, J.R. said:

 

But you are regarded as a higher risk accident magnet by the insurers hence your premium increase.

But that is unfair when the footage shows the first one being a left-hand drive lorry had sideswiped me on the M25 because he failed to see a broken down van in his lane and swerved to avoid crashing into it and instead crashed into me. The second one showed that I had been stationary at a round about for a few seconds because of heavy traffic on it and then a car rear ended me because he was on his phone. The third, a car in front of me in a 20mph zone we were both doing 19mph, decided to indicate he was turning left into a side street, but instead of entering it in the normal fashion, he was using it to try and do a 180 degree U turn because he saw the traffic lights in front were red at some roadworks, and he was not prepared to wait. He drove into my nearside front as I was passing the side street and claimed he could not see me because the sun was in his eyes. So because they were not paying attention, I have to pay more?

13 minutes ago, Stonekeeper said:

Accidents affect your policy risk irrespective of who is to blame.

 

1005584573_Screenshot2023-10-15at21-20-42ComparetheMarket-Willanon-faultaccidentaffectmyinsurance.png.0c4fe4e094b5fa1abc081aac903f623e.png

 

Also a No claim bonus is not a no blame bonus

 

If you have a protected NCB it also does not stop the price going up. You will keep the percentage discount but it will be off the "new" premium before any added options you previously added are put on.

 

 

My insurance with no activity this year has gone up 29%

 

Insurance is a rip off, you have to have it to drive on the roads, and then they try and screw you every time. That trend is going to worse as the new electric cars have such lightening acceleration, bigger HP that they are an accident in the waiting, and when you consider we can only 70mph in the UK and speed limits are coming down all the time, why do we need the ability to do 100mph+ and sub 10 seconds 0-60mph, when just the only time you can do 70mph is late at night because of other traffic.

Edited by Graham Butcher

1 minute ago, Graham Butcher said:

Insurance is a rip off, you have to have it to drive on the roads, and then they try and screw you every time. That trend is going to worse as the new electric cars have such lightening acceleration, bigger HP that they are an accident in the waiting, and when you consider we can only 70mph in the UK and speed limits are coming all the time, why do we need the ability to do 100mph+ and sub 10 seconds 0-60mph, when just the only time you can do 70mph is late at night because of other traffic.

 

Unfortunately insurance companies have shareholders to pay.

 

They have to have a bigger turnover every year to keep up with inflation

 

They know what they paid out the previous year so will take steps to cover that

 

They also know that a percentage of renewals will lapse because of the increase so will add on for that too.

 

They also have a database linked to each other so now it appear even using comparison sites doesn't help much..

 

This year is the first year i have searched and not found one quote lower than my renewal price (that is suspicious)

In their defence the price of workshop and car spares have gone up significantly this year

Yap, I did expect a jump in the premium because costs have gone up, I just wish that my pension was even able to just able to lag a bit behind, but sadly, the insurance now is almost a whole month's pension in itself.

1 hour ago, Graham Butcher said:

But that is unfair when the footage shows the first one being a left-hand drive lorry had sideswiped me on the M25 because he failed to see a broken down van in his lane and swerved to avoid crashing into it and instead crashed into me. The second one showed that I had been stationary at a round about for a few seconds because of heavy traffic on it and then a car rear ended me because he was on his phone. The third, a car in front of me in a 20mph zone we were both doing 19mph, decided to indicate he was turning left into a side street, but instead of entering it in the normal fashion, he was using it to try and do a 180 degree U turn because he saw the traffic lights in front were red at some roadworks, and he was not prepared to wait. He drove into my nearside front as I was passing the side street and claimed he could not see me because the sun was in his eyes. So because they were not paying attention, I have to pay more?

 

True it doesn't seem fair but you will be a higher risk now because of where you drive and the fact that the accidents have proved your risk rating to be higher than others... 

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