@Graham Butcher You will probably find this interesting.

 

 

I would be wary of taking as gospel the advice from the expert towards the end, never trust a man who does not know where to place a shelf support 😁

 

This guys Youtube videos are quite watchable if you are into classic Italian road cars.

56 minutes ago, J.R. said:

@Graham Butcher You will probably find this interesting.

 

 

I would be wary of taking as gospel the advice from the expert towards the end, never trust a man who does not know where to place a shelf support 😁

 

This guys Youtube videos are quite watchable if you are into classic Italian road cars.

John, I whole heartily agree with you about his videos, he is a person with which I can align myself, new spectacular clickbait titles and in the main well-thought-out and researched content and plian and simple honest opinions and I subscribe to his channel. 

 

I have already watched this video before having twice had no fault incidents, the first was in an American type car wash where the machine damaged my car and although the owner admitted liability, and I was paid out by them and the insurance company were informed as per their T&Cs in the same fashion as you are legally obliged to do if you do any modifications to the car if it took the car away from the manufacturers standard for your model, such as changed the wheel size, remap the engine, lower the suspension etc, regardless if it makes any difference to the performance or handling. Otherwise, you run the risk of have zero cover if you are subsequently involved in a major accident, and they inspect your car to assess if your car played any part in the accident as it would then give them room to wriggle their way out of paying out, leaving you with a large bill for your car and any others involved and or persons and or other property, and all because some people think its smart to spend loads of money modding the hell out of their cars and not declaring it. Many do that and get away with, as the only time it would be discovered is in the event of something happening, and the driver/owner has just handed them a "get out of jail card"

 

Then 2 years later someone did a turn-out in front of me, all caught on my dashcam and the other driver and his insurance company admitted full responsibility and paid in full in the end but my premiums shot up. A few years ago, in a company car, in the same road just a 100 ft or so further on I had another driver do the same thing and wrote the company car but that time I had 2 expert witnesses, 2 policemen entering the police station a couple of hundred feet behind me saw the whole thing and came running over and promptly arrested the that driver for dangerous driving and driving without due care, and told me that there was absolutely nothing I could have done to prevent it, and they provided me with their full statements. The ironic thing there is that I was leaving that company that week and was due to hand over the car.

 

I also know exactly what you mean about the "expert" and his ability to put a shelf support in the right place. That I find is typical of many so-called experts, They may have loads of expertise in their particular chosen subject but lack basic common sense and are useless with their hands. I have a brother-in-law like that, he is one of the top directors in an American bank but cannot even change a fuse in 13A plug top.

There is no law that states you must tell your insurance company that someone has paid you compensation for damaging your vehicle or that you have modified it.

 

Please correct me if I am wrong, in as few words as you can.

21 minutes ago, J.R. said:

There is no law that states you must tell your insurance company that someone has paid you compensation for damaging your vehicle or that you have modified it.

 

Please correct me if I am wrong, in as few words as you can.

No I don't think there is any law as such, its just the insurance industry flexing its muscles and doing their very best to exclude as many ways that the would liable to pay out anything as they can.

 

Here is a video that you might like as a petrol head.

 

 

 

15 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

the insurance company were informed as per their T&Cs in the same fashion as you are legally obliged to do if you do any modifications to the car if it took the car away from the manufacturers standard for your model, such as changed the wheel size, remap the engine, lower the suspension etc

 

22 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

No I don't think there is any law as such

 

@J.R. Legally  as in if you don't want to be in a position should you have any reason to claim or any other person to claim against you and your insurance company in the event that you have an accident and the other party and their insurers deem that it was your fault.

 

We all know how they will avoid paying if they can and if you have not informed them of changes as per my original comment that you kindly highlighted. You may like to take a risk of discovering that your insurance has been nullified, thus leaving you exposed, I personally don't want to take that risk.

You never fail to amuse with your verbosity to avoid ever saying "ok that wasn't correct but.............."

28 minutes ago, J.R. said:

You never fail to amuse with your verbosity to avoid ever saying "ok that wasn't correct but.............."

Sorry but.... From past experience, you don't believe it so, anyway it has now arrived. 

@J.R. Hi John, I think you might find this article and video interesting regarding insurance companies are beginning to in some cases refuse or even cancel your insurance cover if they discover any modifications made to a car that weren't declared to them at the time when taking out insurance, or where they have not been informed of any modifications made to your car during the insurance period. Also DVLA are also getting in on the act.

 

Could wrapping a car invalidate your insurance? 

Not of any particular interest to me, I will never register or insure a car in the UK again, but thanks anyway.

2 hours ago, J.R. said:

Not of any particular interest to me, I will never register or insure a car in the UK again, but thanks anyway.

Oh OK, but you can see now where I was coming from and I doubt that this is just a thing that happens solely in the UK?

Edited 22 January22 Jan by Graham Butcher

Maybe not but as I only have insurance when its a legal obligation and only the basic tiers risques on my vehicle I am not concerned, I do this because French insurers will try and wriggle out of any claim no matter what, they have to indemnise a 3rd party.

 

 

18 minutes ago, J.R. said:

Maybe not but as I only have insurance when its a legal obligation and only the basic tiers risques on my vehicle I am not concerned, I do this because French insurers will try and wriggle out of any claim no matter what, they have to indemnise a 3rd party.

 

 

In that case, then, I'm puzzled as to what was the point of you starting this particular topic and even including me in its title. By your own admission, even French insurers do exactly the same thing as insurers worldwide do, aim not to payout on any claim.🤔

I started it for you and nobody else after all your postings regarding how unfairly you believed you had been treated by your and other insurers after the no fault claim for the damage to your Skoda Superb.

 

I watched the video and thought of you.

4 hours ago, J.R. said:

I started it for you and nobody else after all your postings regarding how unfairly you believed you had been treated by your and other insurers after the no fault claim for the damage to your Skoda Superb.

 

I watched the video and thought of you.

Well, that was my first accident as an owner, the others have been in company vehicles.

On 20/01/2025 at 19:57, J.R. said:

@Graham Butcher You will probably find this interesting.

 

 

I would be wary of taking as gospel the advice from the expert towards the end, never trust a man who does not know where to place a shelf support 😁

 

This guys Youtube videos are quite watchable if you are into classic Italian road cars.

Yes I saw this a while ago.

I even had it read out to me when I took out new insurance this weekend. "Your insurance premium may increase if you make a claim, even if you are not at fault.".

Heads they win, tails you lose.

I know all drivers are supposed to be against the 'evil' insurers, some insurers are not good but many times consumers/purchases get the quality they deserve in the constant rush to take everything to the easiest, cheapest and bottom in price and quality, but introducing a bit of very unpopular and probably fully rejected logic, if you have an incident, whether you claim or not, that is proof of risk rather than potential.

 

Graham, probably my poor memory but I think I remember seeing that video a good while back from a post on this site and I thought there were posts on it then perhaps some from you but I might well be wrong.  The chap seems nice enough but a bit naïve in some areas particular if as I think he is he also done a video on a Spridget or Sprite, I think I know I've seen him with one on the Lexus LS400 I think he was driving in that vid and he starts the vid with saying something like "most of us think of car insurance as a rip off" hardly a balanced start to the matter, but it's his channel he can say what he wants.

 

Only this morning I saw a telly program that features a local recovery company (CMG) where a dad and son were picking up a scooter that had been stolen and damaged and because of the £500 excess the dad was going to get a quote to see cost of repair before considering having the son perhaps put in a claim, he said this all on national telly, same as some posters on this site sometimes, telling the whole world so you hope they let their insurers know this or perhaps that the insurers never see.  Also there was a 76 year old lady that was recovering her car after being stopped for no insurance who had been paying for insurance for two years but with the wrong reg on her insurance and she is convinced that is not her fault.  The Police let her off, discrimination perhaps just because she's an old woman, would they have let off an old man, but the insurers stuck to their guns, in my experience the insurers is told/advised to check all details before taking out the policy.  I know she didn't do it on purpose and most would be on her side unless she ran into your car and you couldn't claim off her insurance because it wasn't valid.  

 

Their are good companies and good customers around but also their are bad companies and bad customers, always have been, perhaps there are more so now or just more noticeable or reported.

 

Must sort out our home insurance now.  🙂

 

On 26/01/2025 at 11:23, nta16 said:

Also there was a 76 year old lady that was recovering her car after being stopped for no insurance who had been paying for insurance for two years but with the wrong reg on her insurance and she is convinced that is not her fault.  The Police let her off, discrimination perhaps just because she's an old woman, would they have let off an old man, but the insurers stuck to their guns, in my experience the insurers is told/advised to check all details before taking out the policy.

This could be an example of insurers acting badly @nta16, or it might be the old girl didn't really know what car she owned. To be fair, that may not as unusual as perhaps it should be.

When you give your vehicle details to the insurer, you read out your reg. number, and they come back with a car description. (Having done that this weekend, it's fresh in my memory.)

Anyone can do this with freely available online tools. So for example, for the Fiesta below I randomly grabbed off AutoTrader, if you put in BV09ETX,  you get a description of the car, a blue Ford Fiesta. (Full details below.)

 

I'm sure the insurers have access to more detailed info on the car than I can simply pull up in seconds for free. However there is room for innocent error.

For example BV09ETY is a blue Ford Focus, but BV09FTX is another Ford Fiesta Style Plus, however it's a red one.

If she gave them (or they recorded) registration number BV09ETY instead of BV09ETX, and they read back, "Is that a blue Ford Focus?", I can see her simply agreeing "Yes that's right, it's a blue Ford." and an insurance mistake is born.

 

https://www.carcheck.co.uk/ford/BV09ETX

 

My Mums car was in an Accident as she reversed into my car as she was taking it down for it's first service at 1 year old.

I had arranged the insurance.  But on the wrong registration number.

The number plate on the front was SP06 JJO and the rear one was ST06 JJO and i had not noticed until reporting the accident.  £1,000 damage to the rear.

The insurance were ok about the error.   I had driven the car for a year and never noticed. 

 

When i was going to collect the car the front plate was clear to see and yet i never noticed they plates never matched. 

 

EDIT. PS.

Actually i did not arrange the Insurance other than giving our Names , Ages etc.

The car was bought cash money and came with Insurance and Servicing & me as Keeper and my mum as a named driver. 

(Because of her age and them actually insuring her.  99 now so 80 then.)  They First Registered and did the insurance.

Edited 29 January29 Jan by Ootohere

@Ootohereyes, I have heard of that happening before, in fact the 1st accident I had in my after I purchased it from the leasing company was with a Lorry on the M25 who sideswiped me to avoid a broken down car and after stopping to exchange details, I noticed as the lorry turned that rear plate was not the same as the front.

2 hours ago, EnterName said:

or it might be the old girl didn't really know what car she owned.

It was the reg she put wrong.  A simple mistake and definitely one I'm capable of.  The insurer may have been a bit hard  but we don't know how the "old gurl" treated the insurers when dealing with them about this.  Her attitude on camera was it wasn't her fault at all and she's old and dealing with computers, yet she managed to get the insurance done for the two years.  In another life I used to deal with "uld gurls" from Northampton and they are not all sweetness and light I can assure you and older generation born and breed Norf'm'tun folk are among the most insular, miserable folk on earth, I know as I've lived here since I was 12.  I've now joined them somewhat and find I can let my empathy slip with employees I deal with.  My wife still deals with an over-50s-club in her work and they are very entitled and moaning, I call them MOBs, moaning old bags for the "uld gurls" and moaning old b*st*rds for the "uld boys".  My wife is sometimes a consumer MOB and it's a standing joke if something goes wrong I ask "are they going to get a letter/email from Mob of Northampton". 😆

 

To balance things out - the other day I arranged our home insurance and when trying to complete the computer form it wouldn't let me use my email address because it said it was already in use.  I found this strange as I have never used this company before and thought it might be a typo on my part, I tried again same result so I used my wife's email address and then went to change it once every thing had gone through but got the same answer from the insurers website and when conducting an online chat.  To keep the story short I had taken out home insurance for 2023-24 with another company, with an entirely different name, that they ran.  But it still made no sense as it was a different company with a policy that ended 11 months ago and I've  used the same email address for all my accounts, purchases and policies for about 15+ years.  A problem with their computer program/system I think, thank gawd we don't rely on computers in cars!!

 

3 hours ago, nta16 said:

To keep the story short

 

🤣

4 hours ago, nta16 said:

thank gawd we don't rely on computers in cars!!

 

Except we do in most cars of the modern era, cars are stuffed full of computers, all talking to each other.

Graham, it was sarcasm [ ETA: on my part to be clearer ]. 😉

 

VW computers interfering with themselves, the others, the driver from driving, reliability of the VW car.

 

Another computer system problem today, email address involved too, are all computer systems now like low volume English cars used to, the customer completed the product developments by using them, when they could.  Thank the lerd, in all her glory, we have VW German engineering quality. 🤣

 

Edited 29 January29 Jan by nta16
ETA: