Insurance problems

[Mickydripin]

Hi All,

In September of last year I had an accident in my camper (first in my driving career 56Years) first my insurance company tried to blame me and then they tried to get me to accept 50/50 luckily enough I had a witness.

My witness was very good and they had to accept his statement and drawing of the incident.

They accepted full blame and paid out.

My solicitor sent a letter to my insurance Quote: "We write to advise that we have settled this claim on a 100% liability basis and trust that you will note your records accordingly and reinstate our clients no claim bonus": unquote.

this letter was sent to my insurance company on the 17/02/20 "no reply from them!)

One week ago I received a renewal for my van and they have increased it by £250 stating that it was because of my accident I contacted them and they said pay it and then we will refund what you have overpaid considering that they have not even told me what the renewal price would be without the extra £250 so they could come back and say OK we will give you £50 back meaning that I still would have paid more than £200 increase on my Premium.

If I decided to go elsewhere it will still cost me more as they will not give me a certificate of my no claims bonus.

First no matter how much the other driver and his passenger who caused the accident protests to you at the scene of the accident don't let them get at you they were both shouting at me and my wife protesting there innocence.

second, don't let there insurance company try to get you to accept a 50/50 deal or try to blame you for the accident which is what they did.

Third Tell your insurance that you will take it to court if you are covered by legal assist

insurance IF you think that you were not to blame

I have told my insurance not to take any money out of my account until they have sorted my no claims if they do not sort it by the time that my insurance is due as we are on lockdown I will leave it ("if this is legal") until something is sorted.

Do I still need to get insurance? or will I have to put my road tax on a sorn as well to make things legal, my vehicle is parked off road

 

Mike.

[Brian Kirby]

Mike, this is a bit of a minefield, as quite a lot of what you report doesn't somehow add up without more information.

 

So, just to answer your question, as your van is parked off public roads, you are under no obligation keep it insured. However, having no insurance, you will be unprotected in the event of fire, theft, vandalism, or accidental damage, which you may not be comfortable with. You can also declare SORN. But, in both cases you will be legally obliged to tax and insure the van before you can take it back onto public roads, whatever the reason.

 

Second, I have a feeling that by not renewing, and so breaking the continuity of your insurance record, you may disadvantage yourself both when wishing to re-insure the van, but also when trying to get your present insurer to clarify why they have increased your premium. Two things change after an accident.

 

First, on policies with no claims discounts, you will lose a portion of your NCD (the proportion, and the attached conditions, should be stated clearly in the policy). However, usually, if your insurer has succeeded in reclaiming the full cost of repairing your van from the other party's insurer, there will be no loss of NCD.

 

Second, because you have filed a claim (whether or not paid out) your driver profile may be changed so that, although your NCD may not have been reduced, your insurer may decide that you now present an increased insurance risk and so increase your base premium (that from which your NCD is deductible). If this has been done, when you try to re-insure your van elsewhere, the new insurer will check on the Motor Insurers' Database for previous insurances in your name for your vehicle, and will discover whatever your present insurer has noted against you as to your driver profile, as well as the evidence of the present claim. So, your record, good or bad, will follow you.

 

I can see no reason for your present insurer to do as they have in presenting you with an increased premium with no explanation as to why they have done so. Their offer to return an unspecified part of the premium after you have paid the amount demanded, while (apparently) refusing to come clean over how the sum due was calculated, seems to me a declaration of bad faith on their part, and under your present circumstance, coercive.

 

If you have any insurances that provide legal advisory services, I think now would be a good time to use this. I would want at least to take advice on what you are entitled to be told, under which sections of whatever is the governing legislation.

 

After all, unless there is something else that you have not been told, such as the other party's insurer not have met the full cost of you claim, so that despite your refusal to accept a "knock for knock" settlement, that is exactly what they have done, or that the other party has not submitted a claim at all, leaving your insurer to foot the whole bill. But in either event I can't understand why you would not be informed this was the case.

 

My final puzzle is your solicitor's letter to your insurer. I assume you involved the solicitor because you were dissatisfied with the way the claim was being handled, but I cannot understand why he would have said "We write to advise that we have settled this claim on a 100% liability basis and trust that you will note your records accordingly and reinstate our clients no claim bonus". (My bold above). Who is "we"?

 

I would have expected the letter to say "We write to confirm that you have now agreed settlement of this claim on a 100% liability basis, and await your confirmation that you have noted your records accordingly and will reinstate our clients no claim bonus on renewal".

 

I also cannot understand why your insurer has not acknowledged receipt of your solicitor's letter, and why your solicitor has not chased that acknowledgement. Clearly, to me, this requires resolution while your existing insurance contract is in force, and before any further money changes hands. Are you a member of the AA, RAC, or similar? Failing legal advice insurance, maybe speak to them.

[Basil]

Just to clarify Brians reply, it is my understanding that you have to have insurance, even off road, UNLESS you SORN I believe this was made law a couple of years back.

 

Basil

[Derek Uzzell]

‘Continuous insurance enforcement’ regulations are covered here

 

https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-insurance/uninsured-vehicles

 

https://www.mib.org.uk/reducing-uninsured-driving/continuous-insurance-enforcement/

 

https://www.theaa.com/driving-advice/legal/continuous-insurance-enforcement

[gdf]

I'm not an expert on Motor Insurance but it dawned on me many years ago that NCD stood for No CLAIM Discount with the important word being claim. Blame has nothing to do with it. You may successfully claim back your excess from the guilty driver's insurance and your company may not reduce the NCD but the fact that you have made contact with them and said you've had an accident means that you have become a higher risk and so expect the premium to go up. As to how much - all you can do is try other companies and declare a no blame accident.

 

Dave

[BruceM]

It’s worth bearing in mind that the ‘No Claim Discount’ is an invention of the insurance industry and that there’s no requirement ultimately for any insurance company to take any notice of it when determining premiums. It is a useful tool though for deterring minor claims, and in a non scientific way of identifying lower risk drivers – although there is an argument that someone with an exceptionally long NCD is about due an accident so is higher risk. This is why the concept of ‘protected NCD’ is so daft. If you make a claim your NCD with that insurer may be unaffected, but that doesn’t stop your insurer increasing your premiums for the following year to compensate for the pay out due to ‘other factors’. And as previously mentioned, if you go to another insurer they will be aware of your accident history and will price the risk accordingly.

 

In the Op’s case I suspect his insurer’s algorithms reckon that even a ‘no fault’ accident is statistically indicative that the Op is now a higher risk than previously thought. Worth escalating the case though. Ultimately a more senior manager may just reduce the premium to get rid of the hassle.

[Derek Uzzell]

When I worked for the Post Office, for while I was involved with accident claims involving the vehicles driven by postmen - it was an educational experience.

 

An insurance company will expect to be told about any motor accident you are involved in, irrespective of you making a claim against your own policy. This is simply because they don’t want to receive - out of the blue - a letter from a 3rd party’s insurer claiming that you were to blame for an accident. So, if you aren’t making a claim against your own policy and are certain that no blame can be attributed to you for the accident, you need to make both of those factors 100% clear to your insurer when telling them about the accident.

 

Mike mentioned his late-2019 accident here

 

https://forums.outandaboutlive.co.uk/forums/Motorhomes/Motorhome-Matters/Insurance-problems/53237/

 

It would seem there were insurance-related communication difficulties from the onset and, although Mike thought that these had been resolved, evidently that is not the case.

[Brian Kirby]

Basil - 2020-04-28 8:45 PM

 

Just to clarify Brians reply, it is my understanding that you have to have insurance, even off road, UNLESS you SORN I believe this was made law a couple of years back.

 

Basil

Thanks for this Basil (and Derek for the links). I'd missed the twist that it is irrelevant whether or not the vehicle is, actually, bein kept/used on the road. Leaving the vehicle taxed (VED) is being interpreted as a declaration by the owner (keeper) that s/he intends to use the vehicle on public roads, and accordingly it must be kept insured as well as taxed against that eventuality. Apologies to Mike for not being clear.

[Rolyan]

I can confirm from experience that if you are in an accident that is entirely the fault of the other driver, even if they accept all the blame and all costs are recovered in full, your renewal price will rise. This is because the underwriters have data that shows those involved in a RTC are more likely to be involved in a second one, regardless of blame.

 

So you are in a no fault accident, your renewal price WILL increase. But you should keep your no claims discount.

 

Please note that you also need to inform insurers of the accident for the next 5 years, regardless of blame. So will pay more for the next few years.

 

Sadly there is no way around this.

[StuartO]

I understand our obligation to tell our insurers when we have a collision, claim or no claim, which information they may or may not use to hike our renewal premium, as they feel entitled.

 

But what do traffic policemen do when they have collisions in police cars, some of which will involve deliberately ramming another vehicle to make it stop? Do they have to tell their own insurers about these collisions? I suspect they don't.

[Mickydripin]

Hi all,

thanks for all your help.

I first decided to insure my Camper with Adrian flux as I saw an add in MMM (BUT not wishing to blame anyone as in the end it was my decision).

I did not realise that Adrian Flux were only an agent the people behind them are Marker study the underwriters and they make all the decisions.

going between both of them has been a nightmare as neither of them communicate with each other leaving me in limbo.

I rang Adrian Flux over a week ago to ask if they had received the letter from my solicitor and they said no but they would ring Markerstudy and get back to me they did not get back to me.

After reading all my posts and having some ammunition I rang Markerstudy today to ask if my NCB had been restored they said yes so I asked them if they had contacted Adrian flux and they said yes and we will send them another email today to make sure that they have the info, they also said that they will send the email to me so that I would have a copy.

Later today I rang Adrian Flux to ask them if they had the email and they said NO so they can not alter my NCB.

SO today I forwarded my email to Adrian Flux.

I now await my reply Again.

 

"O what a tangled web we weave when we endeavour to deceive" who said that was it Adrian Fu--ing Flux.

[Rolyan]

Mickydripin - 2020-04-30 4:34 PM

...........Adrian Fu--ing Flux.

 

I know there’s some real issues here, but that made me laugh.

:-)

[Deneb]

StuartO - 2020-04-30 2:59 PM

 

I understand our obligation to tell our insurers when we have a collision, claim or no claim, which information they may or may not use to hike our renewal premium, as they feel entitled.

 

But what do traffic policemen do when they have collisions in police cars, some of which will involve deliberately ramming another vehicle to make it stop? Do they have to tell their own insurers about these collisions? I suspect they don't.

 

We were advised by the Police Federation several years ago that that was exactly what we should do. I don't know if the advice is still the same, but it may well be as since police vehicles are now usually insured in the normal way, with claims being passed through the insurer, so I suspect that the driver's details are likely to end up on the insurance database. When vehicles were owned by the police, rather than being leased through a consortium, it was more often the case that insurance was effected by lodging a security deposit with the Secretary of State and irrecoverable costs were met out of the force budget.

 

Despite notifying a variety of incidents that mostly fell within the description of tactical pursuit and containment, I found my own insurers' weren't at all interested.

 

My only blameworthy incident in over 40 years was losing the nearside door mirror from a Vauxhall Senator on the rear corner of an artic whilst threading through the middle of two lanes of stationary traffic on blues and twos. In those days any damage to a police vehicle, however minor, usually resulted in suspension from driving until the incident had been thoroughly investigated, but I was told that I could avoid that by having the cost of the mirror deducted from my wages, and only suffered a rollicking from the Chief Inspector!