A quick question....

[tim123]

...I'm loking for car insurance. When you lot apply do you say that you are employed or self employed? .

Insurance companies now 'understand' the way that we work.

There was the possibility on the form of saying "company director" so that is what I said.

Trying for quotes, both as a director or as a numpty employee got me the same amount so, ISTM that being 100% honest is the way to go.

tim

[wendigo100]

Feck. I've been thinking about this all afternoon - I thought it said "A trick question".

Good luck with it, Tony.

[Ivor1]

...I'm loking for car insurance. When you lot apply do you say that you are employed or self employed? Figured we are all employed by our Ltd's so technically we are employed.

Just got a shock when I got my renewal through. I had made 2 claims this insurance year which effects my no claims discount protection thing, something which would have been handy to know when making the claim!

Claim 1 sep 06 - I scuffed a car bumper when trying to squeeze past it. Never bothered fixing mine as the damage was so slight. Direct Line paid out £451 for something which could have probably been polished out.

Calim 2 - March 07 when some scrote broke into my boot and knicked a shed load of stuff from me. In doing this the broke the door handle, but not the lock mechanism. They have billed Direct line for £627 (they claim the door handle was 157 and the rest is their labour and paint.

Why do they pay garages so much over the odds for minor work.

So now my renewal has gone from £500 to £1100 and my no claims has been cut down to 3 years. I wasn't told that this would be cut when making the claim. So because some scrote decided to randomly pick my car to attack in a supermarket car park, I'm being stiffed for another 600 quid.

Try www.swiftcover.com I went with them this year, had two no fault claims that year, insurer at the time want £800 at renewal, Swiftcover £383 ! I shopped around alot and Swiftcover was the cheapest.

[BoredBloke]

The really annoying is that if they had told me I would my no claims, I would have had the car fixed myself. Instead I now have to try to get insurance with 3 yeard NCD, 2 insurance claims in the last year and a speeding ticket in Jan of 06. All this makes me look like a bad risk dispite the fact that these are the only convictions/claims I have made in about 12 years.

[Ardesco]

Ask them if you can repay the first incident (or the cheapest one if it wasn't the first) in full and keep your no claims.

[oraclesmith]

My advice is to complain, very formally and precisely, in writing. They must follow FSA regulations regarding complaints and that means following a clear process culminating in the Ombudsman if you're not satisfied.

They should have recorded the call (another FSA guideline regarding reduction of risk) and if they haven't then there is another thing to chuck at them.

I have successfully complained to insurance companies on two occasions now (once on a claim and another on an admin mess-up) and I clawed back about £250 altogether. Make it clear that you are prepared to take the case all the way.

We also wrote and progressed our own claims for mis-sold endowments a couple of years ago which netted us thousands.

[shoes]

Aren't you really LESS of a risk soon after a claim on your car insurance? If you crashed it, you'll be more careful in the immediate future, so lower risk. If someone dinged it or broke into it, its unlikely to happen again in the near future, so lower risk. Insurance costs should creep up gradually over time from claim to claim!! Which means we will all be driving into one another every now and again to reduce our premiums. Which sounds like fun. Hmmmm...

[BoredBloke]

Not in my case. I was lazy and stayed with the same insurer for 12 long years. Then I get 2 claims, one which was tiny and one which was not of my doing. I remeber the girl did mention that I had my no claims protected. At no point in the call did she tell me that my no claims would be effected.

What really pi55es me off though is that some scrote decides to pick my car. I lose a sh1t load of stuff and because the supermarket didn't have CCTV, the coppers were not interested, so the scrote gets thousands of pounds worth of my stuff while a poxy garage stings the insurance company for hundreds (600) for replacing a door handle and a bit of paint. Which they managed to spin out for 10 days while I was paying for a hire car. And because nobody got caught for this the insurance company hold me as being at fault.