A quick question....

[BoredBloke]

...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.

[Bluebird]

Thats how insurance works -


the more claims you make = the bigger risk you are
the bigger risk you are = the more likely they'll need to shell out for you again
the more likely they'll need to shell out for you again = The more you pay

Most times it's best to just pay yourself - the one job may have only cost you half of what the Ins Co has uppped your premium.

[BoredBloke]

I know how it works and I would have paid myself if I had been told that my no claims protection would not have kicked in. But I was told that my no claims was protected.

The thing which annoyed me was the size of the payments. They are vastly more than they should have been. £647 for a new door handle and the paint surrounding it! It's not like they even replaced the lock mechanism. I'm sure that this job should have been no more than say £300

So do you claim you are employed or self employed - self employed is seen as being a bigger risk isn't it?

[Bluebird]

Self Employed is seen as a bigger risk - some comps don't actually take the employment status into account others do.

Garages normally up the price for an insurnace payout, I was quoted for £350 cash for a job which I ended up going through the insurnace for which cost them about £900.

My premium only went up by £150 the first year and £100 for the 2nd - the insurnace company told me this which is why I claimed.

The insurnce company should be able to tell you this - failing that - read the small print - afterall thats why its small print.

[Orangutan]

personally I don't bother with protected no-claims.

1) they will just "load" your premium anyway
2) if you want to protect your NCD they figure you feel you are going to have a claim, which makes you a risk.

so you are stuffed either way

[BoredBloke]

when I lodged the claim the girl actually told me that my no claims would be protected. She obviously just looked at the years and saw 2006 but didn't twig that it was on the same policy.

As I said, had I been told that my no claims would go, I would have shopped around for quotes.

[Bagpuss]

No claims protection is pretty meaningless. I.e. if you have an accident you are re-rated, so if you have 5 years no claims (potected) and have an accident, you now get 5 years discount on an accident re-rated policy.

For example 40% discount on £1000 versus 40% discount on £2000. Now, if you moved insurers and didnt protect you may get 20% off £1200. It's unlikely the 40% would be carried over.

A major con

[BoredBloke]

Just been on money supermarket - one place came back with £338 for my quote - even supplying the details of my 2 claims and my 3 points for speeding.

To be honest I'm tempted to go with these lot and use the £700 difference between their quote and direct line to fund any of the differences between their policy and the DL one.

Said I was company director which brought it down and put the excess to £250

[milanbenes]

eh Tone,

did you ever fill us in on what happened with your car that got broken into at the supermarket did you get money back for that christmas list of tech equipment that you (ahem) told us got nicked from the car and how were you with the Corsa replacement, how long did they take to fix your car ?

All the best and looking forward to next installment,

Milan.

[BoredBloke]

Claimed on my home insurance. They wouldn't pay for the client laptop - fair enough as it wasn't mine, but I got mine back. Should hear back soon on the rest. They had closed the file and I've asked for it to be reopened as they hadn't sent me half the stuff which got knicked. It's stupid things like the case which was £100. They were going to replace it with another laptop bag which you could pick up do a tenner.