Reply to: A quick question....

[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.

[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...

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[wendigo100]

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

Good luck with it, Tony.

[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

[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.

[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]

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

[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]

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.

[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

[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.