To be worried out of my wits about my car insurance

[Gunnerbean]

Calling anyone who works in insurance...!!Just wondering if anyone might be able to answer a question for me...

I arranged my car insurance over the phone last October with the company More Th>n. I used to be with Lloyds and had made a claim in the last year I was with Lloyds. More Than asked a raft of questions (like they all do) and I gave them all the relevant info they asked for. I paid the premium in full over the phone and the documents duly arrived a few days later, I gave them a casual glance (as you do) and filed them away.

Well, I scraped someone?s car in my work car park yesterday and a panel has to be resprayed as a result and the lady wants to claim from my insurance ? which is all fine by me as I was totally at fault.

Anyway, last night I fished out my documents and was alarmed to see when I was looking at them closely that it said that in the box entitled ?You Told Us?? that it says "You or any named driver on the policy, have not been involved in any sort of accident theft or other loss in the last 5 years regardless of whether or not it resulted in a claim. Well, I was ? the one last year (albeit one involving only me and a low wall which I didn't see and it scraped all along the bottom of the car!)

I feel certain that I mentioned it at the time of taking out the policy (I certainly wouldn?t have withheld that information or forgotten about it either as it was very recent). I was further alarmed to read that if I had failed to disclose anything ?material? at the time of taking out the policy it could invalidate my insurance if I want to claim!

The small print under ?Claims History? says that there is register of shared information which insurance companies use to find out about peoples claims history and they can look at it to check a person out at the time the policy is taken out, in the event of a claim being made or at any time. It?s called the The Claims and Underwriting Exchange Register.

I don?t know how I?m placed here ? I suppose I should have noticed that the info on the docs they sent me wasn?t correct but of course I didn?t look properly. It was one claim in the 5 years and it?s not as if they would have refused me insurance on account of it ? it may just have made the premium slightly higher. Maybe I did tell them and it was not recorded correctly ? I have no way of knowing unless they tape all their calls and can check.

I bet this happens to loads of people.

Any ideas/advice???

BTW I haven?t actually notified them of the claim yet.

I'm shitting it now!!!

[LolaTheShowgirl]

Bump for OP. Come on drivers, don't let her shit herself...(not literally, of course, or at least, I hope not!)

[VinegarTits]

Sorry i have no advice, i think it would have been wise to check the details properly at the time but i am sure you realise that in hinsight

Can you not just offer to pay for the respray using the excuse that you dont want it to affect you no claims

How well do you know the other driver? if it were me i would be happy to not claim through the insurance as long as the other driver paid for the damamge

[shivster1980]

Bumping up for you really.

However my DH says "a claim is a claim" but the Insurance company may have decided your previous claim is so minor they didn't put it on. Also he says that unless you are asked about it it may be better to keep quiet as my DH doesn't think this will come up when they are processing the new claim. (I emphasise the words doesn't think) He is speaking as a person who has been driving for 17 years, he doesn't work in insurance.

[HappyMummyOfOne]

Firstly you are correct in that you should have checked the documents and noticed they had failed to have your claims history on there.

There is a national claims database and, if they check, they will discover the claim that they are unaware of. Insurers are being very thourough at the moment due to the number of fraudulant claims being submitted in this hard economic times.

If they class it as unintentional non disclosure then you will have to pay the extra premium that the claim would have loaded the policy by at inception and they will deal with your new claim.

If they believe it was intentional that they were not told of the claim then they can void the policy from inception and refuse to handle the claim for any damage to your car. For the third parties claim, if this happened on a car park and not a public road then the RTA act wont come into play and they can refuse to honour the TP claim as well. Thats the worse case scenario.

You need to contact them and disclose the claim asap, if they discover it before you advise them it will leave them to believe it was intentional non disclosure.

If you truly believe you did tell them and they missed it, then ask for a copy of the call as they will record them. However it would seem unlikely that they did miss it as the system prompts them to answer questions re the claim and they would be unlikely to miss all these fields.

[katiestar]

if you mentioned it over the phone then I am pretty sure that now all calls have to be recorded.I would argue that whether the documents are wrong or not is irrelevant because they come after the contract was made

[PlumBumMum]

Can you not get a price for getting the car fixed yourself as it might not be much more than what you would have to pay in excess anyway, than your insurance need to know nothing about this
Although still ring and question them about your previous history, did you have your no claims protected maybe?

[SouthMum]

I would ask the other driver if you can just pay for it like VinegarTits said and say its to keep your no claims.

As a driver the other person should appreciate why you are asking and be accomodating.

Just make sure you either get the quotes sorted out for the work or you see them yourself....I have been stung before.

[Gunnerbean]

Thanks so much for all your input - it's been really helpful. I'm still shitting myself though.

I'm thinking of ringing them tonight and telling them. I just hope they'll understand that if I did omit to tell them it was not intentional!

I am not a dishonest person - if I was, I could easily have driven off from the car park yesterday, no one saw me scrape the car and no one would have ever known it was me but I couldn't have had it on my conscience - a bit like I don't want this on my conscience now!

The worst case scenario is that they won;t cover the claim and I;ll have to cover it all.

The woman is a colleague of mine and she has quite an old car which is a very unusual shade of purple so I can't imagine the paint wil be cheap or easy to come by! She also want s a courtesey car while it's being resprayed too! So if the insurance company ddoes decide to be awkward I could be well oout of pocket - oh joy!

[SouthMum]

Sounds like a plan, although if she is open to the idea of getting it repaired without insurance try a mobile repair company (theres one in the NW called Chips Away). They come to your place of work and repair it there and then and they can usually match any shade

[Galava]

In the same vein, somebody recently scraped my car and very kindlt left me a note about it otherwise I would have been none the wiser.

The lady in question has gone through her insurance and the estimate for the work is £300. Her insurers are also providing a courtesy car.

TBH, I dont think that the colour will be an issue here, I just wanted to let you know how much my work was costing.

I do think however, if it is a colleage and she knows you are willing to pay it out of your own pocket, then she is being abu to expect a courtesy car as well. Would second the repair people visiting your place of work during work hours. Then she wouldnt neede a car would she ??

[wotulookinat]

I wouldn't worry about it. Chances are that the insurance company won't say anything about it.

[barnsleybelle]

On one hand the insurers often find any little excuse not to pay up, on the other your claim may not be so much that they feel the need to find a way to avoid it.

I wouldn't say anything this time and wait and see what happens then act innocent.

However learn from this and triple check everything in future.

[BeatRoute]

OP, please don't shit yourself! I work in insurance and am quite sure that your insurers will deal with any third party claim that comes in no matter what they're trying to sort out otherwise.
What no claims discount do you have? Your previous company (the ones who dealt with the claim last year) would have had to provide proof of that to your new company and so the claim info should have been on any papaerwork.
This is a genuine mistake, don't shit yourself but do give your company a call and explain it like you did to us!

[Blondeshavemorefun]

i wouldnt say anything, decide if you want to pay for it yourself or to claim

like galva said, if excess is nearly the same as what it would cost - might be worth you not using insurance company

then just ring up the company (if you do go tho them) and just make this claim

its unlikely they will ask for ex claims over the phone

its a clear open and shut simple insurance claim

[Gunnerbean]

Thanks again all - and thanks BeatRoute - your comments have really given me hope that all may be well in the end, and really good coming from you as someone who actually works in insurance and knows how these things go first hand. I know all about the The Claims and Underwriting Exchange Register and it did say on the small print that they look it at the time a policy is take out too so they may well have checked on me already..?

An update..the woman at work has been told by another colleague that it might be an idea to go through her own insurance (a bit like the lady did in Galava's situation) and then her insurance company would recover the costs from mine. I don't know if that would make any difference..?

She's got to speak to her husband before she decides what to do and will be letting me know over the weekend. I've decided to hold off callig my insurance company for now and cross that bridge with them if and when I have to. I thought it might look more suss if I mention it now.

I've decided to have a night off stressing about it anyway - I'm shattered, I didn't get to sleep until about 2am for worrying last night and was awake worrying about it again at about 5.30am when I woke up needing a wee and couldn't get back to sleep!! So an early night for me I think!

Anyway, thanks again all for taking the time to calm me down a bit - it's very much appreciated.